After my tour of the ZAZ Museum I hopped on the floating Linimo maglev train and visited the Toyota Automobile Museum. I didn’t have high hopes for this museum as I was expecting it would be a showcase of past and current Toyota cars and let’s face it Toyota isn’t exactly known for building exciting cars. Fortunately I was completely wrong as they had a huge collection of European, American and Japanese cars from past to modern.
Toyota Automobile Museum
The Benz Velo was Karl Benz’s follow up to his three-wheeled Patent Motorwagen and was one of the first commercially produced cars in history. The Velo features a vertical flywheel engine, and it’s two-speed transmission system of pulleys and belts gave it a top speed of 21 km/h.
Benz Velo
Not everyone at the time was convinced of the importance of the new “self-propelled carriages”, in 1886, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II asserted: “I do believe in the horse. The automobile is no more than a transitory phenomenon.”
1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
I absolutely love old cars from the early 1900’s. I love the “carriage” like look to them, the oil lantern lights, the brass fittings and the old world hand craftsmanship the cars exude.
The 1902 Baker Electric. This car had a 1 hp motor and could reach speeds of up to 40 km/h and cover 80 km on a single charge of the battery.
Baker Electric
Consider that the Tesla Roadster has a range of 356 km which is only 4.45 times longer than the range of the Baker Electric. If the same principles were applied to petrol powered cars, current cars would only produce 6.67 horsepower compared to the 1.5 produced by the 1885 Benz Patent Motorwagen. It’s a shame that in the past 100 years electric cars haven’t improved as much as petrol cars.
James May gives an excellent review of the 1954 Mercedes 300 SL in this Top Gear video.
Mercedes 300 SL
The De Lorean DMC-12 with optional flux capacitor.
De Lorean DMC-12
Next up were two iconic cars from England and Germany, the 1959 Morris Mini and the 1952 Volkswagen Beetle.
Morris Mini
Volkswagen Beetle
1948 Tucker Sedan. An innovative car for it’s time but sadly failed as a result of bad finances, bad press and an overzealous government bureaucrat.
Tucker Torpedo
The gorgeous 1934 Mercedes 500K
Mercedes-Benz 500K
Who knew that in the sleepy town of Nagoya I would find two amazing car collections, one representing modern racing machinery and the other classics from the past. If you find yourself in Nagoya, Japan both museums are well worth a visit.
Web: toyota.co.jp/museum
Hours: 9:30 – 17:00
Admission: ¥1000
March 4, 2009
Museums