So I went down to the classic car museum, http://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/  The Louwman Museum in fact, on the way down to the Hague.

And I would recommend it.  It’s a nice little 2 hours out of your day.  And the drive down is pretty nice as well… other than the A44 which goes from a 120 km/ h speed limit down to a 50 km/h limit… which is baffling.

Also every time I arrive at a museum the person behind the desk always says something like “you’re late… you know this museum closes at 5pm right?”

As I inevitably arrive at 4pm or something.

‘I’m late??’

‘Were you expecting me or something? ‘     That’s a rather strange thing to say, right?

Anyway… I don’t plan to read every single sign, and learn about the full history of cars… (as those of you that know me… saying I already know a fair bit is modest statement) so I’m just going to stop and see what I find interesting….and as I’m not confined to a wheelchair or something… I’m pretty sure I can do it quicker that the museums recommended 3 hours of visiting time.

Anyway.  It IS actually a fascinating place. And does a pretty damn good job at showcasing the history, utility and progression of cars, plus it is very well laid out.

Here’s the cars that I thought were interesting.

 

First of all there were a gathering of a British classic car club that decided to meet at the museum…  so that was pretty nice.

The was the occasional drawing I really liked.

These cars are all in the foyer as you walk in.  Nice place.
A custom car built to show off Harley Davidson ‘future rides’ or something


A Citroen DS Palais (the kind the president of France used to drive around in.

A split window Corvette Stingray, for which I found out the interior is REALLY nice.

And a very cool car, the Toyota 2000GT, Japan’s first beautiful car and supercar.  Engineering jointly by Yamaha and Toyota.  It was originally designed by Yamaha for Nissan, as some you you might notice it has some of the same lines as the Datsun/ Nissan 270z .   Also you might have seen it in the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, as a pretty sexy convertible.

Everything in the museum goes from earliest model to latest, detailing the technological development and utility of each.  But I figured I’d separate the photos into congruent categories.

Historical cars

Cool motorbikes
     

Racing cars


6 Wheeled F1 racer

The Baja buggy

Plain-old beautiful cars
    
Ferrari with a real ‘wire-frame’.  It’s amazing, you can really see the design of the car just through the wire frame.  Now-a-days a wire-frame relates to the Computer Aided Design ‘wire-model’  But it’s great to be able to see an olden day example and still see how neat it is.

Pushing-boundaries kind of cars

          
Apparently the world’s 1st 4-wheel drive, 4-wheel braked + 6 cylinder engine car

Describing how the engine & gearbox works
 I don’t find this car beautiful, but it does have the ‘dicky seat’ that granny used to tell me about.  Finally saw it.  This must have been a great feeling to sit in this driving to your destination.   This vehicle acted as a New York Stock exchange ferry for a number of years

War/ utility kind of vehicles

At the end of the museum route, there’s a nice cafe in an amazing setting.  To be honest.. if I had time, I would have taken some lunch here.   But as the desk -dude stated… I was late