Last Sunday I visited the
Louwman Museum in The Hague. I had heard about it years ago, but never actually visited the place. The building (opened in 2010 by our then-queen Beatrix) contains the oldest, (arguably) most beautiful and most important collection of vintage and veteran cars in the world. It's actually a private collection, started in 1934 by the Louwman family, who owned a Dodge car dealership back then. Currently, the collection is owned by Evert Louwman who is the Dutch importer of Lexus, Toyota and Suzuki (more info on
this Wikipedia page).
I was amazed by the beauty of the building, the car collection (more than 250 cars) and all the other car-related stuff they had on display. I took hundreds of photos but I can only show a small number of them here. Anyone interested in vintage cars should visit the museum or at least take a look at the collection shown
here. Interestingly, a lot of those cars still run and some are actually still used in races like the
London to Brighton veteran car run.
The building itself:
Large church-like hall containing a random collection of cars, including a Citroen DS, a DeLorean DMC-12 and a Toyota 2000GT:
1903 Spyker (made in Holland
):
1905 Spyker and a 1904 Darracq, both used in the movie
Genevieve (which was shown on that screen):
The famous 1910 Brooke Swan Car and it's 1920 baby sister (Cygnet Baby Swan). They were showing
featuring the Swan Car. That Dutch guy in the video is Evert Louwman, owner of the museum:
A hand made miniature version of the Ford Model T assembly line, made in 1917:
A beautiful, ridiculously long 1922 American LaFrance hook and ladder truck:
A 1927 Bugatti toy car (electric), a present from Ettore Bugatti to the founder of Fiat:
A nice 1932 Morgan Sports three-wheeler:
An impressive 1935 Duesenberg Model SJ, the only one in existence with bodywork made by LaGrande:
1937 Panhard & Levassor X77 Dynamic, a nice piece of Art Déco on wheels, with the steering wheel (almost) in the center:
1937 Talbot Lago T150 SS Coupe, a real thing of beauty:
A 1941 Lincoln Continental Couple, used in The Godfather (remember Sonny being shot? This was his car):
1943 Volkswagen 166 Scwhimmwagen (amphibious car) and several other smallish cars:
The 1954 Humber Pullman formerly owned by Sir Winston Churchill:
1959 Messerschmitt KR200 and several other micro cars:
1964 Aston Martin DB5, on of the cars used in Goldfinger. It's the actual car that Bond got from Q (they shot that scene in the Aston Martin factory!):
My personal favorite: a 1965 Ferrari 5000 Superfast Speziale, formerly owned by the late
HRH Prince Bernhard, a good friend of Enzo Ferrari and owner of several (green) Ferraris. This one was custom made with a different rear section and a beige leather interior:
A 1971 Baja Buggy formerly owned by Steve McQueen:
A 1981/1982/1983 DeLorean DMC-12
Random things... like a couple of vintage indicators (and me
):
Rooms and rooms full of car-related art:
Thousands of miniature cars:
Dozens and dozens of displays full of toys and random car-themed things:
And finally something a little bit MTo-related, car-themed straight razors
They had
a lot more stuff. More cars (including several steam cars, a Cadillac formerly owned by Elvis Presly, a DeSoto yellow cab used in the Godfather, Indy Cars, Can-Am cars, LeMans racers, several Bugattis, a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird, a 1965 Ferrari 275 GTB Lightweight, the oldest Toyota car known in existence, and a 2004 Toyota Prius
), toys, car related art, frighteningly ugly car themed-chinaware, more car-related paraphernalia, vintage hand made car models and chassis, trophies, rooms decorated with vintage car parts, manufacturing equipment, fake vintage tire shops, car dealership stuff, etc.
I really, really enjoyed it (spent fiver hours there which wasn't nearly enough). Awesome!
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