Knowledge is the cornerstone of human evolution, and societies over the years have made attempts to make it accessible to the citizens. Museums are an important part of knowledge dissemination as they house the information from the past which help us to understand the world better. May 18 is International Museum Day and today we are going to highlight the contribution of museums in making our society better.
The museum is not boring if you have cars there. By knowing the past, we can make the future great. The automobile has come a long way so far. In 1911, the Ford Model T, created by the Ford Motor Company became the first automobile to be mass-produced on a moving assembly line. By 1927, Ford had produced over 15,000,000 units of Model T . Today, almost a century has passed and we have the Chiron Super Sport 300+ which has a 300 miles per hour record on the track. Commemorating this occasion, we bring you some of the best car museums from around the world as we trace the rich history of automobiles:
Museo Ferrari, Maranello, Italy
Museo Ferrari (previously known as Galleria Ferrari) is a dedicated Ferrari automobile museum in Italy. Apart from the cars, there are trophies, photographs and other memorabilia related to the Italian racing industry. Technological innovations in the form of equipment are also there. which made a switch from racing cars to road cars.
Located just 300 m from the Ferrari factory in Ferrari's home town of Maranello, near Modena, Italy. The museum was first opened for the visitors in February 1990 with a new wing being added in October 2004. Ferrari has been running the museum since 1995 with the total surface area now at 2,500 square metres. The number of annual visitors to the museum stands at 180,000. It exhibits well a combination of Ferrari road and track cars. Many of Ferrari's most iconic cars from its rich automobile history make an appearance.
Mercedes-Benz Museum Stuttgart
The Mercedes-Benz Museum is an automobile museum in Stuttgart, Germany and chronicles the German luxury brand and the association with it. Stuttgart is also home to Mercedes-Benz and the international headquarters of Daimler AG. The building's height and double helix interior concept were created keeping in mind the aim to maximise space. It provides 16,500 square metres of exhibition space on a footprint of just 4,800 square metres which is astonishing in architecture perspective.
The museum is divided into two parts - legend rooms and the collections, offering two alternative tours for the visitors which can merge at any given point of the museum. There are more than 160 vehicles, some of them date back to the beginning of the motorcar era. The vehicles are maintained by the Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre of Fellbach.
Cité de l'Automobile, Mulhouse, France
Cité de l'Automobile, Musée national de l’automobile, Collection Schlumpf is an automobile museum located in Mulhouse, France. The museum is built around the Schlumpf Collection of classic automobiles.
It has the largest displayed collection of automobiles with the biggest collection for Bugatti cars in the world. The museum is listed as a National Heritage site by the French Government. There is a shrine dedicated to the Schlumpf brothers’ mother Jeanne Schlumpf. Schlumpf brothers had set up the museum post World War II and had the most extensive collection of Bugatti models. By 1967, an inventory showed 105 Bugattis in the Schlumpf brothers collection, making it a source of astonishment for the automobile enthusiasts.
National Automobile Museum, Nevada, USA
America began the automobile revolution with Detroit as it was often called the “Motor City”. The National Automobile Museum, located just south of the Truckee River in Reno, Nevada, displays historic automobiles. The vehicles range from the late 19th century and throughout the 20th. Most of the vehicles displayed come from the collection of the late casino owner William F. Harrah, and sometimes the locals refer to the museum as The Harrah Collection.
The museum was opened in 1989 for public viewing. There are over 200 automobiles on display including the Elvis Presley's 1973 Cadillac Eldorado and John Wayne's 1953 Chevrolet Corvette. Marquee brands like Jaguar, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Stutz, Ferrari, Auburn are well represented here. If you’ are a fan of Hollywood classics, you can spot the 1912 Rambler 73-400 Cross-Country, from the legendary 1997 Hollywood flick Titanic and 1949 Mercury Eight, driven by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. The National Automobile Museum is often regarded as the best museum in Northern Nevada by Nevada Magazine's annual reader's poll which speaks volumes about the museum status in the heart of Automobile lovers in America.
Brooklands Museum, Surrey, UK
Brooklands Museum is a motoring and aviation museum located in the former Brooklands motor-racing track in Weybridge, Surrey, England. Brookland has a rich automobile history as it was the birthplace of British motorsport. The racing circuit was constructed by local landowner Hugh F. Locke King in 1907 and thus becoming the first purpose-built racing circuit in the world. The museum is open daily for the visitors and is home to a number of Brooklands-related motoring and aviation enthusiasts. You can take a look at the giant racing cars such as the 24-litre Napier-Railton, motorcycles, and bicycles to WWII fighter planes. The museum hosts the 126/1927 Delage that took part in the first British Grand Prix and the 1912 Lorraine Dietrich Vieux Charles III. The highlight is the presence of Aston Martin Halford Special, powered by 1500cc 6 cylinders, twin overhead camshaft. This was the world's first turbocharged car and won two Brooklands Outer Circuit races. It made the fastest lap at 177 kmph which was revolutionary at that time.
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