Toutes les Machines du Monde
Australia & New Zealand
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The Bill Richardson Transport World ★★★★★
Invercargill, New Zealand
https://www.transportworld.co.nz
This is a wonderful new museum in a purpose built building covering an entire city block. It just opened in 2015 and while it is billed as primarily a truck museum, it is much more than that. While there are said to be 140 trucks, there are also many wonderful old cars, tractors, and memorabilia of all sorts. There is something of a focus on the early work of Henry Ford, including examples of all but one of the models he produced between his original Model A (not the later ‘A’ introduced in 1927 to supersede the ubiquitous Model T, but rather the first one built in 1903) and the 1908 debut of the Model T. It is great to see them all together; something I have not come across before. All in all this is an excellent collection and it is beautifully displayed. While many of the vehicles are displayed in clean but unrestored condition, this in no way detracts from the quality of the museum and those vehicles that have been fully restored are beautifully done. If you can find your way to Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand, I can highly recommend a visit to this museum.
National Automobile Museum of Tasmania ★★★★
Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
This museum is a real jewel. Located in Launceston, Tasmania’s second largest city, it’s just a little out of the way for many travelers, but is well worth finding. The cars and motorcycles on display are not owned by the museum, but are loaned by collectors for varying lengths of time so the actual vehicles being shown when you visit will vary. Nonetheless, the quality and variety of the cars and motorcycles on view at the time of my visit speaks very highly of the depth of exhibits available in Tasmania. I have no doubt that whenever you visit this museum the displayed vehicles will be excellent and worthy of your time. While nominally an Automobile museum, there are also a fair number of motocycles on display; some mixed among the cars on the main floor, but most in a separate loft area. The museum is currently housed in a charming space but will soon be moving to a brand new purpose built facility nearby. We can only hope the homey and welcoming atmosphere of the old building will not be lost. Kudos to both the museum’s management and staff and also to the collectors of Tasmania for sharing these lovely vehicles with us.
The National Motor Museum ★★★
Birdwood, SA, Australia
http:/www.motor.history.sa.gov.au
This is a pleasant but not outstanding museum located about an hour outside Adelaide in South Australia. The collection is varied and includes automobiles, motorcycles and a few transport trucks and buses. The focus of the museum is, quite naturally, on the history of Australian motoring, with exhibits on the exploration of the continent by motor car and on early motoring heroes such as Tom Kruse who famously delivered the mail to remote outback locations for many decades. Some information is also offered on the history of auto manufacturing in Australia, which only ended in 2016. I learned a lot about this topic during my visit but wished there were even more to see. Apart from a few recently done exhibits, which are excellent, the overall museum experience suffers from the inconsistent quality and state of preperation of the individual vehicles and the somewhat crowded and random display halls. I readily admit that my being a non-Australian may have lessened my enjoyment of this museum. The staff members I encountered were delightful and friendly and if you are in the area I can certainly recommend a visit.