Toyota Automobile Museum – picture tour
November 6, 2009 by Matt Brogan
by Matt Brogan. Nagakute, Japan.
The Toyota Automobile Museum is just one of the two museums we’ll be presenting over the coming weeks as we wrap up our coverage from Japan.
TAM is located in Nagakute – just outside of Nagoya, Japan – and features a wide variety of cars not just from Toyota, but from a significant mix of other manufacturers from all over the world including such names as Alfa Romeo, the DeLorean Motor Company, Packard and Rolls Royce.
Art work and other automobile paraphernalia is also on display with my flying three-hour visit barely enough time to take it all in.
Upon arrival we were treated to an unexpected yet special display of an 1885 Benz Patent Motorwagon, a replica car built to the exact specifications of the genuine article from its original blueprints.
The Benz featured a 954 cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine that was started by hand from its large external fly wheel. Producing 0.5kW, the Benz engine featured an open crankcase with oil-dripping lubrication system (note the drip trays), evaporative carburettor and poppet valve exhaust.
The top speed of this example was said to be 15km/h, which judging from a distance, appeared conservative.
If you’re a car true enthusiast, and just so happen to find yourself in Nagoya, set aside a day and take a wander around. It’s a grand collection well worth the time of any motoring buff.
But just in case you can’t make it over, a gallery of just some of the many highlights is featured below. Enjoy!
Print it: 
Where is the F1 car? It would fit right in with these slow old relics….lol.
Wow, what an ecclectic collection of cars,
I think there’s even an old Citroen Traction Avant in one of the photos!
It’s definitely a vintage collection. Car museums are great, car fanatics would learn where all awesome cars now started.
Wow, the early Jap cars were basically clones of American cars. Now, American cars are becoming clones of Jap cars.
When I was in Japan earlier this year, I passed through Nagoya and visited the Toyota museum in Nagoya itself (ironically, the very day Toyota announced a bunch of layoffs and their first ever line shutdowns, legendary timing). It’s half devoted to their heritage in weaving machines- which they’re still involved in, to their benefit for building a carbon fibre weaving machine for the Lexus LF-A, as it happens- and half to cars. Very much about the technical processes of manufacturing (and how, when they began, they had to invest in stuff like steel mills just so they had the quality of steel necessary to make cars like they wanted to; which again underlies the modern Toyota corporate empire). It was far more interesting than I expected. Was there right to closing, which got me and a couple of dozen other people a performance from their trumpet-playing robot.
Nice to see the stuff from this museum, since I didn’t get to it when I was there!
Thanks Matt/ CA for providing this interesting article.