The Louwman Museum is one of the world’s best automobile museums. The collection began in 1934 when the Louwman family realised that the motor car was worth keeping for posterity. Opened at the current location in The Hague 2010.
This Pegaso Cúpula won the Best of Show award at Amelia Island. In the summer of 2022 the car was on display at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
Located at:
Leidsestraatweg 57
2594BB Den Haag
https://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/en/
Van Doornes Automobielfabriek NV, Eindhoven, The Netherlands 1958-1977
In 1977 DAF was taken over by Volvo, who continued production under their own name.
The feature that made DAF famous (and popular) was the infinitely variable automatic transmission. This was in a time that automatic transmission was practically unheared of in Europe, and largely regarded as an inferior gadget only Americans liked. All this changed thanks to the clever invention of the Van Doorne brothers. Instead of a gearbox, the system used rubber belts on spring-loaded pulleys at the rear of the car. The pulleys were v-shaped and were adjustable in width. By pulling the front pulleys apart and squeezing the rear ones together, you got a ratio for starting off in (like 1st gear). It was similar in a way to the way a bicycle derailler gears work: small cog at the front and large at the back = 1st gear. The pulleys were operated by vacuum from the inlet manifold: the further you depressed the accelerator the less vacuum there was and the springs forced the rear pulleys together. The closer together the two halves were, the lower the gear. The only controls the driver had were ‘forward’ and ‘reverse’. Easy!. After DAF were taken over by Volvo, the Van Doorne brothers retained ownership of their Variomatic invention and developed it further into the CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) we know today.
The Opel Museum in Tijnje in Friesland in the north of The Netherlands is home to a wide variety of Opel cars. Most are 1950s and 1960s models but there are some older cars such as a 1936 Super Six and a 1935 Opel Olympia. The museum also sells spare parts for old Opels.
The photos below give a general impression of the museum.
The Den Hartog Ford Museum in Hillegom, the Netherlands opened in 1997 and closed in 2016 after the passing of the proprietor.
This private museum in Hillegom in Holland housed an impressive collection of 185 Fords, most of them from the USA. A-Fords, V-8s and Lincolns all in excellent condition. Hillegom is surrounded by bulb fields and is near the Keukenhof.
