The brilliant and wildly eccentric Lane Motor Museum...

[RDMcG]

In a huge flat building , a former commercial bakery sits the most eccentric and fascinating automobile collection I have come across. The founder, Jeff Lane has collected some amazing one-offs, obscure models that have long disappeared, and yet includes modern cars that are out of the ordinary. You will not find exotics such as vintage Ferraris or the like in the Lane Museum, but there are rare, often unique vehicles that I had never seen before, Many of them were completely new to me. At any time the Museum exhibits about 150 of its 500 car collection, though it is possible to get a tour of the cars not on exhibit by advance appointment.

Many of the reliable oddities are here…Peels, Sinclair C5, Morgan 3 wheelers, Reliants and the like which will be familiar to UK residents, but a a great number are from other countries. The collection is not massively American but covers the globe.

The pics below are merely a test of the collection but I can see retiring one day for the reserve collection tours.

Entering the customer parking (which is free) there is a small exhibit of three-wheelers:



















Still in the parking garage, there is a Wehrmacht Tempo in the corner...these were weird and very flexible twin enginged offroaders....





I have seen a few Tempo in other places...this one is in the Museum in Sinsheim, Germany and gives a good idea of the suspension travel:



After the war they built commercials like this one that I saw in Hamburg:

[RDMcG]

Still in the garage there is a prototype Tatra designed for snow.....





a 1923 Citröen halftrack:



However, time to go inside and see what they have on display

[RDMcG]

There is a current exhibition of Citröen 2 CVs......

A replica of an amazing firetruck.










For those who have narrow streets:





A custom built amphibian with full propellor and navigation:

[RDMcG]

More conventional 2Cvs include this fairly rare twin engined Sahara which was a production model:





and a nicely modified racer replica.






A wartime car designed to run on a furnace....



and for contrast a new Citröen Ami ( not sold in North America).

[RDMcG]

Moving from one of the smallest cars, a trip outside is worthwhile..

. The largest vehicle I have personally is a huge military amphibian called the LARC. The US army used these to move tanks from supply ships onto the shore. It has a V8 engine on each 9ft high wheel. 62 ft long

Getting the LARC to the museum took careful planning, a series of closes roads avoiding bridges, and removed the driver’s cab. The LARC came up the river and made land in the port of Nashville.It was then driven very slowly through the city in the middle of the night to reach the Museum.

The thing is just massive as the pics show:











They did run it over a car:

Edited by RDMcG on Tuesday 16th April 02:26

Edited by RDMcG on Tuesday 16th April 02:28

Edited by RDMcG on Tuesday 16th April 02:31

[RDMcG]

..and now for something completely different:

Thus us what remains today of the Sir Vival, which the museum intends to restore to running conditions. Their policy is to preserve as much of the original finish as possible rather than a Concours restoration. I have included a period photo below to give you a sense of this thing...........

[RDMcG]

This one-off aero car is fully functional and is periodically driven on demo days. The staff enjoys bringing cars out on the road around Nashville.

[RDMcG]

The Davis Divan was build by a charismatic fraudster called Gary Davis who raised a lot of money from investors.The car was demonstrated at various events on both coasts, repainted each time to give the impression that there were multiple vehicles. Ultimately Davis ended up in the Hoosegow for a couple of years.

[RDMcG]

a very pretty Brazilian Puma GT based on VW running gear.....

[RDMcG]

I am sure that British people will be very familiar with the 1958 Opperman Unicar......

[RDMcG]

More to come tomorrow...getting late here.......

[Ambleton]

Amazing and intriguing - as a lover of automotive curios, three wheelers and 2cv related deathtraps, thanks for sharing

[Dapster]

RDMcG said:

. The largest vehicle I have personally is a huge military amphibian called the LARC. The US army used these to move tanks from supply ships onto the shore. It has a V8 engine on each 9ft high wheel. 62 ft long

The LARC really is enormous!

[alfaspecial]

Thanks for posting. A really interesting museum. I wish I had known about it when we travelled through the area

That LARC is just incredible. THB I couldn't get any sense of the actual size of the thing from the photos.... the last photo Dapster (thanks) almost looks photo-shopped ..... either that or it's the L.M.C (Lilliput Marine Corps) on manoeuvres!

In disbelief, I looked it up on wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LARC-LX

[lufbramatt]

Dapster said:

RDMcG said:

. The largest vehicle I have personally is a huge military amphibian called the LARC. The US army used these to move tanks from supply ships onto the shore. It has a V8 engine on each 9ft high wheel. 62 ft long

The LARC really is enormous!

Saw one at the Overloon Museum in the Netherlands (military museum- on the site of one of the last battles before the Allies reached Germany). Absolute beast of a vehicle. I think they still use them in parts of Canada and Alaska as car ferries. The engines were 2-stroke Detroit Diesels, must have sounded immense with all four going.

Edited by lufbramatt on Tuesday 16th April 10:57

[garythesign]

Thanks for posting the photos and information

Loads of wonderful idiosyncratic vehicles there

[RDMcG]

OK..back with some more:

The Gyro X was a gyroscopically balanced two wheeler with retractable su[pport wheels. Apparently good for 75mph but was reported as having stability problems. Only one built:



The architect Buckminster Fuller ( who invented there geodesic dome) turns his hand to automotive design and built this monster, the Dymaxion. Three were built, the first of which crashed and killed two of its occupants, the second was scrapped and one original survives. This is an exact replica:

[RDMcG]

The museum has a lot of Tatras, some which were on display:









The Modern Tetra here is the final model of the rear-engined V8:

[RDMcG]

Before WW.2 Hanomag was a volume producer in Germany. This 1939 car was the end of Hanomag passenger car production:











Next to the Hanomag is a Steyr "Baby"....

[RDMcG]

If you were an East German citizen and in no trouble with the Stasi, you might have been able to buy a Wartburg camping limousine...( as it was called).....