Art students have Rome. Fashionistas, Paris. For car nuts, there’s Germany. No speed limits, giant glass museums for famed automakers, and legendary race circuits. If we ever make it to Deutschland though, we’re headed straight for Hartkirchen, located on the German-Austrian border, for the Toyota Museum there. It’s a two-story building dedicated to archiving the Toyotas sold in the German domestic market.
In some ways, this is a better museum for Toyotaku than the actual Toyota Automobile Museum in Japan, which is a more general automotive museum of cars from all countries and manufacturers (yes, the TAM exhibits Datsuns, Mazdas and Hondas too). The Hartkirchen gallery, however, is rows upon rows of Celicas, Carinas, Coronas and more — stuff you won’t see at the TAM.
JNCer Lukas, who has one of the most diligently restored V20 Camrys in the world, attended a vintage Toyota meeting there in July and has shared photos of both the event and the museum in the forum. Danke schoen, Lukas!
A couple of Crowns, a 2000gt, the Sunchaser Celica, and some of the older Corolla’s and Celica’s I can understand being rare in Germany, but how is a TE72 liftback “rare and expensive”?
I’m liking the pictures, but the only thing that really sucks about this museum, is it’s over in Germany!
I know if I ever make it back over there to visit family, the museum will definately be on the top of my list of places to visit.
It’s great to see this kind of interest in a Japanese car in the land of BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen!
Thanks for sharing with us Lukas!
Great, another location for the bucket list… 😉