The Showroom of Automotive History: Toyota Automobile Museum

Boasting 140 vehicles of all manufacturers from across the world and time, the Toyota Automobile Museum is the showroom of automotive history.

The statement is bombastic, but accurate as the museum displays its collection like new cars on a dealership’s showroom floor. Every car is immaculately kept and gleaming under proper lighting with naught but a low wire to politely keep visitors a respectable distance without ruining the view. The only thing missing is new car smell and price tags.

There’s generous space to move around and take pictures, you’re not crowded, and it’s easy to just stand back and appreciate the machine in front of you or walk around and see it from different angles. It’s the ideal car museum setting compared to others that cram them in shoulder to shoulder in a garage under ambivalent lighting.

Arrayed chronologically with easy to understand bilingual explanations for each section, visitors follow the evolution of cars from strange Victorian carriage/bicycle/engine amalgamations to the slick forms of today. Personally, it makes me wonder where we went so wrong in the 1970s after designs just kept looking better and better in the previous decades.

Each car has a bilingual write up that gives the hard facts and a little history. Some of the cars are not just typical of their kind but have personal back stories such as the custom Hispano-Suiza of the noble “tonoo-sama (domain lord) golfer” and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s armored Packard, so everyone is worth taking the time to read.

Alongside general car history, the museum gives space to the origins of the Japanese automotive industry; this domestic perspective is one of the benefits of visiting a Japanese museum you can’t get back in the US. Despite being Toyota’s museum, their coverage is fairly neutral and even compares the differing philosophies of early Toyota and Nissan without denigrating the competition. The best part is seeing real and replica pre-war Japanese cars and Japanese-built Ford and General Motors models.

For Toyota fans, the museum highlights company milestones such as their first car, the 1936 Toyoda (with a “d”) Model AA and the post-war Toyota Crown. Outside of the main collection, there are random Toyotas decoratively stuffed in corners as well.

Beyond the beautiful vehicles, the Cultural Gallery is a collection of hood ornaments, vehicle badges, advertisements, and car toys. Reading about car history and looking at the ephemera there tacked an hour onto my visit. That building deserves thorough exploring as more cars are crammed into its various nooks and there’s a DeLorean in a standalone display hidden beside the café. Also, keep an eye out for the big blue 1960s bonnet bus near the main entrance, it’s hidden from view when you enter but look to the right when exiting the Cultural Gallery building and you can’t miss it.

Because it’s so far out on its own, I ate at the museum cafeteria. The food was fine but it was crowded and pricey for what it serves. Alternatively, you could pack a lunch and eat on the lawn.

Serious car enthusiasts should check out their online event schedule before visiting as the museum hosts car shows in the parking lot. If you’d like to check out the collection ahead of time, their website also has a vehicle database with display/storage status.

It took about an hour to reach from Nagoya Station and the nearest train station is Geidaidori Station, which is a five minute walk away. If you want to pair this with another sightseeing location, Ghibli Park is two train stops away at Ai-Chikyuhaku Kinen Koen Station.