Motor Museum in Riga, Latvia

[Peter-E36]

Went yesterday and absolutely loved it, it's been renovated and reopened just a couple of weeks ago. Nice collection on display with a timeline from ancient times to reasonably modern stuff. Really recommend it to anyone planning a trip here.

Here are some photos, I tried to include the plate with the car details as much as possible, not sure how visible it'll be, but anyway - enjoy











Was quite fond of this one:





Air lift :P



Note the 33 inch wheels and 4inch wide tyres











This Lincoln was absolutely massive! Can imagine it was the height of luxury in 1934:





Some old Audis - the 1935 A3 and A5 cabrio :P



Noticed a lot of the cars had positive camber on the rear, don't understand what the benefit of that is. Nobody working there was able to provide an answer either.

[Peter-E36]

Thought this was interesting... Both were originally identical BMW 326s, the owner of the blue one worked really hard to only use OE replacement parts... But unfortunately for the car, they were OE parts from soviet cars











In the end, the only remaining original factory part on the whole vehicle was the BMW badge!







There was the remains of an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500



A crashed Rolls Royce Silver Shadow



Was impressed by the condition and depth of the paint on this Mini, although it was let down by the condition of the wheels.









And the "piece de resistance"... The 1938, 6 Litre, V16, 800kg, 340 km/h, Auto Union Typ C/D





Not the most economical car with a 60 Litres per 100 km consumption, but could you imagine being in 1938 and seeing, hearing, or driving this thing?!

A few other very impressive machines:

A VW dragster



And a twin gas turbine engined racer

[Bennyc]

Very cool!

[Paddy]

Great pictures Peter! Very clever Roll's stand with the wall sticking out and shattered to mimic the impact!!

[ciars]

Looks like a good place to visit. Shame we don't have something on this scale at home. Hows the trip Peter?

[JohnC]

Ireland might not have a auto museum like this but the Mondello race car museum is fantastic and not really publicized that much!

[Peter-E36]

Cheers folks

@ Paddy: yea, it exceeded my expexcitations to be honest, I brought my girlfriend's 13 year old brother who's crazy about anything with an engine along, and we went go karting next door afterwards so it was a really nice day out. The go karting track was very technical, karts were great, and I loved how easy going it was, there was no nonsense briefing videos and the like, just hop in and go.

@ Ciars: the trip is goin great, we're on our 7th country in 3.5 months, and really enjoying it. It's so interesting to see the differences/similarities between one place to another. It can be rough from time to time with backpacks and hostels and airline bullshit, but overall it's all we hoped for and more. If anyone's considering doing it but a bit unsure, just do it, you won't look back although I have to say I miss my 335i, especially here, where there's a ridiculous amount of amazing BMWs old and new, it certainly doesn't help

@John: I never heard of it myself, would've went if I did, what kind of stuff is on display?

[JohnC]

Check out the mondello Facebook page.

Some very impressive, historical race cars in there.

Free in I think. Just walk around next time you're there. Behind the grandstand

[Peter-E36]

Wow... "expexcitations"... I should never drink and "Haus"

Nice one John, will check it out next time I'm there

[Peter-E36]

Saw this Top Gear piece on the Type C today by coincidence http://www.topgear.com/car-news/audi...c-racer-back#1 pretty interesting