The 5 best car museums in Europe Nr. 5: Alfa Romeo

Now that we settled the rules of the game, let’s see the top five car museums in Europe. You might be surprised about the first museum on the list, and believe me, there was quite a struggle about singling out Alfa’s factory Museum over BMW World, Porsche Museum or the Musei Ferrari, just to name a few well-known competitors. But as a museum, it surely beats the above competitors simply through the brand’s rich history and class.

Alfa’s Factory Museum first opened its doors on 18 December 1976 and was thoroughly renovated in 2015. The refurbishing spawned one of the best car museums in the World. After some 50 car museums, the Museo Storico is among the World’s top car museums in our books (among factory museums, only bested by Mercedes).

The Museum is located in the heartland of Alfa Romeo, in the city of Arese near Milan. This building complex is no longer home to production, and the derelict surrounding is in stark contrast with the refurbished Museum compound. Commercial activities are now limited to sales, with a flagship showroom to ensure a premium handover experience. The museum also maintains an excellent website with a comprehensive catalogue.

The Alfa Museum’s impressive architecture follows a clear and expressive choreography that adapts the moods of the decoration to the concrete thematic. This guarantees fresh impulses to maintain our attention through the entire exhibition.

At the same time, it is hard to nominate a single site as “the” best car museum, as national museums, private collections or factory museums might choose different paths to the visitors’ heart. The Museo Storico definitely proved to be one of the best factory museums in the World, uniting a long and glorious history with brilliant Italian styling.

Alfa’s long and impressive history is a guarantee for a complete timeline from the Alfa 24HP marketed in 1910 to the latest models.

In terms of polyvalence, it’s hard to perform well for a small sporty premium brand, but with the inclusion of impressive concept cars, a few weirdos like the Military off-road Matta and of course, an impressive line-up of race cars, the Museo Storico makes maximum use of its possibilities.

The Museum features dozens of jaw-dropping specimen, especially in the design and racing segments. The pre-war Alfa 8C and the post-war Alfa 159 were among the most successful race cars of all time.

For the next Museum on our list you can scroll down or click the article below. We can tell you already, that we won’t go far…