The Motor Museum in Riga is an astonishing collection of historical cars in the strictest sense. The Collection features many of the official limos of the Soviet Union’s State Secretaries (beast one according to American terminology) that literally made history, along with featured cars from that era. There are many vehicles that would take the top spot in “western” classic car auctions. The collection includes many one of a kind vehicles, surrounded by an elegant and neutrally dark environment. The infrastructure I found on par with the most renowned museums, such as Autoworld or Porsche Museum.
Through a lucky combination of events, I managed to pay a visit to the Motormuseum in Riga a while ago. Nevertheless, given its exclusivity and off the map location, the Rīgas Motormuzejs seems like a great topic to kick off a new section about museums). This Museum has not been particularly renowned to classic car fans, but after the 2016 refurbishment, it has scaled up a level and is not merely at “Western-level”, but the design and content is on par with the elite centres of premium brands (without their commercial connotations). The difference is that unlike at the Porsche or the Mercedes factory Museums, most cars in Riga come from the Eastern Block.
The basis for the collection was a surprisingly sordid measures of the ailing Soviet Union, when the communist rulers decided to “backup” the most impressive part of the Communist party’s state car park. Perhaps, they remembered too well the recurring image from the final days of most dictatorships when the folks joyfully leaving with the right mirror of the despot’s Ferrari in their hands. Thanks to the above measure, we can now admire a lot of memorable cars in Riga, and the Latvians have created a worthy environment matching the value of the collection.
The building is made up of three levels, and the historic cars were installed in a rather fitting environment. The discreet black background elegantly contrasts the highlights of colorful oldtimers (and, of course, the chrome parts of the big black limos of the Party). On the ground floor, the exhibition starts with a collection of pre-war cars that reflect the spirit of the era with pleasing pastel colors.
A dozen or more cars further, starts the era of closed wheel arches, and the more beautiful rarities are not only the best of the luxury brands of the era, but are often accompanied by stories of celebrities’ (my favorite story is still the 1966 Rolls Royce, personally crashed by Comrade Brezhnev).
Upstairs starts another heaven for car enthusiasts. The gallery is very diverse in terms of age, size and purpose, while the environment is slightly more encouraging with additional lights provided by mirrors.
The prestigious presidential state parade limousines are parked here along with rare treasures, such as the pre-WW II Auto Union racing car and a streamlined Tatra as well as Brezhnev’s Rolls Royce.
This floor keeps a couple of oddities such as VW’s streamlined concept car, while at the back of the gallery there are racing cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles, and the walls are decorated with memorabilia of the period. Truly honest dads can leave the kids in at four car simulators, while they attend to the remarkable collection. The Museum is really interactive, but I ma sure, that they dads will have even more fun there.
At the underground level, visitors are awaited by the heavy artillery (not literally of course): you will find here trucks, buses and utility vehicles, several generations of emergency vehicles and other interesting cars.
The Riga Motor Museum is an absolute must, if you have a chance to visit Riga. The Museum is located far outside the city, but the taxi prices were more than reasonable (about 8 Euros for a half-hour trip!) from the city center. So I paid about 25 Euros for reaching the Museum and spending the last 10 minutes of the opening hour, that was still worth every cent, due a kind gesture of one of the wards who granted me a half hour overtime (thus he had to do overtime too), seeing that I was running up and down, taking pictures like a child in a toy store.
