Lane Motor Museum

Nestled in the heart of Tennessee is the ever-famous city of Nashville. Home to nearly every aspiring country music star in the south and some of the best BBQ food on the planet, Nashville is also home to a modest car museum that houses North America’s largest classic European car collection. The Lane Motor Museum is a 15-minute drive from downtown Nashville, and a petrol head heaven.

The museum is housed on the main floor, with some 150 cars from around the world. With propeller driven cars, microcars, rally cars, and even some cars that have competed in LeMans, Lane Motor Museum has you covered for whatever you fancy. And yes, it even has some motorcycles.

Tommi Makinen Evo VI. I’d probably sell my soul for one of these.

Morgan! Three wheel goodness!

The basement was probably the best part of the tour. For a little extra cash, you get to check out the basement garage where all their extra cars are stored when not on display. Nearly 200 cars line what is essentially an underground parking garage, some rows three-deep with all sorts of wild and rare vehicles. This is also where I stumbled across my personal dream car: the Lancia Delta Integrale, an Italian-styled rally hatchback. Pure European sexiness abounded and I spent quite a long time chatting with our tour guide about our shared love for this car, although we both agreed we couldn’t really specify why we loved it.

This was the shop area for the museum mechanic.

Honda City Turbo. It actually came with this small scooter that fit in the trunk.

Honda S600

Check out the tach on it. Red lines at 9,000.

This was a Group B Rally car. 0-60 in 2.5 seconds.

And for any Top Gear fans, you should recognize the Jenson Interceptor.

Then came something I did not expect. After the guided tour was complete, I was asked to stick around for a bit. Somewhat confused, I nevertheless agreed. I was brought to a dark back room and told to turn off my camera. Quick back story: Nissan Motors has a rather larger collection of cars to their name, mostly old Datsun’s and rare one-offs. So where do you think they store these vehicles? Yep. Lane Motor Museum. In front of me was a room full of the most beautiful and mint Datsun’s and Nissan’s I have ever seen. There were 240 Turbo’s, Fairlady’s and even an Xterra Truck. But the real surprise? A handful of Nissan concept and prototype cars; vehicles built specifically to show off at events like SEMA and demonstrate how Nissan sees the future of the automotive world. They were right there for me to touch. And my personal favourite? The first ever GTR in North America. Imported from Japan in 2008 for a Nissan press conference, a RHD 2008 Nissan GTR was sitting right in front of me. The dash was still in Japanese. But with no photos to share, you will have to just take me at my word when I say how truly amazing this room was.

You don’t see many to Urraco’s around, and it was a refreshing Lambo to look at.

This was an air cooled, rear mounted V8.

If you want to check out more about the museum, I highly recommend it. In the fall they have a special day-long rally where you can rent a car from the museum for the day and go on a long, scenic drive with one of these rare collectibles. Prices start around $500USD, but I’d say it is totally worth it.