The Louwman Museum – 2026

Back in 2013, I visited the Louwman Museum.  I’ve always regarded it as the best automotive museum I have ever visited.   A few weeks ago I was in Belgium for work.   I had a Saturday free, so decided to visit again and see if the collection had changed.

Since I was in Brussels, It was just under two hours on the train to get to the museum in The Hague.  The train system in Europe really is very good and I was able to purchase tickets the night before for about EUR45 each way.   I left about 9:30AM and was at the museum around 11:30AM.

I had about three and a half hours at the museum, and in retrospect I should have taken an earlier train. Three and a half hours wasn’t nearly enough.  I had a work dinner to attend in the evening, so I had to take a train that would return me by then.

Unlike many museums, the Louwman Museum is mostly focused on their own collection rather than having temporary exhibits like Autoworld Brussels.  In the 13 years since my last visit, the core collection was still there, but there were quite a lot of good additions too.   It was well worth a return visit.

There was so much to see that I pretty much drained the battery of my phone taking photos and had to be quite careful towards the end to quickly snap photos.    There isn’t a specific focus to the museum, but rather it tells the story of the history of motoring from the early days of the horseless carriage right through to where cars became more mainstream.

It also highlights that things that many people think are new, are not nearly as new as they might think.    The first hybrid cars didn’t come in the late 1990s, there is an example of a production hybrid car from 1917.   The petrol engine didn’t’ really become ubiquitous until the advent of the electric starter.  All electric and steam cars were quite common during the 1910s.

In most museums, while they have special cars, a lot of the collection is cars you can see at a local cars and coffee.  There is very little at the Louwman Museum that you would see at a cars and coffee.   Probably 80% of the collection is rare and special.  The items that are not are important to tell the story.

The museum is well organized.  Nearly all the cars have good descriptions that describe far more than basic technical specifications.  I photographed most of them as they are needed to understand most of the collection.

Some of my favorites were:

• The variety of design of cars before 1930 before the basic configuration that we know was settled.
• The different powertrains used used before most cars standardized on four, six or eight cylinder petrol engines.
• The contrast between the cars for the 1% vs the cars for the masses.
• The Propeller driven car.
• The collection of Spykers, the biggest in the world.
• The collection of Benz (pre merger) cars.
• The room full of cars like Bugatti, Ferrari, Maserati etc.
• The Duesenberg SJ.
• The concept cars or cars that were part of history.
• The Brooke Swan car.

There really is something for everyone.   It is still the best car museum I have been to.   I would return again if I am ever in the area.