Lane Motor Museum, Murfreesboro, TN

An old 132,000 square foot bakery is home to the unique Lane Motor Museum. This museum is one of a kind in that it specializes in European cars. They have about one hundred and fifty cars or motorcycles that aren't usually seen inAmerica. Most of the vehicles are from the 1950's through the 1970's; however, some are from the 1920's up to the year 2000.

The museum is located at 702 Murfreesboro Pike, Nashville, TN 37210. The Lane Motor Museum is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the week it is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. They are also closed on New Year's Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Admission to the museum is seven dollars for adults from 18-64, five dollars for seniors 65 or older, two dollars for children 6-17 and free for children younger than five.

The vehicles are representative of cars from Asia, Europe and North and South America. Lane Motor Museum is devoted to ensuring that each and every vehicle is in running order. This collection is housed in the following order: Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. Visitors can see not only the differences but also the similarities.

The cars at Lane Motor Museum feature the largest collection of vehicles from Czechoslovakia outside of Europe. There are also microcars, competition cars, amphibious cars, military vehicles, alternative fuel vehicles, motorcycles and one of a kind vehicles.

Guests of the museum will see a replica of the 1965 Twin Mini which was a re creation of the John Cooper's twin engine, four wheel drive Mini Cooper. While the car on display is not a racing vehicle because it was a limited production it still had 178 horsepower that equaled the Ferrari.

The amphibious car was designed by Hans Trippel. This car is equipped with a unibody steel two door cabriolet body. The vehicle has electrically welded joints and a Triumph engine that was mounted in the back of the car and propelled the rear wheels. The vehicle has two propellers that moved the car at seven miles per hour in the water or 6 1/2 knots. It only went about sixty eight miles an hour on dry land. The front wheels were used as rudders when the vehicle took to the water. Most of the more than 3800 vehicles made were shipped to the United States.

BMW tried to help produce affordable transportation after World War II. They came up with the BMW Isetta 300. This bubble car sold to more than 3,900 people in the United States in 1958. However, the brisk sales stopped when California announced that the vehicle was not going to be allowed on their highways. The Isetta has ten inch tires and weighs a little less than eight hundred pounds. It is able to go from 0 to30 in eleven seconds and was deemed very dependable mechanically. The vehicle has only one door and seats two. The car's original price tag was $1,048 dollars.