Heinkel Scooter Project: Charlies Auto Museum

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Charlies Auto Museum

Charlie's Auto Museum is located at the top of Arthur's Seat, the hill overlooking Dromana in the Mornington Peninsula. It has a terrific collection of really interesting vehicles, memorabilia, models and a cafe. http://charliesautomuseum.com.au/

Our DKW would have fitted right in to the collection.

For a relatively small museum, Charlie's has an excellent collection of automotive oddities. Pride of place in the centre of the main hall is this magnificent Tatra T603. This car was a former Czech consular vehicle.

Tatra 603

1963 Studebaker Avanti. The Avanti was Italian styled and fibreglass bodied. In the 1990s, long after the demise of Studebaker, a group of investors founded the Avanti company and using the original fibreglass moulds created a modernised reproduction. It was quite successful.

1990s Avanti

Czeta and Velocette LD 'Noddy bike'

MG TC

The Hindenburg

The museum has an extensive collection of models. Here's the Titanic and Queen Mary.

Trabant 601. This car was driven from Germany to Australia as part of a round the world rally. It was struck by a truck and destroyed at the end of the trip and left behind.

The Trabant was rear ended and totally wrecked. Fortunately no one was killed!

The AC Invacar. These little cars were given to disabled people under the British National Health Service between 1948 and 1970. The cars were only ever on loan and when production ended they were recalled for destruction. Consequently, few have survived.

Messerschmitt KR200 cabin scooter

Heinkel-Trojan kabine scooter

Bond Bug

BMW Isetta

Volkswagen Beetle display chassis

Some sort of dune buggy

Wartburg 311

Wartburg 311 and Goggomobil Dart.

Goggomobil Dart and 300 sedan

Goggomobil TS300 and a Royal Mail tricycle. The German Goggomobil was imported to Australia by fibreglass pioneer Bill Buckle. To avoid the vehicle import duties Buckle only imported the engines and chassis and mounted fibreglass copies of the German bodies onto the cars.

Nissan Be-1, Smart car and Suzuki

Moped corner

In the second shed. In the foreground is a Czechoslovakian Jawa Pioner moped and what looks like an NSU Quickly (or it could be a French Motobecane) followed by a Cord 810 (one of my favourite cars).