Louwman

I called at the Louwman Museum in South Holland last week. It was not cheap at 20 Euros, and I had only an hour or so to spare, but I am pleased that I went. The rather stylish building houses hundreds of vintage and unusual cars; its strapline is ‘Fine Art on Wheels’. I was keen to see its Rolls Royce Silver Ghost which was officially designated the 1913 Best Car in the World, below:

The 1964 Aston Martin featured in Goldfinger is also displayed, alongside Elvis Presley’s Fleetwood and Sir Winston Churchill’s black Humber (all below). Subsequent research informed me that Kaiser Wilhelm II’s black Mercedes is also displayed, but I must have missed it. What a wonderful place! If only I had had hours there rather than minutes. The tour begins with a horse-drawn carriage and concludes with some rather spectacular BMWs which have been repainted by artists.

Cars and their drivers are being much maligned this decade. Vehicle taxes, fuel duty, outrageous insurance premiums, ULEZ nonsense and that most ridiculous of inventions, the speed bump, all combine to try and put us off motoring. Much as I have made a concerted effort to use public transport these past few years and to employ a bicycle, we cannot escape the fact that the private car has given us more freedom and independence than any government or carefully crafted social policy. The attack on the car is an attack on personal liberty. The current moves away from petrol to electric will certainly benefit those with deep pockets and private driveways, but poorer folk might find themselves squeezed out of the car-owning meritocracy we have been enjoying these past five decades. Although it is God to whom we must surely credit with our chapel’s survival and flourishing these past few years, the private car has surely been one of His tools for accomplishing this.

Thank God for the car.