The Southward Car Museum at Otaihanga on the Kapiti Coast, 45 minutes north of Wellington off SH1, holds one of the southern hemisphere's great private collections: more than 400 vehicles in a purpose built 6,000 square metre hall, opened by Sir Len Southward in December 1979.
The provenance cars headline: mobster Mickey Cohen's armoured 1950 Cadillac with its three inch bulletproof glass, Marlene Dietrich's 1934 Cadillac V-16 Town Cabriolet, a 1939 Mercedes-Benz 770 believed built for Edward VIII, a 1938 Bugatti Type 57C and an 1895 Benz Velo that reached New Zealand in 1900. A DeLorean covers the modern myth end, and Len's own Redhead, the first boat in Australasia past 100 mph on water, anchors the founder's story: a motorcycle engineer who left school at 13, built an industrial empire and was knighted in 1986.
A 474 seat theatre with a working 1929 Wurlitzer organ, aircraft overhead (a Tiger Moth, a Vampire jet, an Avro Avian) and parklike grounds make it more than a car shed.
