Motor vehicles as heritage vehicles and museum objects

Authors

• Teppo Moilanen Tampere Museums https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7500-5362

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33355/tw.103128

Keywords:

museums, cars, cultural heritage

Abstract

The article discusses the museum status of motor road vehicles. The museal significance of various objects can be constructed from different foundations. For motor vehicles  this foundation typically lies in maintained usability. Returning a museum vehicle into working condition can lead to problematic results, as the resulting vehicle may end up in a state of being it never had, while it was used. In such a process of functional restoration, traits of use and adaptation may be lost. Meanwhile for museum objects, continued functionality is a secondary consideration. For them these traits of past use are of major significance.

This article explores these themes through the archives and history of the Finnish road and waterway management agency TVH. Some of its road vehicles have been preserved in Mobilia Museum collections alongside their archival sources, thus constituting a historically significant collection.