The three-story building includes over 10,000 square meters of exhibition space, housing the Dutch car importer Evert Louwman’s private collection of over 230 historic automobiles.
A part of the building features steep and peaked roof that makes the whole structure appear smaller. It also helps the building to blend into its small-scale, historical architectural context. The bricks in the facade have been laid in a woven pattern, complemented by quarry stone details and a slate-tile roof. A Great Hall forms the east-west backbone of the building, in contrast to the smaller public rooms by the main entrance.
The museum originally opened in Leidschendam in 1968 as the Nationaal Automobiel Museum and moved to Raamsdonksveer in 1981 before opening in The Hague. It is located in a park designed by landscape architecture firm Lodewijk Baljon, adjacent to the Royal Palace.
The museum aims to provide a fascinating illustration of the development of the automobiles since 1886, when the first car was built. The collection contains a broad spectrum of automobiles from the magnificent luxury cars of the 1920s and 1930s to bubble cars, steam cars, electric cars and historic racing cars driven by legends. Other noteworthy vehicles include the eccentric Swan Car from 1910, a hybrid Woods from 1917, the Jaguar D-type 1957 Le Mans winner and James Bond’s original Aston Martin DB5.
