Yes, you read the title correctly. It does require a little intro that leads to the point of this blog.
Recently I have visited a remarkable car collection in the Netherlands. It was unknown to me nor did I had any idea what to expect. My car buddy Jos was coming over to the Netherlands and we reached out to some guys to meet up. I had been in contact with one of them a few weeks before to collect an item on my behalf which I had bought in his village. So a good opportunity to collect it as well. He owns a Lancia Beta Coupe and participated in a local car rally in Friesland a few weeks back.
He told me that he had met up with someone at the rally who did happen to restore Lancia Zagato’s and had more interesting stuff in storage. So I suggested that we should visit that place for
a little tour in their shop. And as such this got arranged. We drove up to a small village up north which was only a 30 min drive from his place. We ended up at a slightly shabby “factory site”, well, it turned out to be a terrain with a very large shed(s) used for potato storage – at least the main shed. I guess the other shed(s) were used for farming machinery or such.
Two friendly eldery guys showed up and we were shown around the place. They were close friends of the owner and carried out restoration work.The tour started off in the workshop where indeed a Lancia Zagato was being restored. A complete aluminium body restoration whereby they had handcrafted about 50% of the panels themselves including welding and such. They had bought these specific machinery at an auction in the nineties when the Dutch aviation company Fokker went bankrupt.
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Next we got to see another storage section whereby some of their own cars where stored including a few more exclusive Zagato bodied Lancia’s. Very impressive. The main shed was divided up in different parts and each section contained more cars. The next storage room contained another Lancia Zagato body project and had a very interesting collection of mostly Italian cars of my liking and a few American cars. To list a few: Maserati 3200 GT manual, Maserati Ghibli series 2 manual, Maserati Shamal, Maserati Biturbo Si and multiple Alfa 75 versions. And even a Bristol and a Porsche 928 with a Pasha interior (cool!), quite unusual in this collection as it was mostly Italian and American orientated. I was stunned, the cars were parked randomly and not given much attention, some tyres were flat or interiors had a little mould.They were only stored and not driven, moved or actively kept in shape as far as I could tell.
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The next section was even a bigger surprise. It has acted as a car museum and contained only AMC and Rambler cars or closely related to this brand. The owner had collected about each model ever produced by this company. I estimate about 50 cars or so were presented. The collection had some gaps as apparently some cars have been sold by now. The museum has been closed down for a few years already. In fact, all cars are apparently for sale but not actively offered for sale anywhere – at least not to my best knowledge.
When doing afterwards some research regarding this museum I did find it online indeed.
The website is still online but closed though: https://rambler-amc-museum.nl/
Via archive.org you can still look up the limited content though. The website was build early 2000’s and never changed since. It’s also still listed on Google Maps. I found a few pages on the internet of other Dutch groups and enthusiasts who has visited this museum. I added them here as it contains some photo's of the situation back then.
https://www.avcdfw.nl/ritverslagen-2015-2/amc-rambler-museum-berlikum-27-februari-2016/
https://namac.nl/regio/regio-west-rambler-amc-museum/
https://www.dafenz3.nl/evenementen/amc-rambler/amc-rambler.html
By the looks of it not much changed since. Over time the collection of Italian cars had grown significant as well. And by the looks some Italian cars has been sold or traded, ie Iso Rivolta GT and Lamborghini Countach. As for the actual museum, my guess is that both AMC and Rambler are not very known in the Netherlands or much of an interest either. Nor was this museum promoted and as a result not very known either. Let alone the Italian car collection which is separate from the museum but in the same building. I almost consider it another example of the Dutch “Palmen Collection”. That was mostly unknown either except for the incrowd.That owner however was very reserved in allowing people access See also this blog:
https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2023/04/dutch-barnfind-auction-palmen-barnfind.html
In any case, we moved on and now went upstairs. On the 1st floor there was another large section with mostly Italian cars. I was baffled, such great set of cars and some very unique to say the least. In the AMC Rambler museum there was a Bricklin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1
On this floor however, it had a Gianci SJJ.
It did not immediately rang a bell but again after doing a little research I found out this car was for sale last year at Louwman Exclusive. See this link:
https://www.louwmanexclusive.com/marketplace/automotive/guanci-sjj-1-gt/
In fact I had specificly visited Louwman last to see this car as it was in their showroom. I totally forgot about that (nor did I realize it was this car). At first I figured he must had bought it. But I guess it was the other way around, he was trying to sell it in consignation via Louwman. Apparently it did not get sold and now it’s back in his collection. (the Louwman advert link is somehow still active but it's no longer in their showroom as it's back in the private collection).
For those interested, more on this particular car can be seen in this YT video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiUedzOOk-U
As a side note, I did not spot a AMC AMX/3 in this collection which could have fitted in very nicely. I recall seeing one on a cars and coffee meeting in 2024 by the Dutch Octane magazine. Not sure who the owner is though (I heard though it belonged to a Dtuch deTomaso collector):
And there were much more interesting cars in the collection, ie: Intermeccanica’s, DeTomaso Deauville, Fiat 130 Coupe with a pink interior, Lancia Thema 8.32 (Yes!) and various other Lancia's. The close observer has already spotted it on the previous photo. And of course a Ferrar 365GT4 2+2 was present. Any great car collection must have a 400 series 😉
And even this one appeared to be a special one as I was informed it was converted from RHD to LHD,how’s that!? The master confirmed it and provided me the following details on this car:
"It actually started out in RHD, in the same colour as yours, Azzurro Hyperion 2.443.648 with BLU VM 3282 interior. Delivered through Maranello Concessionaires as a normal UK import, it was first registered in the UK on 10 April 1974 and the first owner was J R Kennerley, who lived at Whitegates Farm, Puddington, Wirral, Merseyside. Mr Kennerley liked his 4 seaters. He previously owned a 330 GT and he also had a 400GT, #21185, new in 1977, probably trading #17645 in for it. All three of his Ferraris had the registration "TEN 10". I don't have much subsequent history. It was for sale in the Netherlands in 2010, then painted dark blue and LHD. I believe it's the only 365/400/412 to have been converted from RHD to LHD. Must have been quite difficult".
It’s another true story. We did visit another storage area on the terrain, again packed with interesting cars and restoration objects. Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed by this private collection. But I ended up getting my toy back home which I had bought and utlimately resulted in this unique visit. Priceless.
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