The first exhibition of classic cars and motorcycles dating back to the 1930s and 1940s was inaugurated at Qasr Garden-Museum in Tehran on Wednesday, (Feb. 17).
The event was attended by officials of the Iran Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) and Iran International Council of Museums (ICOM), Honaronline reported.
The venue, which has been a popular hub in the capital for art fans in the past year that saw several major exhibitions, is now host to seven classic cars and motorcycles, part of a total of 28 cars and motorcycles, which are set to be showcased alternately.
The exhibited vehicles are on display at a new additional structure in the museum which is set to be a permanent feature for exhibits.
“In order to increase the richness of the museum collection, we established the new exhibit which is free of charge for visitors,” director of the garden-museum Hossein Hooshyar said. One of the main features of the display is that all the classic automobiles have IDs and some of the owners are well-known people.
A number of the vintage cars belong to Iranian political figures of the last century such as Mohammad Mosadeq, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 who was ousted in a coup, and Mahmoud Khayami, founder of Iran Khodro, a leading car manufacturer and entrepreneur before the revolution in 1979. Some of the vehicles have remained intact since the Second World War.
First Public Display
The exhibit, which displays such vehicles for the first time to the public, have been made possible through the cooperation of private owners and collectors and “no state organizations are involved in the program,” Hooshyar said.
Pointing to the historical and architectural capacities of the garden museum, he said, “Over the years the center has transformed from a prison to a museum, because of the historic features in its architectural space.
It has also been used as a location for movies and TV series”.
At first, it was named Khorramabad Garden but following the construction of a luxurious building on it, it was dubbed ‘Qasr’ (palace) in 1798.
About 130 years later, the first Iranian modern prison was founded on the ruins of the ‘Qasr’ following its destruction and the surrounding lands were named ‘Qasr Prison’ in 1929.
In 2012, it was named Qasr Garden-Museum to represent a part of Iran’s history and culture of the past two centuries.
