Exhibition of Retro Cars at the Victoria and Albert Museum

The exhibition “Cars: Accelerating the Modern World” explores how the automobile has accelerated the pace of change over the past century and looks at the automobile in the context of the driving force of history.
The exhibit brings together 15 different cars, including a 1934 Czech Tatra T77 and a 1922 Spanish Hispano-Suiza with a wooden body like the hull of a luxury yacht.

The exhibition is divided into three sections. The section entitled “Going Fast” opens the exhibition by exploring the role of the automobile as a symbol of technological progress. It describes how the pursuit of fast movement pushed not only car design, but also shaped the visual culture and aesthetics that dominated the first half of the 20th century. This section ends with an exploration of two opposing forces–the desire for a sense of speed and the demand for safety.

“Making More” explores the automobile as a paragon of modern production, an object that has shaped modern consumption and turned automobile companies into global concerns.

“Creating Space” explores the car’s impact on global trends. It talks about gasoline production and climate change, as well as the various alternatives to gasoline that will dominate the new electric economy.

You can also see the world’s very first production car, an autonomous flying car and a concept car from the 1950s. Many of the exhibits are on display for the first time in Britain. In addition to cars, there is a large collection of accompanying materials: belongings, photographs, and film recordings that show a panorama of all the social life of a particular period from the past, with which a particular car is associated.