Muzeul Automobilului Romanesc – Romanian Motor Vehicle Museum Campulung Muscel, Romania 11/09/2025

The Romanian Motor Vehicle Museum – Muzeul Automobilului Romanesc is very interesting, you can see a vast selection of Romanian vehicles: cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorcycles as well as everyday items from the years socialist Romania, the Romanian People’s Republic (1947-1965) and the Romanian Socialist Republic (1965-1989) including post-revolutionary Romania in the 90s and early 2000s as well as traditional folk costumes and artefacts.

#automobile #romania #museum #truck #bus #car #bicycle #bike #trolleybus #câmpulung #muscel

Hello and welcome to batteries models and transport. So we are at the Romanian motor vehicle museum in camper or motoriis romanesque and uh we’re having a look at the interior first. So we have all sorts of different artifacts and uh we’ve got engines here photographs because we have to remember that Kulong was the birthplace of the arrow of road. Now that’s an odd seat. We have lots of pictures of the arrow because the arrow works the famous Romanian off-road vehicle here. And uh here we have various there’s many other things as well. There’s all all the Romanian automotive or mechanical production is represented in here. Here we have shop arrows, motorcycles, but and here there are also models. Here’s the very first director of Arrow, Victor Nagi. And we also have a picture of the former King Michael. He was he came to visit the museum. He was an enth he was a Jeep enthusiast. In fact, there’s a picture of him here standing in front of an AR M461. So, his majesty was uh liked motor cars. And here we’ve got a selection of uh other artifacts. Very nice model of the Aro 24 and this beautiful plastic toy arrow here. I had a half Romanian neighbor when I was a kid and he had such a toy. And here we’ve all and there are also other artifacts. For example, there are helmets. Here we can see a selection of helmets. We’ve got a Romanian fireman’s helmet. This is an M73 steel helmet. These are workers helmets. This is another M73 by the look of it, but it’s the other way around. And another fireman’s helmet. So, let’s now we’ll go along here. colony. The camera woman is doing all the work. This museum is uh you there’s no there’s no admission fee, but you can there’s an offering box. It’s privately privately operated run the collection from a private collection. There’s the there’s the the money box there. you make an offer. And uh this is a bicycle, a Pegasus. This is a famous Romanian bicycle brand, Pegasus. Your wife has Yes, my wife on the Pegasus bicycle as well. And we can go in here and have a look at what else we’ve got here. We’ve got Romanian buses. And outside we’ll also go and see the buses in in the outdoor clip. And here in this room, we can see the smell is fantastic. There’s a smell of metal, the smell of rubber, the smell of engines. So, all the selection down here of Romanian bicycles, motorc mopeds, motorcycles. This is a fantastic model of uh a Romanian duck made of tin plate army truck there. We’ll see in the corner. This is a factory mockup, a scale model of an AR 10. I’ve driven one of these. My father-in-law had one for a period. And we’ve got even the Romanian upgraded main battle tank, the the TR85 M1. This is still in service. And here we’ve got on the walls. Very interesting. Here’s the the promotional technical course courses for mechanics 1976. We see all the photographs. So you breathe the atmosphere of those years of the socialist period in Romania. In fact, if you look up here above the door, we can see the Romanian Socialist Republic code of arms which is here right there underneath there’s a Romanian Communist Party coat of arms PCR and up here there’s a typical slogan of the period [Music] So we live we live and learn in the province of Ares, the province of hard work. Chin is honest. Honest. Yes. Honesty. Honor and socialist dignity. Yes. So So this is one. Now we’ll we’ll have a look and we’ll go and see one of the other rooms. Next clip. Okay. So, this is the other room here in the hall in the in the Romanian Motorc Car Museum. And this museum is not just a museum. It’s also cultural center because this used to be the house of culture of this of this village on the outskirts of Camp Mushelle. The owner of the museum restored the building at his own expense and bought the land around it doing a fantastic job finishing in 2009. And in here we don’t only have we don’t only have vehicles thing related vehicles but also popular culture. So we have traditional costumes, toys, photographs, the flag with a hole in that remembers the revolution. all these not bicycles, all sorts of things. So, if you really want to see and breathe Romanian popular culture, this is a place to come. For example, we have the old television sets, the radios. Here we’ve got a mannequin wearing the uniform, an ambulance, an ambulance, uh, a nurse uniform. In this case here, we dedicate this to to our nurse Ian Bugler 75. And uh, over here, for example, we have another mannequin wearing the uniform of the patriotic guards. The patriotic guards were the sort of local militia for for the the the local defense of Romania in the event of a foreign invasion. Not the militia. The militia was the police. So my mother-in-law was actually in the patriotic guards. And uh here we’ve got radios, a fantastic radio and record player and all sorts of things. So I’ll now leave you in the hands of the camera woman who remembers a lot of these things because she grew up in the that period and she can just give you a quick panorama of what she thinks is most interesting. I had this desk at the elementary school. This model exactly like this and the other one at high school but in my class there were three seats. You see there there are only two seats. Oh okay. So you you at high school at high school you had this kind of desk here but with three seats not two seats. Not very comfortable. No. And this this is the one you had at elementary school. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, and there’s another desk there. Yes. Yes, I see it. It’s very small. Yes. And we had to clean the classrooms at the end of the day. The the So, you you had to do your own cleaning. Yes. Yes. We had to move each each desk. desk. Uh-huh. One by one by one and then clean, brush, and then put them back one by one by one. Yes. Good. That’s That’s the best way. No, learn to work physical work. No. And here we’ve got various other there’s a piano here. There’s couple of Romanian army M73 steel helmets. So, it gives you a good insight into Romania. Socialist Romania. Soft toys. I didn’t have soft toys. I didn’t have many toys to be honest. Okay. So we’ll move outside now and see some here’s a flag with a hole in the middle. Yes, that was the So for example, we could ask you um mentioning the flag with a with a torn socialist emblem. What are your memories of when the revolution began? Mine? Yes. Yours? But you were what? 12. 12 coming 13. Yes. My memories uh when you heard on the radio that there was the Ah, yes. Yes. uh it changed very fast all of a sudden and we’re bit confused. I don’t remember exactly what they were saying but it wasn’t the usual program. The programs changed. Suddenly you had television. This is the thing because generally it was limited to what few hours a day and only two hours I don’t remember exactly. Yes. 10 10 minutes of cartoons if I remember. Well uh lots of propaganda. Yes. About our leader. Yes. Our beloved leader. Suddenly beloved leader was no longer the beloved leader. He become the the the hated leader. Yes. And uh so it’s a very interesting Oh, here some coffee cups. This is the the Romanian standard coffee quantity quantity of coffee which the traditional Romanian coffee is Turkish coffee or Romanian coffee which you make. Uh we could actually show a video of how you make you could show us a video of how you make Romanian coffee. I might I don’t promise. The trick is the trick is you know it’s ready when it boils over onto the cooker and extinguishes the gas. Then you know it’s ready. Okay, we’re going to go outside now. Okay, Gio. Very well. So when the outside visits a dog barking hello doggy walking we have to compete. It wouldn’t be Romania without dog barking. So this is a Romanian Roar de Simon 412U bus. Actually this is an S cuz it’s suburban. And this is a licensebuilt Italian emboss bus and Bucharest operated them various other towns. This is a a twodoor suburban version which has got more seats and it’s got a manual gearbox. If you come here you’ll see that it has a manual gearbox. Hello. Generally these buses boost buses have got automatic gearboxes. This one has a manual cuz this was a suburban bus used by the milit. So now the camera woman will show you a panoramic view of the bus from outside. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Right, I’ve taken over as cameraman for the moment. So here we are on the corner with the Roar De Simon 412 bus and it was the very last model built by Roar before it was went by it was made to go bankrupt by corrupt politicians. Here we have a very interesting part like a bus stop, diesel pump, the timet. These are all uh departure departure timet from bus stops. And we have the whole collection of vehicles which are all under canopies most of them of cars of all types. We’ll go and see them after. And here we’re in the the park dedicated to the firefighting vehicles where we have this very interesting. We have a an early red stagulu uh fire engine there. Uh but edge my father-in-law learned to drive on the this crane truck in the center. And here we’ve got a very early Stago Roshu red flag brash fire engine which was actually a license built Z 130 if I don’t remember badly. [Music] And here we’ve got a corner dedicated to the more recent car production in Romania. We have a devu tico which was licensed built by devou at the kryova motor car plant. Daca 1310 uh CN4 or CN3 version of late ’90s. Adaca supernova. Adaca supernova and the Daca Solensa which was a facelifted supernova. Here we’ve got two very interesting fire trucks. These are special fire trucks that were used for all sorts of fires and in particular fires of Romania is an oil extracting country. If there were fires and oil oil derks or probes and you can see they were either silver I’ve seen these in service. I’ve actually seen these in service and I want to take you to see these two fire engines here. So these two fire engines here, we got the combine harvester and these two fire engines here. We have the water cannon or or foam and water cannon here and the other normal 4×4 Auroru BH truck. Uh I actually these were at the at the at the fire station in Tigi uh on the road between CTO de Arish and Rimiko Vulcha and I had spotted them in two 2019 and I put the photographs on a group on Facebook and thanks to those photographs the owner of the museum was able to salvage them. So somehow I contributed to bringing these two beautiful pieces of engineering to this museum. and to save them from ending up in scrap. Of course, there’s a lot of work to do. Work will be done in years, but this is the hub, the hub for all Romanian industrial vehicle and motor car enthusiasts. And in Romania, there is a growing community of enthusiasts. And they really are really very enthusiastical. These are fantastic. Let’s have a look at this here. This was made by Intrepinder Auto Mechanica Buresh and it’s got a pre 1993 Romanian registration plate on it and you can see that it was called in printer meaning enterprise auto mechanical enterprise Bucharest not company because this was stateowned so everything was in printer there. Okay. So, now I will It’s a lot It’s quite a lot of work here for me, but they’ve cut the grass and it’s a good physical exercise because I’ve not been not been doing much walking the last couple of days and this is good exercise. You have to take me here every time. If it were for me, I’d be here for the My wife told me, “Let’s try and keep it short. As short as you can.” Um, how long have we been here now? An hour. We’ve been here an hour. I could stay here the whole day. Right. She doesn’t doubt it. Okay. Okay. So, here there are more trucks. Another fire truck over here. Roman diesel 8135. There’s a Roman a Roman diesel dump truck. You might still come across some of those in service in Romania, even if they’re coming rarer. I first came here in 2004, and I’ve got scores and scores of photographs. Not many videos, but lots of photographs and some videos you’ve seen on this channel. There’s a very early Daca Daca loang, which was the car that saved Daca, a deu beside it, made by by the former oil seat works in Kayova. And uh very interesting Rokar van or former Teo Tudor Vladimir van. Uh SR Buch 4×4 command position truck, army truck and another dock over there with a very angular cab. And here we have a collection of arrows and all the arrows and all the derived vehicles because Campolong Mushelle is the birthplace of Arrow and we’ll go and have a look at them close up and we’ll see them one by one before looking at the trolley bus. Okay, we’ve nearly finished our video visit at the museum. Uh I’m beginning to be a bit tired, but I’ll give you an explanation now. do a quick explanation and I’ll leave you in the very competent hands of the camera woman who will show you the whole length of arrow vehicles and some dash at the far end. So here we’ve got some that was a mockup for an arrow that was never born. It was supposed to be the new arrow. Then there was a joint production American came joint venture. Then he sold all the equipment and arro went bust. Uh there’s a data 1100 which is a license built Renault 8. And in the corner over there there’s a famous datacon which was made in the shara and has a two-cylinder four-spoke engine 3-seater city car. It would have been a great idea nowadays with an old meadin number plate. So this instead we have a a prototype R10 platform with a DACA estate or DACA brake bodywork. And here we’ve got an actual very early AR pen. And this is the famous Arrow M461 Jeep, which was maybe the most successful Arrow of them all, which was then evolved into the Arrow 24, which was then remained in production until until the end of ARO. And here in Kolong, you can actually see them. Here we’ve got another very interesting vehicle beside this TV van. This is a a riot control armored arrow for the Ministry of Interior for the So this was a a special vehicle with bulletproof bulletproof glass. And by the look of the bulletproof glass, this this took part in a revolution. Oh, yes. Because it’s been shot at. Yes. And here’s a TV van. And then you can show them the rest and I’ll come along. See the trolley bus. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Okay. So this is the Roar um 117 trolley bus which is 17 m long. This was a a tur a Tujio trolley bus and I I actually went to see these trolley buses when we’re still in service. I think they were taken out of service in 2021. Now they’ve been replaced with uh Solaris new trolley buses. Tujio has kept couple of historical trolley buses and a couple of of historical rockar buses in his collection which take part in events. This bus was salvaged by an Romanian bus association. It’s a guest together with other bus here at the museum. The owner of the museum said for him it’s important. It’s not an optimal sit it’s not an optimal place to keep a bus outside on grass, but at least temporarily it’s it’s a it’s a solution to stop it ending up for scrap. So in time as soon as undercover undercover accommodation will be found both this trolley bus and the the Roard the Simon bus you saw earlier in the video will be moved undercover. I hope it will be soon anyway. They are in good hands. They’re looked after. They’re not going to end up in the scrapyard. Anyway, this is the typical trolley bus and bus of uh, of course, this is the trolley bus version of uh, socialist Romania and uh, of when I came to Romania, the very beginning. So, now we’ll have a quick look at closeup. The camera woman will follow me before the rain begins. So, I’ll explain [Applause] a typical a typical a typical solution on east on Romanian and Eastern European uh buses and public transport vehicles is that this first half door here, it’s only for the driver. So, if you walk back a bit, you can show that this here is a driver’s cab. This will keep the cold out in winter and it’ll keep the heat out in summer. So very often you’d see the driver driving with this half door left open in summer to increase ventilation both on trolley buses and buses. And uh and here we can have a look at the the actual bus. The Roan or Di was a very a very sturdy vehicle. [Music] And uh the trolley bus has had an excellent acceleration. Here we see the typical RB AB. This is AB reduction hub which was also common which is AB is Alto Cami Brashov meaning Brashov truck company a factory itself. fits a reduction hub which is uh based on a Hungarian license. And here we’ve got the history of this bus. So this was made in 1994. It’s a rockar not 117 217E for electric. It was made in 1994 for the new network in Tujio and uh entered service in 1995 when the system was inaugurated. So the Tujio trolley bus line network was actually opened in 1995 after the revolution. Tujio is the center of the Romanian coal basin. So burning coal to produce electricity. It was good to use electric transport. It was then it remained in service for 26 years. In 2023 it was bought by two enthusiasts, public transport enthusiasts. I know what it means to buy a bus and buying a trolley bus is maybe even more complicated. Um, and this way six of these two 207 e trolley buses were saved. The other ones are in are in Timishara Yash and Tujio because Togo public transport company kept a bus. It was uh and they transported it to the the museum by truck by low loader also thanks to donors and enthusiasts and uh started from the 26th to 7th of October 2023 it became an exhibit at the museum. So for the moment it’s here but this is a real fantastic piece of Romanian public transport history. And with that, I think we can go and see the back of the trolley bus. Now, uh another thing, these are articulated trolley buses with a self- steering rear axle. So, this will turn in the opposite direction of the front wheels. Everything is connected by by cable linkage. And the best place to stay on such a trolley bus is the rear platform or on such a bus. And let’s have a look at the booms here. We can see the overhead booms and the and this if they came off you would have to go with a rope and put them back up. So, I hope you enjoyed the visit and definitely I recommend coming to see this museum. Cheerio. We’ll see you next time.