JESADA TECHNIK MUSEUM #2

Part 2: . . . . and Automobiles

By Grant Cameron

May 9^th, 2018

A GEM OF A MUSEUM

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles" was a 1987 movie starring the late, great, John Candy and Steve Martin. It is also the theme of a museum on the western outskirts of Bangkok, about an hour's drive from the centre of the city.

This is the ". . and Automobiles" part, the "Planes, Trains . . " part can be found here.

Jesada Dejsakulrit

This collection of over 500 quirky vehicles belongs to museum founder Khun Jesada Dejsakulrit, a Thai distributor of fire engines and other specialist vehicles.

There are bubble cars (microcars) comprising many BMW Isettas, Heinkels, Trojans, Bond Bugs and a Velorex among others. There are amphicars, Brabants, Vespas and Lambrettas. There are old Citroens, Volkswagen Beetles, 30's Mercedes Benz's, Fords, a Philippine Jeepney and a Russian Gaz; in fact there are just too many classic cars and vehicular oddities to list.

A tight fit

The various vehicles are parked close together with no signage or particular order in a large capacious dim warehouse, despite the bright sunshine outside, making it difficult to photograph these old wonders. In fact, it is more like a massive garage than a museum. However, it is well maintained and during my visit there were several young students continuously cleaning dust off the vehicles.

This iconic American yellow cab was one of the stand-outs for me . .

. . as was this Nash and collection of Volkswagen Beetles.

Bubble Cars

A large area of the museum is given over to "bubble cars" or microcars. These small post-second world war cars became popular in Europe as a demand for cheap personal motorised transport emerged when fuel prices were high due in part to the 1956 Suez Crisis. Many were manufactured in Germany, with brands such as Messerschmitt, Heinkel and BMW.

The time machine

The only model ever produced by the company, the DeLorean DMC-12 was a sports car originally manufactured by DeLorean Motor Company for the American market from 1981 to 1983.

It famously featured gull-wing doors and a brushed stainless-steel body. The car became forever immortalised as the DeLorean time machine in the Back to the Future movies.

Famous marques

Car "brands" can be famous the world over, such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, Ford, Jaguar. These manufacturers display their logos or badges on the vehicles they make, and such identification is generally termed a "marque" (though, it seems, not a phrased used in the US), sometimes with a separate and distinctive "marque" exclusively for a single vehicle type in a manufacturer's fleet. How many can you recognise here?

Gearheads only?

You do not need to be a "gearhead" to be keen in visiting this museum. There's more than enough to keep every family member interested, including children. And an interesting and unusual snippet . . in 2007 the museum had purchased a decommissioned former Soviet whiskey-class patrol submarine for display; but it never reached Thailand, sinking, en route to the museum, to the bottom of the North Sea near Denmark.

Getting there

There are just way too many items of interest to photograph and display in a brief photo-essay, but I hope these few images whet your appetite to visit the museum for yourself.

In Part #1 I have shown the "Planes, Trains . ." of the title, and, coupled with the images, here, I hope you are primed to head over to Jesada Technik Museum without delay.