.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA

The Tampa Bay Automobile Museum — a fascinating collection of fine cars!

Tampa Bay Automobile Museum 2013 244 1936 Panhard Dynamic

One of the great pleasures of traveling is discovering those special places — gems that aren’t necessarily very famous or perhaps are off the beaten path, but still so very worthwhile visiting.  So it was with the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum which I had the pleasure of discovering during a recent visit to Florida.

Situated in a light industrial area just outside of Tampa in Pinellas County, the museum abuts a factory run by the owner of the wonderful car collection I’m about to share with you.  The factory is Polypack (manufactures packaging machinery) and its owner is Alain Cerf.  Mr. Cerf is an immigrant from France, a man with obvious exquisite taste in cars and the means to indulge his hobby.  I enjoy people who are passionate about things in life and was delighted to have an afternoon to explore Mr Cerf’s passion — his fascinating car collection, as will you be when you visit his museum.  The museum is a celebration — of the genius of man and of his creations, the beautiful and innovative automotive machines on display within its walls.

The Museum’s collection mostly focuses on European cars from the first half of the 20th century, although some American and later model vehicles are also to be found.  Everyone at the museum was extremely friendly and welcoming and allowed me to nearly wear out the shutter on my camera taking photos.  I want to thank them for their hospitality and for allowing us to share these images with you.  Most of the descriptions of cars I’ll be presenting are abstracted from the museum’s website, so please explore it and by all means, GO see this wonderful museum when in the Tampa area.

The accompanying slideshow features just a sampling of the museum’s cars.  If you would like to see more photos and read more about these beautiful vehicles, I’d recommend you visit the museum’s website and read the four pieces I wrote on this for TravelGumbo.com.

Part 1)  Museum Overview and its Czech collection

Part 2) The German cars

Part 3) USA and UK cars

Part 4) French cars

Meanwhile, enjoy this sampler.

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance slideshow)

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