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The first thing visitors to the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville will see once they walk through the door is an outline of the iconic Le Mans racecourse on the lobby floor, but that is just the beginning of the museum made up of more than 540 of the rarest vehicles from around the globe.

The museum, which boasts the largest collection of European automobiles in the United States officially opened its doors in 2003 in the former Sunbeam bakery building located at 702 Murfreesboro Pike in Nashville.

At any one time, the museum displays more than 150 cars, motorcycles and airplanes from countries including England, Germany, Italy, France, Japan and the United States.

“It is a real history lesson, it is an engineering lesson, it is a fun whimsical place….,” museum Marketing Manager Rebecca Evans said.

The museum traces its roots to 2002, when founder Jeff Lane established a nonprofit foundation and donated his personal car collection to the museum. After a year-long renovation of the building, the Lane Motor Museum officially opened its doors to the public in 2003.

A native of Romeo, Michigan, Lane inherited a love of automobiles at a young age from his father, helping the elder Lane in the restoration of a 1954 MG at their home garage. When Lane was 12 years old, he asked his father for an MG of his own, and he received a 1955 MG TF 1500 in parts in the back of a pickup truck as a Christmas gift.

By the time Lane was 16, he had completed the restoration of his own MG, taking his drivers test in the car. Finished in British Racing Green, it is considered the foundation of the museum collection.

After walking into the main display area, visitors will see a colorful array of cars of seemingly all shapes and colors spanning more than 100 years of automotive history. Vehicles are grouped by country of origin, and national flags hang from the museum ceiling indicating where cars from the featured countries are located.

While visitors to the Lane Motor Museum will not see American muscle cars or pre-war classics like Packards, Cadillacs or Marmons, the collection is not limited to only European makes.

“There is a smattering of American cars, one-offs that you wouldn’t see,” Evans said. “We try to focus on people that were inventors, engineers, craftsmen curious about transportation and how to improve it or make it different or better or faster.”

With five different exhibit areas, the museum has enough room to host multiple temporary exhibits at any one time. One such exhibit open until March 2024 is titled “One-of-One: Custom-Made Curiosities.” This exhibit highlights one-off automobiles, made by both home builders as well as major manufacturers, ranging from futuristic prototypes to simple utilitarian constructions.

One highlight from this exhibit is a 1928 Martin Aerodynamic, built by inventor James V. Martin and the Martin Aircraft Company of Garden City, New York. This aerodynamic vehicle features an all-aluminum body, four-cylinder water-cooled engine and airplane style suspension. While the vehicle was displayed at the 1932 National Automobile Show in New York, the car was a little too far ahead of its time to catch on.

Also on display in the “One-of-One” exhibit is a custom-built Rocket Car crafted by the legendary Von Dutch in 1961.

Those wishing to get an even more in-depth experience of the Lane Motor Museum can opt for a tour of its vault, available most Saturdays and Sundays at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.

“It is a working facility,” Evans said. “It is where we house the rest of the collection and where the maintenance is done. It is sort of the underbelly of the museum, if you will.”

Organized by color rather than by make, model or era, the vehicles in the vault range the spectrum of automobile history and development. Those opting for the vault tour will be able to see an even larger collection of automobiles not currently on display in the museum.

One of these interesting vehicles is a 1938 Steyr 220 Gläser Cabriolet once owned by country music legend George Jones. Built in Austria, the vehicle was acquired by famed country music producer Billy Sherrill from Jones prior to his 1974 divorce from Tammy Wynette. The Steyr was owned by Sherrill until his death in 2015 and was donated to the museum by his widow Charlene in 2017.

Evans said the museum is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary with some special programming this year.

“Our next big public event will be Museum Fun Day August 12,” she said. “We will give free vault tours…we offer scheduled rides with Mr. Lane, he will be at the helm driving people and we do microcar rides for kids.”

The Lane Motor Museum will also celebrate its Anniversary Day October 21.

“We are going to roll back the prices to 2003,” Evans said.

Evans said that while she definitely thinks the Lane Motor Museum is worth a visit for car enthusiasts, you don’t have to love cars to enjoy a day at the Lane.

“I get a lot of reviews on Google that someone’s wife or brother or sister just tagged along and wasn’t really into it but when they got here they were like, wow this is really cool,” she said. “It speaks to science, technology, engineering and math, so even though it is car themed we can highlight that cars originate from that curriculum and design, creativity.”

The Lane Motor Museum is open 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday through Sunday. For more information, visit www.lanemotormuseum.org.