The Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, has a collection of around 150 vehicles, with a general focus on oddities that you wouldn’t normally find on display. The facility is now selling a few vehicles because it’s running out of storage space. The prices seem reasonably affordable, meaning this might be your chance to add something truly weird to your garage without breaking the bank.
“We would like to provide others with the opportunity to revive, restore, and enjoy these cars, rather than consigning them to decades of dark, dusty storage,” the Lane Motor Museum wrote on the page listing its vehicles for sale. “Even though they may no longer be here, we will be continuing our mission of sharing these unique cars with the public.”
The most expensive car up for grabs is a former racer from the Indy Racing League, listed at $60,000. If you’re unfamiliar with the IRL, it was one of two competing, US-focused open-wheel series in the 1990s, with the other being CART. Dallara built this one in 1999, and power came from a 4.0-liter Oldsmobile Aurora V8 making 700 horsepower and capable of revving to 10,500 rpm.
The exterior looks simple by the standards of modern open-wheel racers, but it still has a push-rod suspension and extensive use of carbon fiber. With 700 hp on tap, this car could be a beast on the track… provided the new owner can keep it running.
For $50,000, you can buy this odd 1961 Lloyd LT 600. Lloyd was part of the German automaker Borgward’s family of brands. This LT 600 was sort of a predecessor to the minivan, offering three rows of seats in a compact, efficient package.
Don’t expect to get anywhere quickly with a 600cc, two-cylinder engine making just 20 horsepower. Top speed is just 53 miles per hour, meaning you can’t even reach the 55-mph limit on most two-lane highways.
If you want to haul a car the weirdest way possible, spend $45,000 on this 1988 Citroën Tissier. It features the nose from the Citroën CX with a long flatbed platform out back. Under the hood sits a 2.5-liter turbodiesel four-cylinder making 121 hp, hooked up to a five-speed manual driving the front wheels. According to the listing, the car can haul around 3,600 pounds. You’d be a star driving around with a 2CV attached to the back of this.
If the Citroën Tissier doesn’t provide enough hauling ability for you, the Lane Motor Museum is also selling a 1994 Tatra T-815 Rollback for $45,000. The beast uses a twin-turbo 19-liter air-cooled V12 making 400 hp and a gargantuan 1,500 pound-feet of torque. A decal on the nose advertises that this one has six-wheel drive, and the listing notes there are locking differentials. The setup should provide plenty of traction if our experience playing the game SnowRunner is anything to go by.
If tiny vehicles are more your taste, the museum is offering this 1966 Fiat 600 Multipla for $40,000. Like the Lloyd, this little car offered minivan-like utility before that segment’s existence. This Italian machine provides room for six people across three rows of seats. With a 767cc four-cylinder engine, a fully loaded Multipla would make long road trips take even longer.
With an asking price of $20,000, this 1971 LeGrand MK12 Super Vee is a more affordable way to go open-wheel racing than the IRL car. Formula Super Vee was a feeder series for racers as they moved up to more prestigious classes. Want proof? Michael Andretti won the 1982 US Formula Super Vee Championship.
This car is a one-off that LeGrand never put into wider production. The engine is a Volkswagen flat four-cylinder making 175 horsepower. The listing says the top speed is 160 mph, which probably feels like going light speed in such a tiny, open-wheel race car.
If you’re looking for more conventional open-air motoring, this 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider can be yours for $15,000. This car’s basic styling dates back to the Spider introduced in 1966. However, the version from 20 years later has bigger bumpers and a boxier rear end, among other changes. A 2.0-liter four-cylinder makes 132 horsepower, and the gearshift for the five-speed manual sticks out diagonally from the center console.
Dustin Hoffman made an earlier Spider a movie star by driving it extensively in the 1967 film The Graduate. Alfa Romeo even sold a Graduate trim level of the Spider.
This 1969 Mercedes-Benz 280S is also available for $15,000 if you’d prefer a stylish luxury sedan rather than a two-seat convertible. This is the predecessor to the modern S-Class, featuring a 2.8-liter inline-six making 140 horsepower that runs through a four-speed automatic.
These cars are famous for their vault-like construction. This one looks particularly good, especially on the inside. Little touches like the Becker stereo and Thermo King air conditioning are classic details that add to the ambiance.
The 1960 Lancia Appia is a handsome sedan that the museum is selling for $12,000. The design doesn’t have fixed B-pillars, so opening the rear-hinged doors creates a massive opening, providing easy access for the occupants. This was a luxury car by the standards of the day.
The engine is fascinating. It’s a 1.1-liter V4 with just a 10-degree angle between the cylinder banks making 48 horsepower. Fun fact: Lancia was the first brand to put a V4 in a production vehicle.
This 2019 Citroen 2CV-powered open-wheel race car is perhaps this collection’s weirdest and coolest vehicle offered for sale. At $10,000, it’s not too expensive, either.
The little racer takes inspiration from the small-displacement Deutsch-Bonnet race cars that competed in Europe’s post-war period. Unlike most open-wheel cars both then and now, this one has a front-wheel drive configuration.
Claude Chaume and Catherine Baroche decided to build new cars based on this classic shape. They used readily available components, like the mirrors from an Austin Mini and the steering wheel from an original Fiat 124 Spider. The engine is a 602cc flat twin from a 1980s Citroen 2CV6.
The final vehicle is the least expensive offering from the museum, at just $100. It’s so cheap because it’s really not a car at all. It’s also very, very weird.
This piece of fiberglass has the shape of the classic Isetta microcar. However, the size is small enough to fit a riding lawnmower. The sale comes with mounting bars and a fake engine cover. Imagine how cool you’d look mowing your grass on a vehicle that looks like BMW’s iconic microcar.
