Automuseum

Automuseum Praga was established by Mr Emil Příhoda in 1957. The main goal of the museum was to map the development of the then largest car maker Praga in our country. The museum guides visitors through the entire history of the Czech car industry, which at the times of the First Republic was one of the best in Europe.

Automuseum Praga is included in almost any list of world-famous museums and its collection is deemed to be one of the most valuable single-brand car collections in the world. Its scope and significance go beyond the borders of the Czech Republic. It depicts our famous industrial history which we are justly proud of and we believe that the legacy will be preserved for the generations to come.

The current Praga collection now includes more than seventy cars and other vehicles, machines and products made by the Praga plant between 1908 and 1989. The collection boasts passenger cars, trucks and special vehicles, buses, tractors, ploughs, road machinery, motorcycles and bicycles. It is complemented with an extensive archive of various documents containing a total of 294,086 items. The archive includes technical documentation of production drawings, spare parts catalogues, BOMs, instruction manuals, leaflets, approval certificates, technical, police and military regulations, journals and a number of other documents. It also holds a great amount of film documentaries and photographs, gramophone records, tendentious postage stamps, auto club car and lapel badges, commemorative plaques and sports awards. The exhibits also include advertising materials, a collection of license plates, road signs and a variety of traffic-related items. A lot of the materials come from abroad and the documents are written in a number of foreign languages. Given its specific contents and scope gradation, the collection is deemed to be one of the most interesting ones in the world.

The Praga exhibits are used for taking photographs as well as for television production and film-making. They are also used in a host of exhibitions and events throughout the Czech Republic and abroad.

The museum is currently closed and the collection of vintage cars, utility vehicles, buses and all the other exhibits is stored in temporary warehouse facilities. The Automuseum Praga is looking for new facilities where the entire collection could be exhibited and made accessible to the public again. The museum in the municipality of Zbuzany near Prague was closed due to inheritance proceedings and the object was sold to a new owner.

Based on the above, the Association for the preservation of the national heritage of Museum Praga vintage cars has been registered recently.