In its its 2021 May decision, the Government supported our collection enlargement program. The unprecedented level of support provides an opportunity to save the outstanding values of Hungarian industrial and transport heritage. Rescuing the internationally well-known products of the domestic bus and railway vehicle industry, just as Ganz and Ikarus, has become urgent, as many vehicles are being scrapped these days. Visitors will be able to see these vehicles at the new Transportation Museum.
As part of the program, our institution was enriched with the beautiful new vehicles, as follows:
- In August 2021 we presented our newly restored Ikarus 66 'Faros' bus. The bus was rescued by the museum from an apiary, and thanks to the restoration, it has regained its original condition, operability and gained an oldtimer certification. This bus is one of the last ten copies of the most popular and perhaps most beautiful Hungarian bus type. The Ikarus 66s were the most characteristic pieces of the countryside bus stations for about two decades, until the early 1980s, and they were also the most comfortable and fastest buses on domestic roads at that time.
- At the end of 2021, a more than 60-year-old Skoda Octavia Super arrived to our collection. The vehicle was a typical part of the Hungarian street scene in the 1960s and ’70s.
- In the end of 2021, a Csepel D-450 truck arrived. The vehicle is a good representation of the trucks of an era, as it was the most common truck of its time. It was manufactured from 1955 to the ’70s.
- In early 2022, a GAZ-12 ZIM luxury car arrived in the collection of the Museum of Transportation. A total of 100 of these vehicles arrived in Hungary, and from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, mid-level state and party leaders used these cars in Hungary.
