Visit Stuttgart and you’ve two of the world’s most famous car museums to visit. They belong to Porsche and Mercedes, companies with vast histories rich in exotic cars and engineering prowess.

You’re missing a trick if you stop at those two, though. Hire a car and head an hour or so southeast, to Augsburg, and you’ll discover a museum with even rarer and cleverer cars tucked into a more modest building. An old tram shed, in fact. This is the Mazda Classic Automobile Museum, and it’s fabulous.

Rather than being run by the company as a glorified showroom, it’s a more endearing and intimate building operated by Walter Frey and his sons. Walter’s family-run Mazda dealer has been a staple in Augsburg for decades, and when his personal collection of classic models spilled into uncontrollable territory, he decided it was finally time to do something about it.

Images: Tom Salt