CAR MUSEUM

While flying towards Liwa you will see a Lockheed L1011 TriStar airliner equipped with three Rolls-Royce engines, one of which is a tail engine, landed in the middle of the desert next to a metallic pyramid! We rub our eyes, but this is the private museum of Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, former aide-de-camp to Sheikh Zayed, otherwise known as the "Rainbow" Sheikh. He did not shy away from the challenge of having this plane (250 produced between 1972 and 1984) towed over 100 km by road. Impossible to miss the stop sign in the straight line of the desert, you will see on the side of the road a giant Land Rover, the Gullivierian watchman of this eccentric museum, which is a combination of the palace of the "facteur Cheval" and the little store of the "folies roulantes". Observe the oversized Willys, the globe and its dwellings, and then, in the sheikh's collection, the classic models and the others, generally customized to his taste, like for example this Mercedes coupe with gold grille and rainbow upholstery. Many luxury models, but also an adorable multicolored Fiat 500, a lot of minis, a Moke tropézienne and the inevitable 2CV! The highlight of the show was the 50-ton Dodge Power Wagon, with built-in chambers, and the seven "Mothers Cedes" for the seven days of the week, painted in seven different (atrocious) colors by the Hamburg-based styling garage. Ah, that legendary German good taste of the disco years! The sheikh now lives in Morocco, always surrounded by cars, each one crazier than the next.