About us
History of the Transport and toy museum
Formerly known as the Wānaka Transport and Toy Museum, our museum is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest private collection open to the public and has been over 50 years in the making. The Museum’s founder, Mr Gerald Rhodes, started his career with International Harvester, and then went on to establish his own car and truck wrecking business in Christchurch - meaning he was always in the right place to pick up new items for his collection.
Wānaka was chosen as the home for Gerald’s collection for the dry Central Otago climate, which helps preserve the machinery. Building began in October 1994, and although there were many obstacles to overcome, the Museum started to take shape.
The Museum opened to the public on December 26, 1995, making the dream a reality. At that time, it was just two buildings - the Main Building and Hangar 1, which was built to look like the aviation hangars used in the 1940s with authentic hangar doors from Christchurch Airport. In April 2004, the Fire Station was added, followed in December 2005 by Hangar 2, to house military collectables, planes and motorbikes.
Striving to preserve
The National Transport and Toy Museum was established with one fundamental goal in mind: ‘Striving to preserve’. The Museum would not exist without Gerald’s passion for collecting and his dedication to preserving and showcasing New Zealand’s unique social history.
He built his private museum from auctions, flea markets, garage sales, newspapers, magazines and word of mouth. Increasingly, people visiting Wānaka would find that the Transport and Toy Museum was where they would like their personal collection, vintage toys or heritage car to be, and would be willing to sell or donate it to the Museum.
This is a New Zealand museum. Almost all of the toys have been purchased in New Zealand, mainly from the Christchurch/ Canterbury Region. Only 3% of the vehicles are from overseas, 10% from the North Island and the rest from the South Island of New Zealand. The collection is financed by the owner and visitors.
When Gerald passed away in 2015, his son Jason and daughter Debbie took over his vision and collection. Nowadays, the Museum has a huge range of exhibits and is one of the top things to do in Wānaka for families from all over New Zealand. There are over 60,000 items on display and new items are always being added - plus the Toy Shop is a hotspot with locals and visitors alike.
‘You could spend a whole day here. Do not drive past…you will miss seeing something very special…’
The team
Debbie and Jason can generally be found in the Toy Shop or Museum every day except Christmas. They live right on site, so they’re always around for those late night transport deliveries!
They run the show with the help of a few regular volunteers - Ross, Doug, Ken, Andy and Dick - and many more who stop by when they can. Tuesdays at the Museum are usually known as ‘volunteer Tuesdays’ when our dedicated volunteers join us for a day and help out with tasks like cleaning, blowing up tyres and moving the cars around, or focus on a project of their choosing. Morning and afternoon tea are on us - after all, our volunteers complete so much valuable work for the Museum and are so generous with their time and knowledge.
One of our most recent projects was the famous giant Santa who towered over Auckland’s Queen Street at Christmas for about 60 years, and recently found a new home at the National Transport and Toy Museum. Greg von Heraud-Parker repainted his face, gave him a new set of eyes, and his face is now on display outside our fire station. We hope in the future to put him back together - he’s quite a big boy!
