Which is the Better Car Museum

Trying to Decide whether or not to go to Toyoto or the Mazda Museum and which one is better? My husband really wants to see one and I don't think we will have time for both.

I've been to the Mazda Museum and it was a nice experience. It's much easier to get to, if that's any help!

TOYOTA(not Toyoto) no need booking also good.

But each museum locate quite different in Aichi,PF or Hiroshima,PF.
Where to go musesum before/after?

Your husband which motor do you like?
What car name want to see?

I recommend Mazda museum. It is located near hiroshima station, so you will able to enjoy the sightseeing other than Mazda museum.

The Mazda Museum is more conveniently located, although you have to book ahead for a factory tour. It's not that big though, but definitely worth a visit.

As for Toyota, there's the Toyota factory tour starting from the Toyota Kaikan Museum in Toyota City, which is basically a rather fancy showroom. Recommended for the factory tour itself, not so much for the museum.

However, you can combine this with a visit to the Toyota Automobile Museum in Nagakute, which is an entirely different animal. This is a huge museum with mostly pre-war European and American cars, and mostly post-war Japanese cars. Not just Toyota, but about every brand you can think of. Highly recommended!

Short answer: Mazda.

Long answer: Basically with Mazda it is all in one place and is like a mini city. I won't spoil too much of the tour but they have their own port, their own power station, their own bridge, etc. You get a much better concept of the scale of it all at Mazda. The Museum at Mazda is also significantly larger, it includes all of their cars going back to when they first started, and also includes examples of the design process – clay models, including scale versions and full size – as well as the Le Mans winning 787B, quad rotors, engine cutaways, castings etc. The production line you get to see is their main production line with a good mix of the vast majority of Mazda cars.

Toyota is more spread out, the Museum at Head Office is much smaller, and more like a showroom. Also, they have multiple locations (12 or so) spread across the city that are their production plants, although only four really do vehicles. You don't know which one you get to see when you book and you only get to see one plant. Usually they only produce a couple of different cars at each plant. About the only main advantage of Toyota is that if you are lucky and get the correct plant, and they have the area open (sometimes you won't get to see it) you get to see the welding robots in action which are pretty impressive, although you are only in that area for a few minutes. When we went we saw the Motomachi Plant (Crown, Estima, Mark X) and were lucky enough to see the welding robots in action. I think the other plants they use for tours is Takaoka (iQ, Auris, Corolla) and Tsutsumi (Allion, Camry, Scion tC, Prius, Premio)

Mazda is only 10 minutes from Hiroshima Station whereas Toyota takes about 90 minutes from Nagoya.

I am biased and I've been to Mazda three times now, but there were four car guys who did Mazda and Toyota in the one trip when we went for the Suzuka F1 and everyone agreed Mazda was significantly better :)

We also went to the other two Toyota sites in Nagoya which are pretty interesting but quite different to a factory tour, one is just a car museum really.

Enjoy your trip!

In addition to my earlier post: I would say it depends on how much time you're willing to spend.

Mazda indeed has everything conveniently together, not far from Hiroshima city center. In just a couple of hours, without much travel, you get to see both a great factory tour and a nice museum.

Toyota indeed means a lot more travel, so if you just want to go for a factory tour, don't. But if you have the time to add in the Toyota Automobile Museum (TAM), to me that would change everything. Not only is that museum a lot bigger than the Mazda museum, it's collection is so much more varied. The Mazda Museum has about 25 cars on display (only Mazda), the TAM has over 120 cars. Not just Toyota, but probably the most complete history of Japanese cars anywhere in the world. Obviously also including a couple of Mazda...

So I guess for you Mazda is the better option, but your husband will enjoy Toyota more. Make sure he doesn't read this ;-)