Automobile museum of Vendée, Automobile museum in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, France.
The Musée automobile de Vendée occupies a 3,300 m² hall on the route des Sables-d'Olonne in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, where 160 vehicles from a collection of more than 200 are displayed. The exhibition is divided into five parts: vehicles from 1885 to 1920, 1920 to 1940, 1940 to 1960, 1960 to 2000, and other objects linked to the automobile. Period posters and advertising panels cover the walls.
Gaston Giron began the collection in 1939, and his family continued it, saving more than 200 vehicles from the 1880s onward, including prototypes. The museum displays 160 of them in a 3,300 m² hall, and it includes a reconstruction of Giron's first garage, opened in 1929 at Saint-Pierre-du-Chemin.
The collection shows how cars have shaped everyday life and travel habits across generations. Walking through the rooms, you can see how transportation needs changed what people expected from their vehicles.
The museum is easy to reach along the road between Les Sables d'Olonne and Talmont-Saint-Hilaire and offers wheelchair access throughout. You can move through the rooms at your own pace, as the layout is straightforward and visitor-friendly.
The museum displays a reconstruction of Gaston Giron's first garage from 1929 in Saint-Pierre-du-Chemin, showing where the family's vehicles were maintained and repaired. The collection itself began in 1939 and now safeguards more than 200 vehicles, from machines of the 1880s to prototypes of the future.
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