Things to Do in Dallas When You’re Bored: Haas Moto Museum
The Haas Moto Museum opened earlier this year, April 11 to be exact, with a beginning collection of 140 motorcycles. Six months later, there are over 180 cycles spanning 12 decades housed in the Museum and in an adjacent gallery in almost downtown Dallas, Texas.
How about a rare, frameless, hub-steered Majestic from the 1930s?
Ducati 125 Trialbero GP bike?
Keanu Reeves donated the prototype Arch.
It’s a pretty diverse group of motorcycles spread out over 20,000 square feet in Dallas’ chi-chi Design District, downtown adjacent. The History Hall contains 60 or so bikes arranged in chronological order, beginning with the early 1900s and right up to the present. From there, stroll to the Race Track exhibit, with, as the name implies, an eclectic assortment of historical racers. Meander through the Sidecar Alcove, where there are three-wheelers from from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, England, Denmark, Japan, and Italy…
And wind up in the Custom Shop, where 29 motorcycles serve as “a clear acknowledgement that the design and fabrication of one-off custom cycles in some sense represents the very pinnacle of motorcycle design and engineering. No other motorcycle museum in the world may boast a collection of sheer creativity and artistic excellence that rivals The Custom Shop at The Haas Museum.”
Haas is Robert B. Haas, call him Bobby, a man who claims to have been nicely overcompensated as a result of his mastery of leveraged buyouts. Later he took up photography. Later still, he rode his first motorcycle at the age of 64, has been hooked on bikes ever since, and is a well-know benefactor among the custom builder class.
Two blocks away is the Haas Gallery, a more intimate affair that’s not open so much, and where a 1938 Brough Superior SS80 is the queen of the 50 bikes housed there.
It would appear there area a lot of funds floating about, and so of course there’s also sculpture, some of which is for sale, and wouldn’t look half bad in one’s man cave, provided one’s man cave had room for more than just the usual tools, cars, motorcycles, and boxes full of junk that already are piled to the rafters in one’s garage. One just needs to be a better curator, really. Anyway, if you find yourself in Dallas, this looks like a great place to stop in and wander round for an hour or three.
Exit through the gift shop, please.