Shifting Gear

In a first for an Australian art institution, the National Gallery of Victoria hosts an exhibition of cars in 2015. Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation and the Australian Car presents some of our most iconic vehicles as objects of art and design. This exhibition celebrates Australia’s important and proud history of automobile design and engineering. It also looks to the future of the automobile industry in this country and the shift from manufacturing, which has primarily serviced a local market, to being a global contributor through specialist expertise.

Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation and the Australian Car traces the development of the family car from its earliest form, as a steam-powered ‘horseless carriage’, through to its present-day role as a major design object and highly refined and efficient means of transport. It presents the stories behind the development of some of the great Australian vehicles and reveals the designers who styled them. It also considers the significant contribution Australian designers and engineers have made, and continue to make, to the car industry through specialist design capacity and expert knowledge.