TOY CUPBOARD

Toy Cupboard

Visting Lev Leviev’s Garage 9/22 in Riga to see a unique collection of 997s.

“For a long time, my cars were stored in commercial facilities, or worse, the underground parking bays at my office or apartment building, which never felt right. Cars like these deserve a space and atmosphere that reflects their beauty.”

Tucked away in a custom built storage facility in Riga, Lev Leviev’s collection spans some of the best German cars from the early 1990s right through to the late 2000s, a period increasingly looked back on as a golden era for a particular genre of car. At the core of the collection sits a cluster of Porsches, each a little different from one another but all firmly rooted in a single generation, the 997.

“There’s a purity to the 997 generation”, says Leviev. “It looks so beautiful and true. Modern enough to live with, but carrying that sense of legacy that I believe represents the 911 better than any other car. It feels like it was the last of something, even if we didn’t fully realise it at the time.”

Inevitably when a collection grows to a certain size, the space you keep it in becomes as important as the cars contained within. For that, Leviev approached his friend Dave Komare of Komare Studios, devising an interior that “reflects the same era and sensibilities of the cars themselves”.

Lev Leviev’s collection spans some of the best German cars from the early 1990s right through to the late 2000s, a period increasingly looked back on as a golden era for a particular genre of car.

“There’s a purity to the 997 generation, it looks so beautiful and true. Modern enough to live with, but carrying that sense of legacy that I believe represents the 911 better than any other car.

Garage 9/22, as it’s come to be known, covers two floors. The lower level keeps the cars, while the upper hosts a range of vintage furniture, memorabilia, hifi equipment and even a home theatre. Far more than a storage unit, the whole space is a comprehensive celebration of all the culture that gave rise to this golden era of cars, painting the full picture in this quiet corner of Latvia.