[4][5] Restoration and earthquake strengthening of the building was completed in 2002 and overhaul of the long dormant Beam Engine commenced at the start of 2005.

[5] A range of other early steam engines are kept in running order including a 1910 Tangye steam engine, an impressive 1911 triple-expansion engine built by Campbell Calderwood from Paisley, Scotland, which was formerly from the ill-fated Sydney Ferry Greycliffe which sank on 3 November 1927 after being hit by the much larger Union Steam Ship Company's Royal Mail Steamship Tahiti with the loss of 40 lives.

The displays include miscellaneous parts from Richard Pearse's experimental aircraft, (together with research supporting the claim that he made uncontrolled hops/flights prior to the Wright brothers), a replica of the craft which was flown and his third aircraft (an attempt at a VTOL tilt rotor craft).

The Road transport collection rotationally displays in excess of 100 cars, trucks, motorbikes and emergency vehicles.

Other vehicles include a 1960s Cooper Climax race car, an early American Brush Motor Car Company runabout, an International horseless carriage, an Austin Motor Company beer tanker (the first in New Zealand) and a wide number of other vehicles.

Also in the collection is one of the Ferguson Company tractors which Edmund Hillary used to lay supply depots for the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and with which he beat British explorer Dr Vivian Fuchs Sno-Cats to the South Pole on 3 January 1958.

Also known in the past as the 'Sir Keith Park Memorial Airfield', named after Keith Park, the Battle of Britain and Battle of Malta hero, MOTAT's aviation collection is on a separate site, neighbouring the Waitematā Harbour and Auckland Zoo.

It contains memorials to Fleet Air Arm and RAF Bomber Command pilots, radar and other aviation related material, as well as workshops for work on other vehicles, but the main feature is the collection of New Zealand's civil and some Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft.

In November 2011 a Douglas A4K Skyhawk jetfighter was permanently loaned to MOTAT followed by a de Havilland Devon and Aermacchi MB-339 jet trainer in 2012.

MOTAT features several major collections of transport vehicles: Tramlines on sleepered track set under bitumen were laid within the museum boundaries with trams commencing operation on 16 December 1967.

A further extension along Motions Road to Auckland Zoo commenced services on 5 December 1981 using rail set in mass concrete.

In 2006–07 the tram line was further extended by a distance of 636 metres, to the aviation hangar at MOTAT 2, the service commencing on 27 April 2007.