From the road, you may not notice anything out of the ordinary about Ron Schneider’s property at Marnoo in the Wimmera farming region of western Victoria.

But if you get the chance to head up the driveway, you’ll see an old Cessna resting to the left and a plane marked “US Air Force” on the right.

They are just two of hundreds of heritage cars, planes, machines and military vehicles — including a tank — in the 80-year-old’s collection.

Mr Schneider began collecting the historical pieces two decades ago, having always been fascinated by planes.

“I remember we used to holiday down at Geelong, and there was Belmont Common there which was an airfield, and I vaguely remember — I might have only been five or six or seven years old — some aircraft parked there” he said.

“In recent years I found that they were actually Avro Ansons that were parked there … so I’ve always been very much interested in aircraft of some kind.”

Most of the planes in Mr Schneider’s collection came from the RAAF Museum at Point Cook in Melbourne’s south-west.

One of his jewels is a full-sized Douglas Dakota plane from 1945, the military model of the classic DC-3.

The behemoth towers over his yard; its interior virtually untouched since it was last flown in the 1980s.

It was a VIP aircraft used for prime ministers, dignitaries and potentially even the Queen Mother, according to one story Mr Schneider hasn’t been able to verify.

Certain amenities from the time remain like electric fans and a small galley.

Further along the yard is a Canberra bomber without its wings, but the cockpit and all its mechanics are still intact.

“Quite a lot of the Canberra bombers were just cut up and melted down,” Mr Schneider said.

“That one that I’ve got was actually destined to go on a fire dump for firefighting practice, but it was saved from that and then put up for tender.