Feature Car Photo 1966 Barracuda V-8 owned by Bruce & Wendy Pine

The Automobile Driving Museum

Being taken for a ride isn’t always a bad thing as this unique little museum proves.
This place is one of the best kept secrets around. If it had not been for Nick, I may have gone my whole life having never experienced a ride in a ’47 Studebaker convertible. Of the few automobile museums I have had the pleasure of attending this is my favorite so far. To start with, we had a very knowledgeable young man named Alec Carlson who was our museum docent on the tour. Did I mention that he was 12 years old?!?! Yes, nearly all of the cars in there predated him by half a century at least, but to hear this young man talk about the cars, it was as if he lived then as well. He was especially happy to have our little group since he is also a Plymouth fan and says he rarely has anybody on tour who loves old Plymouths. Hard to imagine but its true. There will be a picture of him and “his” ‘41 Special Deluxe in the next newsletter. Alec was very impressed with Bob’s ‘38. This museum assigns each of its docents a car to take care of and the '41 is his and he loves it. Alec cannot wait to take her out for drives some day when he is 16. This is not the only Plymouth in the museum. They also have a very unique custom bodied ‘32 Plymouth town car that was used by Roosevelt family. Why a poor mans car you say? Well, because it would look bad for an elected official to drive anything too ostentatious while the masses were suffering through the Depression. Unfortunately, this car along with a handful of other highly valuable cars were kept in their own climate controlled room, behind glass so you could not get too close. However the rest of the cars you could walk around and touch and even sit in. Something you can’t do at most car shows or other museums! If you like Packards and I definitely do, this museum is awash in them. Well like most tours they end in the gift shop and or cafe and this one was no exception. But it was a good thing since we were thirsty from all the car talk and drooling. Nick our gracious sponsor and host for the event treated us not only by paying our entrance donation but also treated us to root beer floats. Nick even tried to buy one for our docent Alec, but he politely declined saying he gets them for free as part of the perks that go along with the job. After sucking down our floats we headed outside to take rides in the 3 cars brought out for tours that day: a 58’ Nash Metropolitan hard top, 47’ Studebaker Champion convertible, and Alec’s 41’ Plymouth sedan. The docent who took us for the rides confided in us that the Plymouth was the easiest car to drive in the whole museum. Hmmm…. Makes me wonder what he tells the Packard club when they come. At any rate the cars were fun to cruise in. We all know soft sprung heavy cars with living room couch cushy bench seats, and tall side wall tires make for a pillow soft floaty ride and the Plymouth and Studebaker were prime examples. The exception perhaps being the Metro. I plan on coming back when they bring the ’35 Chrysler Airflow out for rides. Members in attendance were: Nick Desimone, Tom Reed, Richard Butler, Bob Davis and his friend Dennis. 

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