Old Things R New

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Day 9 (Friday Oct.7, 2016)

After a few direction problems with Greta, my first stop this morning was to visit the National Automotive & Truck Museum located in Auburn, IN. This museum consists of 200+ vehicles, located on two levels, representing mainly cars from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The cars were packed so close together that it made it difficult to get a good photo of any individual car or truck.

In the same block, was the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Automobile Museum. This was one of the most fascinating museums that I’ve visited. It has 7 galleries which display some 125 beautifully restored 1903-1937 cars. I was surprised to learn from one of the roving docents that, during these years, the Auburn was what today we would have considered the Chevrolet of its time; the Cord was considered the Oldsmobile; and the Duesenberg was considered the Cadillac.

Each of these cars was beautifully designed, and technically advanced for its time. What little I had known about these cars, over the years, had led me to believe that each one was to be considered at the top of its class for its time.

    1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster

                                                     1936 Cord Convertible Coupe

1932 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Coupe

These two museums were among several auto museums, in the Auburn area, that had put together a “Museum Passport” type brochure, to advertise each of their museums. When I showed my passport, each museum would give me a discount on their admission price and stamp my passport. This handy passport had the name, address, and phone number for each of the eight cooperating museums in the Auburn area.

This really helped solve the rest of my direction problems with Greta, in Auburn. When I arrived at the next museum location, I discovered that four of the other museums, I wanted to visit there in Auburn, were all located in this same museum complex.

First on the list was the Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum, which features a variety of vehicles, including beautifully restored Classic Cars, Custom Hot Rods, TV/Movie Super Hero cars and costumes, Indy race cars, and Monster Trucks. There were also early antique horse-drawn carriages of all types (including several British Royal Carriages) dating from the late 1700s.

Next was the National Military History Center, located in the same building. This museum has a great display of military vehicles, equipment, and memorabilia to help present future generations with a better understand of the unique role of the U.S. Military Armed Services.

Located there in the same Museum Complex, was the Gallery 326 Antique Mall which was closed the day I was there. However, it appears from their web site, that this is an auction center which boasts of over 100 dealers of high-quality collectibles including vintage automobiles.

Next I visited the Early Ford V-8 Foundation Museum, also located there in the Museum Complex. This small museum consists of the history of the Ford Motor Company vehicles produced from 1903 to the present, with emphasis on the 1932-1953 Ford cars, utilizing the flathead V-8 engine and its many variants.

Next I visited the Hoosier Air Museum, located a short distance from the Auburn Museum Complex. This was a very small museum, with about a dozen aircraft in one hanger. The tour guide was, I believe, the curator and part owner of the museum, and had lots of details about each of the museums aircraft.

By now I was getting pretty tired and decided to head for tonight’s motel, located on the outskirts of Montpelier, Ohio. After checking in, I asked the desk clerk for recommendations about a good restaurant in the area and he said, “Try the Four Seasons Restaurant next door, they have good food.”  Well, the restaurant next door looked to me like a pretty small Mom-&-Pop type place, so I drove down the highway into Montpelier and found no restaurants. I turned around and drove the other way down the highway for a ways, and found no restaurants. So, I gave up and went back to the Four Seasons Restaurant, and had one of the best Lasagna dinners I’ve ever had. I should have known. Right?

I had saved half of my Shoofly Pie from last night, and had that for dessert again tonight back in the motel. That really went well while I watched TV. Yuuum!

—–To Be Continued—–

Tags: Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Automobile Museum, Hoosier Air Museum, Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum, National Automotive & Truck Museum, National Military History Center, Travel, Travel Series