My answer to today’s Ask is I wouldn’t, as I can’t see a reason to buy something I can’t drive and enjoy, and I certainly don’t have the room to display a whole-ass car as a work of art. Even if I were bucks-up, I don’t think I would enjoy owning museum cars that I see primarily as investments, just wasting away in some climate-controlled hangar. Better they just stay in the museum while I invest my cash in something guaranteed to pay off, perhaps a comprehensive NeeDoh collection.
Then again, not every museum car is that precious. The Lane Motor Museum has a bunch of cars I could see myself enjoying, and with many microcars on site, maybe I could actually display one in my living room.
Likewise, Honda’s museum in New Zealand (which prompted today’s AA) has a number of wonderful options up for auction that I would be happy to own, including a 260,000-mile Civic. Surely a few more miles won’t hurt it. I’ll let Antti explain, as he generously did in Slack:
Honda is closing a museum in New Zealand that has collected some of the most memorable Hondas built in NZ, up until 1998. Those are now being auctioned on the Trade Me platform, and all 19 cars have already met their reserve with several days left in the auction. All proceeds will go to local charities in the Nelson area.
Thing is, I love it when museums sell off stuff. They’re usually really interesting cars and quite often – but not always! – well kept. Factory museums usually should have access to parts, too. However, if you buy a car from a museum floor, like in this case, there’s this implied idea, at least in my mind, that you’re supposed to continue keeping it in the same shape. Otherwise, you’re ruining a museum piece.
Now, with a Civic which has 418,000km on the clock, you’re continuing the story. It’s different than with a factory-fresh-looking car that has maybe a few thousand on the clock: can you use it? But if you take a regular car that has museum history but isn’t The Only One Of Its Kind In The World, you don’t have to have museum facilities yourself to do the car a service (both literally and conceptually). The car is still really nice, but you can continue doing your own thing rather than worry about it, as long as it doesn’t rust into pieces like an old Honda is eager to do. And nobody better steal it.
Your turn:
What Car Would You Buy From A Museum?
There are any number of absolutely bizarre examples that I would happily steal from the Lane in Nashville.
Torch and I could be 2CV buddies. The Lane has a 2CV on display that you are allowed to actually sit in – I don’t think there aren’t a lot of car museums where you’re allowed to sit in the display.
Just a few steps away from that, there’s a glorious Tatra 603.
There’s the extremely experiment Gyro Car. It makes me think of Gyro Gearloose from the Scrooge McDuck comic books.
There are droves of adorably twee little compacts and micro cars. I lurves them like they were all puppies.
I could go on. You would get tired of it.
I didn’t even know anyone built cars in New Zealand
A small car museum near me closed a number of years ago. Mostly 50s/60s classics with a couple of oddballs mixed in. One of those oddballs was an Owosso Pulse, which is something I’d absolutely love to own, and screw museum status, I’d drive the thing. I actually put a bid in on it but the price rapidly soared well into 5 figures which I didn’t have a prayer of affording back then.
Pulse, you mean what was originally the Pulse Litestar?
I actually saw one of those driving by one day.
Sort of. Basically the same vehicle, but the Pulse was built in Owosso, MI while the Scranton Litestar was the earlier model built in Iowa after Jim Bede got himself in financial hot water and was court-ordered to stop selling his BD5 airplane – he took the fiberglass molds for the plane and wrapped the bodies around stretched motorcycles to sell while waiting out his ban.
A few differences between the two, but most would never be noticed by the general public. To be extra confusing, the actual company name that produced both was Tomorrow, but for some reason everyone uses the manufacturing location instead of the company name.
I would absolutely buy the Mustang II Concept from the Henry Ford Collection, and I’d drive the shit out of it.
I’ve been eying this thing since I was a pre-teen. First I was confused as to why it was called a Mustang II 10 years early, but I’ve been eyeing it for decades now and it wants to come home with me.
And you could tell people you own a Dan Gurney car!
I didn’t even make that connection! I’ll make sure to drive down Carroll Shelby Drive while doing so and regaling them with details about the GT40 development that no one but me cares about.
You mean like how there’s a Mk3 that’s actually meant for the road and that’s the one you really want? Yeah, I’m that guy too.
BMW M1.
Here in Naples, FL we have an amazing museum, the Revs Institute. Tucked in amongst the GT40s (plural) and Corvette Grand Sport and the Bugatti 35b and the Mercedes SSKL and the huge collection of racing Porsches is a lovely little ivory-colored Lancia Aurelia B20 Coupe. It gets completely ignored by most museumgoers, but it’s one of my favorite cars in the collection because it’s something I could actually imagine myself driving. Like nearly all of the cars in the collection it’s in perfect running condition and gets regularly exercised. I’ve often thought about how much I’d love to own that car.
https://revsinstitute.org/vehicle/1952-lancia-aurelia#social
The 250LM in the lobby when we were there was the first thing that came to mind. Fantasy car at a fantasy price – absolutely! Amazing collection, one of the best and I get around.
Last time I visited, the 250LM was not in its usual lobby spot. I was disappointed right up until I went into the workshop (I signed up for the docent tour which I ordinarily don’t do but it’s the only way to get in there) and there it was all opened up and being prepped for an event. Awesome.
Fantastic!
Lets se If this link works https://i0.wp.com/orlandoautomuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cars-of-the-Stars-Mad-Max.jpg?ssl=1&fit=3835%2C1785
How about the 1964 Amphicar?
https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/amphicar-1964/
The 1963 Mustang II concept car that the Detroit Historical Society owns. It actually drives – they take it out to events occasionally I understand – and most people wouldn’t think of it as anything else but a vintage Mustang, albeit a slightly odd looking one.
But I’d probably very shortly then donate it to the Henry Ford to preserve it and so it could have the matched set of both Mustang concepts.
The Henry Ford already has it’s sibling, I stop to see it every time I go. And I’m buying that one as I already stated, so maybe they’ll need another one.
Does Jay Lenos garage count? I could pick a dozen
Combining my dream car with a rare museum piece with a cool story – if I had the money, I would totally buy Smokey Yunick’s 1966 Chevelle.
Depends on what is for sale. But as I don’t have museum space it’s getting driven
I don’t remember where I saw it, but I would love the Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 I once saw sort of pointlessly sitting at an airplane museum. It had nothing to do with anything at the museum aside from sitting next to a German airplane.
I’d also love the pair of the GMC Syclone and Typhoon I saw at a now-defunct car museum in Texas. It’s been a few decades, but I think the museum was outside of Houston on the way to Austin. Wherever it was, both of those turbo GMCs were, and are, my cup of tea.
The 2-6-6-6 Allegheny locomotive from the Henry Ford Museum. But something tells me I’d get in trouble with my local road commission. https://www.thehenryford.org/images/thehenryfordlibraries/blog-images/thf17920.jpg?sfvrsn=74637ab5_0
Steering it during your daring escape will prove tricky.
‘Steering’ the locomotive without tracks worked great in The Polar Express. “I saw it in a cartoon once. I think I can do it.”
In 1998 Boucherville Canada was so affected by the ice/snow storm that they moved a diesel-electric loco off the tracks and drove it on surface streets to where it could be adapted to provide emergency power to the shelters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_3502
After the emergency was over, both the road and the loco needed repairs.
I recall hearing about this at the time. Fascinating!
I would buy an Alfasud Sprint or Fiat X1/9 from a museum, because both cars have stuff I’d love to experience, but I would need a guarantee that the body has been stored indoors away from moisture, so that I could then flood its runners and quarter panels with fluid film while they’re still pristine.
There’s a beautiful ’70 Dodge Challenger RT convertible with a shaker hood at the “Edge” motor museum in Memphis (just down the block from Sun Records). I’d take that one and drive it on every nice weekend. It’s not a large museum, but it has a cool eclectic collection of cars. They also host a Cars and Coffee once a month (with coffee and scones and free admittance for anyone who brings a car). Cool place.
I agree… car’s are meant to be driven.
https://edge-motor-museum-web.web.app/
https://www.edgemotormuseum.com/
The Lotus Elite at the Barber Motorsports Museum.
Ford Festiva.
And then go dumpster diving for a crashed Suzuki Hayabusa.
Been to the Lane and loved every minute. I also like that most of the cars there aren’t ‘perfect’ and could conceivably be actually used as intended. I know Jeff does run them on occasion and hosts special events for doing so.
As a college student I sought solace at the Crawford Auto and Aviation museum in Cleveland. I went with dad to the Don Garlits Museum outiside of Tampa this spring. I bet his custom built M-body New Yorker is a trip to drive. Guessing it packs a bit more than a smogged 318 under the hood…
Got to put some respect on his name. He’s Big Daddy Don Garlits. 🙂
Oh yes, I recall watching him on the old TNN towards the end of his career. Him, Kenny Bernstein, John Force, Bill Gidden were the titans of their classes.
In the twenty-mid-teens there was a staff-only auction of the Lotus Type 119, 119b and 119c.
As the only remaining staff member who’d work on the gravity racers I put in some big bids on the 119 and 119c (the ones I worked on).
The winner of this staff auction was somehow the Barber Motorsport Museum, a result that seems wildly unfair.
I was at the time touring schools with the 119c and giving lectures, so all that had to stop.
Anyway, I’d like the 119 please. I’ve driven it just over a mile and it was hilarious. I don’t fit in the 119c, but I’d have that too.
They can keep the 119b, the wheels fall off.
I don’t know that I would, unless it was a museum that operates a car lot on the side for financial support
Otherwise, its something that’s been sitting for a long time with questionable maintenance. Plus, most, not all, but most, car museums are more situations where a small town car hoarder in a touristy area decided to start charging admission to wander around his metal warehouse building, in those cases, having been in a museum isn’t any real indicator of quality or provenance
The local vehicle museum, Wheels O’ Time, has two things on exhibit I’d look at buying, had I the money:
A 1980s March Indycar chassis set up as an American Racing Series car.
A live steam model of a Toledo, Peoria & Western H-10 class 4-8-4.
…other people might say the pair of black Mercedes 300SLs that reside near the Indycar, roadster and gullwing, buuuut…
Edit: oh, one more thing, and I can probably actually afford this one: they have a Schwinn Stingray Fastback. I want the Stingray Fastback.
Pretty much any of the cars that are in Honda’s museum in Torrance, California: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/history-of-american-honda-on-display-in-los-angeles
Just going by the photos, my shopping list would be:
That first gen CRX, that first gen Acura Integra, that first gen Acura Legend, that Valkyrie, and, of course, that NSX.
The Honda Museum has a Z600 “Coupe” and I’d be happy to take that home.
I had one, and would dearly love another.
There is a Toyota 2000GT sitting in the Louwman Museum that I’ve drooled over both times I’ve been there. That’s the one I want. It’s a car that really should be driven.
Excellent response
oooh, we’re talking cars we can’t afford or fit in comfortably to personally drive, but experience with internet monies.
The “convertible” 2000GT that Sean Connery rides in in You Only Live Twice was decapitated because that was the only way they were going to get him to fit. At 6’2″, his head would have poked out of a sunroof or targa top and would have looked ridiculous; without a top at all neither he nor the car looked completely wrong, though in the movie you can clearly see that the top of the windshield is about level with his eyebrows.
Seconded. Excellent response.
Obviously one where acquiring the car includes an adventure where I run through elaborate traps and get to kick some Nazi butt.