 |
In another building that houses 175 cars, to my amazement I found a 1954 Mercury Sun Valley that we used to own. This car was sold at a Silver Collector Car Auction back in the middle eighties. The car has approximately 34,000 original miles on the odometer. We purchased it from the estate of an elderly gentleman in New Jersey. My brother saw the car in an ad in Hemmings Motor News. He flew back to New Jersey and drove the car out to Spokane. |
| If you favor MoPar cars you will find them all here. Chryslers 300s, etc. will leave your head spinning trying to take it all in. |
 |
 |
It’s the same story here with Pontiacs. How many are enough? Well, Harold LeMay wanted to save them all, and from the looks of this collection, I think that he did. |
| Here is a beautiful Chrysler Town and Country convertible. Unfortunately due to limited space the cars are packed so closely together that you can’t get a good view from all sides. Hopefully the magnificent new museum that is planned with solve that problem. |
 |
 |
Here is a car that is so ugly it’s cute. I think that it is about a 1939 Graham Paige. The aero nose and headlights were a bit much. But it was oh so futuristic in its day. |
| If you walk the grounds you will find all sorts of vehicles lurking out behind the buildings. This hulk of a Mercury convertible would make a fine landscaping object if it were to be sunk into the ground, filled with dirt and then planted with petunias. It makes as much sense as an old rowboat filled with flowers. |
 |
 |
Thunderbirds. They’re all there. These cars are on the second floor of a building at the LeMay home site. They must have used a huge fork-lift to get them up there. |
| Early Ford V-8 Club members, here are your favorite cars. The problem was that if I were to take photos of all of the great cars this article would become encyclopedic. |
 |
 |
Another room has brass cars from the turn of the century. And, I didn’t even get in to the Packard room. Other rooms hold, Corvettes, sports cars, fire trucks, custom cars, old farm tractors. It goes on and on. Harold LeMay did not limit his interests to any one era or make of automobile. |
| Here is an unusual car. It’s a 1939 Chrysler Phaeton designed for the English royalty. Bet you’ve never seen one of these before! |
 |
 |
A rare find… it is a fiberglass mock-up for something that the American Motors Company was working on. This appears to be a non-functional styling exercise. |
| Here is an architect’s rendering of how the new museum will appear. The building will have a spiral of several stories inside on which the cars will be displayed.
If you are a serious car collector of if you just love fine automobiles, go to the LeMay Museum web site for more information.
http://www.lemaymuseum.org
Go see the collection. Donate your time or money to this national treasure.
WDM
|
 |
This entry was posted
on Saturday, February 19th, 2005 at 10:26 pm by admin and is filed under Car museums.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This is a fantastic museum, and you probably never heard of it. It’s not advertised. You can get a partial guided tour throughout most of the year, but there is just one day of each year set aside for the “grand tour”. The last Saturday in August of each year there is also an “open house” at the LeMay residence where you can see several hundred more cars than you can see normally. The price of admission is a steal at $10 ($5 for military). If you truly love classic cars, this is the day to come—It’s definetly worth the trip. Mark your calenders!!!
Several years ago, 2002 I believe, My husband and I went to the LeMay car show in Tacoma. A dream was born when we spotted a 1959 Cadillac Coupe De Ville. It was black with flames; lowered to the ground and had exhaust along the rocker pannels. I have been looking for a picture of this vehicle ever since. It has become a dream car that some day we can match up to. If you know where I could find a picture of this vehicle I would love to know.
It was great to see such a collection of vehicles.
Mo
I have a 1968 Cadillac Deville convertible that was left by my late father in 1998! This vehicle was perfect when i received it but, do to a series of unfortunate events(army deployment, homlessness, and a towing company stealing/towing)the vehicle that I had to purchase back from the towing company, has badly deteriorated. Needless to say I really would like to pass it on to my oldest son, but unless I do something quickly it will fade away! Maybe in exchange for displaying this vehicle in your museum, is it possible that you can sponsor it’s restoration? I can be reached at (407)908-6474.