Up until 1937 or so, Auburn was home to these three makes of automobiles, until they fell victim to the ravages of the Great Depression. The actual museum itself is housed in the building constructed in 1930 as their corporate headquarters and is where all the design and marketing decisions were made. Adjacent to the headquarters building were the actual production facilities, but, alas, they are all gone now.
Anyway, here are some pics from today:
First, a few of the cars on display in the Art-Deco building:
A 1934 Duesenberg:
A 1932 Auburn:
A 1937 Cord:
This little flashy model is a 1932 Duesenberg:
And a few other junkers just lying about:
These cars are all immaculate and beautiful.
Anyway, the next stop was Hostetler's Hudson Museum in Shipshewana, IN. (I'm not making this up!). It seems Mr. Hostetler struck gold by inventing a watering system for hen houses and invested a bunch of his money in Hudson cars. I didn't count, but there must have been 100 or so in his collection, going all the way from the first decade of the 20th Century to the time Hudson merged with Packard to form American Motors in the mid 1950's. The collection is very impressive and quite interesting:
A few from prior to 1910:
Some from the 1920's:
And some from the 1950's:
Pretty nice collection for a guy who was into feeding chickens.
The last stop was the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. I've been here several times before and while it doesn't measure up the the ACD Museum in Auburn, it's worth the stop. Studebaker is interesting because they began operations in the mid-19th century, making wagons and carriages and then switched to automobiles around the turn of the 20th Century. A few I thought were especially beautiful were these:
Anyway, full day today. Tomorrow I'm off to Hickory Corners, MI for the Gilmore Car Museum (Largest in the World) and the Ypsilanti Auto Heritage Museum in (you guessed it!) Ypsilanti, MI.
Miles today: 113
Total: 490
