For some, this might be an easy question. For others, it’s a mystery. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer — even after over 30 years in the industry, I didn’t learn it until 2016 when the 100-year anniversary of the tow truck came around. The first tow truck was invented in 1916 by Ernest Holmes in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Holmes, a garage worker, was inspired to create the tow truck after a challenging recovery incident. He needed six men, blocks, and ropes to pull a car out of a creek. Determined to find a better way, Holmes improved on his design
and began manufacturing tow trucks commercially.
Yes, it’s true! Almost 40 years ago, a group of passionate towing professionals known as the Friends of Towing decided to establish a museum to honor the industry.
Today, the museum preserves the history of towing, displays artifacts and memorabilia, and provides information to the public. Today, it is known as the International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame & Museum and it is located in the birthplace of towing, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Since 1986, the museum has been recognizing individuals who have made significant contributions to the towing and recovery industry. A new class of inductees is honored in a special ceremony in the fall of each year. The Hall of Fame pays tribute to these trailblazers with portraits displayed on the museum’s walls.
In 2006, the museum unveiled the Wall of the Fallen to honor those who lost their lives while serving the motoring public across our industry. At the first dedication ceremony in 2007, the names of 94 towing operators were added to the wall. Each year, during a special fall ceremony, more names are added to remember the brave individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice.
You can support the museum and its mission by becoming a member of the International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame & Museum for as little as $150 a year. The museum is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and donations support its operations. Such donations are generally tax deductible.
Mark your calendars for the annual ceremony!
Each year, the museum hosts a special event to honor fallen drivers and induct new members into the Hall of Fame. If you’ve been in this remarkable industry for more than a few months, you owe it to yourself to visit the museum, especially during this annual event. It’s a chance to meet some of the great people who have shaped our industry and to immerse yourself in its rich heritage.
Make sure to put the International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame & Museum on your bucket list!
By Mike Porter,
Contributor
Image via Sean Mathis
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With its creative architecture and great attention to detail, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to over 1,400 motorcycles that span over 100 years of production. More than 650 bikes can be seen on any given day, and 200 different manufacturers from 20...
The Wellborn Musclecar Museum is devoted to the great American automobiles of the 1960’s and 1970’s, showcasing classics such as the Charger, the Roadrunner and the SuperBee, as well as the nation’s largest high-performance Dodge collection.
Miles Through Time Automotive Museum has over 100 years of must-see automotive history on display. This unique, co-op-style museum is located inside of Vintage Garage Antiques which is in an old textile mill called the Old Clarkesville Mill in Clarkesville, GA....
AACA Museum, Inc. at Hershey is a professionally staffed, collecting institution presenting semi-permanent and temporary exhibitions. Exhibitions are supported by educational programs for school and community audiences. It sponsors workshops and other activities...
The Cole Land Transportation Museum collects, preserves, and displays (before they disappear forever) a cross-section of Maine's land transportation equipment from which this and future generations will gain knowledge of the past. We also wish to remember, record...
With its creative architecture and great attention to detail, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to over 1,400 motorcycles that span over 100 years of production. More than 650 bikes can be seen on any given day, and 200 different manufacturers from 20...
automotive museum guide
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The Museum is dedicated to the ‘Red Arrow’ race and was brought to life by the Mille Miglia Museum Association. It was established in December 1996 by a group of Brescian businessmen known as the “Friends of the Mille Miglia”. The Association today has 50 shareholders.
The new Museum was opened to the public on 10 November 2004. Setting up this project involved restoring the Sant’Eufemia monastery complex, owned by the Brescia municipality. The property is of huge archaeological, historical and architectural value and had for some time been undergoing relentless degradation.
The Museum stands out from other automobile museums precisely because of its location at this hugely important historic site. The Mille Miglia Museum is the guardian of history there, telling its legendary story and providing living testament, day after day, to that period of the region’s past.
The Museum is not intended to be a simple archive. Instead, it aims to reconstruct this famous cultural sporting event, within the context of Italy’s vast history. The Mille Miglia Museum has been able to establish a collection of rare, four-wheeled gems, which it exhibits in its museum. This is all thanks to the devotion of private collectors and partnerships with other automobile museums, including a Cooperation Agreement the Mille Miglia has signed with the Mercedes-Benz Museum. The cars loaned to the Mille Miglia are arranged in the Museum before sets and backdrops that recall for visitors the various periods in which the race was alive.
Viale della Bornata, 123, 25135 Sant’Eufemia della Fonte BS, Italy
P: +390303365631
Email: segreteria@museomillemiglia.it
Plan: 2hr
Full price ticket: 10.00 euros.
People over 65: 8.00 euros.
People with disabilities: Free.
* The Museum is accessible to people with disabilities.
Disabled companions: 8.00 euros.
Children aged 9 to 16: 5.00 euros.
Children up to 8 years: free.
School groups: 5.00 euros/each.
Group ticket for over 20 people: 8.00 euros.
Daily 10 am – 5 pm
Image via https://www.museomillemiglia.it/
.
Miles Through Time Automotive Museum has over 100 years of must-see automotive history on display. This unique, co-op-style museum is located inside of Vintage Garage Antiques which is in an old textile mill called the Old Clarkesville Mill in Clarkesville, GA....
AACA Museum, Inc. at Hershey is a professionally staffed, collecting institution presenting semi-permanent and temporary exhibitions. Exhibitions are supported by educational programs for school and community audiences. It sponsors workshops and other activities...
The Cole Land Transportation Museum collects, preserves, and displays (before they disappear forever) a cross-section of Maine's land transportation equipment from which this and future generations will gain knowledge of the past. We also wish to remember, record...
With its creative architecture and great attention to detail, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to over 1,400 motorcycles that span over 100 years of production. More than 650 bikes can be seen on any given day, and 200 different manufacturers from 20...
automotive museum guide
Sign up to get updates about automotive museums right to your mailbox. Don't miss a thing. It's FREE.
Learn about North America's Automotive Museums you can visit.
We created the ultimate resource of America's Automotive Museums.
Crosstar Flag and Tag is an eclectic collection of modern art, including totem poles, created by an enthusiastic handyman, Al Childs.
103 S Central Ave,
Afton, OK 74331
P:228-326-1948
Email: crosstar48@gmail.com
Plan: 1hr
Free
Daily 8 am – 5 pm
Image via https://www.facebook.com/108164328601762/photos/
.
Miles Through Time Automotive Museum has over 100 years of must-see automotive history on display. This unique, co-op-style museum is located inside of Vintage Garage Antiques which is in an old textile mill called the Old Clarkesville Mill in Clarkesville, GA....
AACA Museum, Inc. at Hershey is a professionally staffed, collecting institution presenting semi-permanent and temporary exhibitions. Exhibitions are supported by educational programs for school and community audiences. It sponsors workshops and other activities...
The Cole Land Transportation Museum collects, preserves, and displays (before they disappear forever) a cross-section of Maine's land transportation equipment from which this and future generations will gain knowledge of the past. We also wish to remember, record...
With its creative architecture and great attention to detail, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to over 1,400 motorcycles that span over 100 years of production. More than 650 bikes can be seen on any given day, and 200 different manufacturers from 20...
automotive museum guide
Sign up to get updates about automotive museums right to your mailbox. Don't miss a thing. It's FREE.
Learn about North America's Automotive Museums you can visit.
We created the ultimate resource of America's Automotive Museums.
One of the neat things about “automotive museums” is that there are a lot of different approaches one can take to creating a museum. There is no right or wrong way of doing it, but how the museum is formed can have a dramatic effect on how long the museum lasts.
Why museums close their doors forever can be due to many reasons. In unfortunate situations, it is usually because the cost to operate the museum exceeds the revenue generated from operating the museum. This is obviously bad for any business and a nonprofit museum is no different from any other business in this sense.
Sometimes the museum has no choice but to close, because they lose access to the building or staff shortages. This is also relatively common and museums that have full-sized vehicles on display typically need a pretty good-sized footprint to be able to properly showcase exhibits. This kind of square footage typically doesn’t come cheap. Believe me, I know.
The most common reason an automotive museum seems to close is just because the founder or primary owner passes away. Or they get to the point where it is too much work to continue.
If the founder passes away and there isn’t a way to continue to fund or operate the museum, it will undoubtedly close. Vehicles get auctioned and everything is dispersed into rotation once more.
Sometimes, the founder doesn’t pass away, but gets to a point where it is too much of a burden to keep the museum. There can be several reasons associated with this, but ultimately it means the demise of yet another automotive museum.
I get it, and wouldn’t blame anyone for deciding to close the doors on their passion forever. It is very challenging to operate a museum that is open to the public. Hopefully, for the ones that are still alive, they get to at least enjoy their private collections, peacefully.
Since I started the Automotive Museum Guide in 2018, I’ve had to mark 45 automotive museums closed. You can always see the closed museums HERE.
That does seem like a high number, but luckily there are still over 300 automotive museums you can visit in North America alone.
Moto Talbott Motorcycle Museum is one of the most recent museum closures I’ve learned about. This museum closed permanently September 30th 2024. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to see this museum in person, but at least it sounds like the Talbott family are still able to enjoy a smaller version of the collection privately.
The Panoz Museum is another museum that is closed. I did get to visit this small museum prior to it closing from COVID. Their website says it is only temporally closed, but it has been years. Hopefully, we’ll have another opportunity in the future to see the Panoz Museum, or maybe Miles Through Time Automotive Museum will be able to share their collection. 😉
Sometimes a museum doesn’t need to close, it just needs some new life injected into it. The American Automobile Experience has a unique history, but when they received a donation of 130 automobiles from Bernie and Janice Taulborg in 2011 that was the catalyst of the museum.
The American Automobile Museum has received many other donated vehicles and displays them along with roughly 60 more vehicles that are just on loan. When you visit you’ll see well over 100 vehicles, which represents 4 decades worth of collecting.
The Canepa Motorsports Museum is a unique museum dedicated to the spirit of automobile and motorcycle competition, and engineering excellence. Bruce Canepa is the man behind this museum. Bruce designs, builds, restores and sells high-end collector vehicles and race cars. You can see the connection on display in the museum, which is free to visit.
I hope I’ll be able to visit many more automotive museums this year and I hope you’ll be able to do the same. Remember you can always check out the MAP and see where the closest museum is, no matter where you are.
Have a great week!
SCROLL DOWN TO CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S 3 AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUMS.
Plan your next trip, discover your new favorite, or find the nearest museum
Sean Mathis
Creator of Automotive Museum Guide
Founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum
Follow me @ 
P.S. Make sure you follow AMG on Facebook and join the FB Group to see what’s going on at all the museums.
The Canepa Motorsport Museum is dedicated to the spirit of automobile and motorcycle competition, and the celebration of engineering excellence.
The American Automobile Experience formally known as the Classic Car Collection is a gathering of over 100 automobiles that is diverse and all-encompassing and illustrates the evolution and art of the automobile and its role in our lives.
Moto Talbott Motorcycle Museum in Carmel Valley, California, featured more than 170 iconic motorcycles from 17 countries and was located on one of Northern California’s most beautiful motorcycle roads.
I'm heading to the National Association of Motor Museums' Annual Conference on Tuesday.
Mar 31, 2025
It is pretty awesome when people visit Miles Through Time Automotive Museum from all over the country
Mar 24, 2025
It still amazes me that the Automotive Museum Guide has grown into a huge resource for automotive museums, and visitors who want to visit them.
Mar 16, 2025
I'll start this week by letting you know about a brand-new museum that just opened this month. The St. Charles Motorcycle Museum is now open.
Mar 10, 2025
I still remember it like yesterday. It was the end of 2016, and I was forced to decide whether to start the museum
Mar 3, 2025
I love discovering new automotive museums. Sometimes, it is a museum that has been around, but it took me a while to find it.
Feb 24, 2025
One of the most common, generic questions I get asked in the museum is, how much are these cars worth?
Feb 17, 2025
The results are in, and Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is a major contender, at least for museums people want to visit.
Feb 10, 2025
The problem is, these lists only represent about 6% of the automotive museums you can visit in North America.
Feb 3, 2025
Automotive museums are unique, both in the museum world and from a traditional business standpoint.
Jan 27, 2025
The Canepa Motorsport Museum is dedicated to the spirit of automobile and motorcycle competition, and the celebration of engineering excellence.
On display is a broad spectrum of race cars and motorcycles from the golden age of motorsport to modern times. The museum showcases examples from multiple disciplines, from Can-Am to NASCAR, Indy to Le Mans.
4900 Scotts Valley Dr
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
P: 831-430-9940
Email: info@canepa.com
Plan: 1hr
Free
Monday – Saturday 9 am – 5 pm
Image via https://www.facebook.com/canepamotorsport/photos/
.
Miles Through Time Automotive Museum has over 100 years of must-see automotive history on display. This unique, co-op-style museum is located inside of Vintage Garage Antiques which is in an old textile mill called the Old Clarkesville Mill in Clarkesville, GA....
AACA Museum, Inc. at Hershey is a professionally staffed, collecting institution presenting semi-permanent and temporary exhibitions. Exhibitions are supported by educational programs for school and community audiences. It sponsors workshops and other activities...
The Cole Land Transportation Museum collects, preserves, and displays (before they disappear forever) a cross-section of Maine's land transportation equipment from which this and future generations will gain knowledge of the past. We also wish to remember, record...
With its creative architecture and great attention to detail, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to over 1,400 motorcycles that span over 100 years of production. More than 650 bikes can be seen on any given day, and 200 different manufacturers from 20...
automotive museum guide
Sign up to get updates about automotive museums right to your mailbox. Don't miss a thing. It's FREE.
Learn about North America's Automotive Museums you can visit.
We created the ultimate resource of America's Automotive Museums.