A Visit To The Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum

A Visit To The Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum

If you stand on the street in front of the Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum in Pontiac, Illinois, you’ll hear music. It comes not from the museum but from speakers mounted around the courthouse across the street; and given that all the songs I heard also can be found on my own car stereo’s USB collection, I’d say they were not chosen by someone the least bit young, hip or edgy. These songs are meant to assuage the aging baby-boomer generation (I’m bringing up the rear of that group, I guess), to keep our blood pressure in check, and possibly to discourage the pointless loitering of youth. It is the 21st-Century version of Elevator Music.

It does, though, set an appropriate mood for the Pontiac-Oakland. This small — very small — collection of cars, like that music, is meant to be familiar, comfortable, and inoffensive. It is not intended to enlighten, to stretch the visitor’s horizons in the least except by accident. It is less a museum than a collection of a few locally-owned old cars in good condition and of particular marques. They are nicely restored, clean and polished, and displayed much as the department store windows of bygone days would display ladies’ fashions in their street-facing windows. Look, and move on.

The display consists of only 16 cars, a few cases of relevant memorabilia, and a small gift shop; to the side, closed off by glass walls from public access, is an impressive-looking library. Presumably, all those books and papers contain information about Pontiac and Oakland cars. Yet the information given about the cars on display ranges from none at all to the bare minimum. Most cars have a sign that gives the year and model, the number built, and the name of the car’s owner. The rest have no signage at all. This museum makes no effort to educate, despite that impressive-looking library.

Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum

Consider the 1978 Pontiac Phoenix Hatchback, set up diorama-like with a tent exploding from its rear end. What does that look like from the back? Was it an available option for buyers of the car? (It looks like it might have been.) What would such a thing add to the price of the car? How many people sprang for the tent thing? In 1978, the American auto industry was still recovering from the 1973 Gas Crisis, the switch to unleaded gasoline, and the introduction of regulations requiring catalytic converters. I remember how crappy American cars were in those years overall. Hell, I owned one of them (a ’76 Monte Carlo, which, despite its limitations, I loved). Did the ’78 Phoenix manage to introduce anything innovative? (The tent was an oddity but not an innovation; VW Microbuses had had tents built-in long before, and I’ve seen similar things on cars going back all the way to the 1930s, if not before that.) These questions are not answered.

Or the 1960 Pontiac Ventura. A beautiful car, built near the culmination of America’s love of exuberant design and displayed in the milieu of a service bay. Don’t you know I’d love to be able to walk around and see what those backlights look like? How the fins are treated? The rear bumper, the trunk lock? Just how big is that trunk? Small things, and yes, I’m sure I’ve seen all those things before, on previous 1960 Pontiac Venturas that have passed through my life since that year. Luckily for me, I live in the age of the internet, where I can see pictures of the back end of a 1960 Pontiac Ventura any time I want. But standing there, in front of an actual life-size 1960 Pontiac Ventura and wondering about what I couldn’t see, it didn’t occur to me that a photograph on my tiny cellphone screen would be adequate.

Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum

And just what the hell is a Pontiac Firefly? Was it just so supremely unsuccessful that I never saw one or knew of its existence in the world? And what’s the relationship of Pontiac Motor Division to Oakland? Why do they share a museum? (I actually have some idea of that, but how many visitors to the museum don’t?) How much effort would it take to answer these basic questions? Too much, it seems, for the Pontiac-Oakland Car Museum.

I left, feeling actually pissed off that I’d gone so far out of my way to see the Pontiac-Oakland Museum. Never mind the other places I went to; the car museum was my reason for what was, in essence, a half-day detour from where I was going. And for sixteen cars and almost no information. (It certainly didn’t help that, just yesterday, I’d visited such a large and well-presented car collection in Coralville, Iowa.) The fact that it was free to see these sixteen cars is small consolation for the time wasted.

By Passepartout22

Automotive Museum Guide Contributor

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DFW Elite Toy Museum

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DFW Elite Toy Museum

The DFW Elite Toy Museum is the brainchild of businessman Ron Sturgeon who first started collecting automobile memorabilia over 40 years ago. Ron initially focused on Mercedes toys and then moved on to rare and vintage automobile-themed items such as race cars and scale models. As the years progressed, Ron’s interests expanded to include vintage toys, unique signs, and other rare and historic collectibles. Eventually, the personal collection was so expansive that the idea for the DFW Elite Toy Museum was born.

Today, the DFW Elite Toy Museum has more than 3,000 unique pieces in its collection. Automobile enthusiasts will appreciate the impressive collection of Tippco die cast toys along with a wide array of early tin, wind-up, pressed steel, and other collectibles — including the very rare Eva Braun Mercedes toy. Dog lovers might be interested to hear that the museum is a “dog-friendly” space and currently features an exhibition entitled “Dogs in Art, Toys and Antique” which includes iconic dog-themed paintings and other dog-related memorabilia from around the globe.

5940 Eden Dr
Haltom City, TX 76117
P: 817-834-3625

Email: rodney2@rdsinvestments.com

DFW Elite Toy Museum Admission:

Free
Plan: 1hr

DFW Elite Toy Museum Hours:

Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm and most Saturdays or by appointment

dfwelitetoymuseum.com

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Vernons Antique Car Museum

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Vernons Antique Car Museum

Vernon’s Antique Car Museum has a passion for rare, low-production automobiles you will find some of the rarest antiques in North America. All autos adhere to the strictest standard of authenticity, in some cases being restored to “better than new” condition. To test the quality of restoration the cars are shown at some of the most prominent cars shows in North America including Meadow brook Concours, Amelia Island Concours, and Pebble Beach, all leaving with high marks and various awards including the Buick Corporate award in 2010 for our 1958 Buick Limited.

The collection includes a wide variety of cars between 1908 and 1970 with something for every collector varying from Muscle to Luxury and sports cars alike. All cars feature all of their original options including rarities such as a 325 hemi, to a first-year factory fuel injection with air conditioning. This collection now totals 56 automobiles and boasts production numbers like 1 of 8.

Swift Current
NL A0E 2W0, Canada
P:
709-549-2266
Email: vernon.smith@nf.aibn.com

Vernons Antique Car Museum Admission:

Adults $12.50
7 -12 $7
Plan: 1hr

Vernons Antique Car Museum Hours:

April 1st – November 30th
Daily 10 am – 6 pm

vernonsantiquecarmuseum.ca

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Days Gone By Museum

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Days Gone By Museum

Days Gone By started over 30 years ago when Joey started collecting and restoring tractors. His wife Kathleen Collins, an astute collector of antiques soon joined him in adding to the Museum. Together they have amassed an astounding collection of Americana.

Joey and Kathleen dreamed of creating a place where people of all ages could learn about our Great Country while seeing, and in many instances touching, the inventions spanning from the early beginnings of our Country and through the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and into the early 1900s.

122 Davis St
Portland, TN 37148
P:
615-325-2555
Email: info@daysgonebyportland.org

Days Gone By Museum Admission:

Closed
Plan: 1hr

Days Gone By Museum Hours:

Closed

daysgonebyportland.org

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Seal Cove Auto Museum’s Award-Winning & Unique 1904 Knox

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Seal Cove Auto Museum’s Award-Winning & Unique 1904 Knox

The Seal Cove Auto Museum’s 1904 Knox is an exceptional automobile with fantastic provenance.

It was originally custom-built for E. H. Cutler, the President of the Knox Automobile Company. Its ownership would then pass on to a stair builder by trade, who lived in Winthrop. Massachusetts. He needed a truck for his business and removed the car’s custom body.

Luckily, he saved it in his barn, and many years later, it was found and reunited with the chassis. The Knox eventually made its way to the Long Island Automotive Museum and the care of Henry Austin Clark Jr. before finally finding its way to the Seal Cove Auto Museum.

The July 27, 1904, issue of The Horseless Age described the car as built for Elisha Cutler. These features included side entrance doors, a brown folding top extending over both seats, and ample carrying space underneath the rear seat’s back. All of which can be seen on the car today. The article said that Mr. Cutler took a two-week tour in the vehicle through New Hampshire, Maine, and along the Massachusetts coast with his family. Quite an adventure in 1904!

The Knox’s ownership by a gent from Winthrop, Mass, is detailed in the book Knox Automobile Company by John Y. Hess.

The auto’s connection to the Long Island Automotive Museum was more coincidental. I had my suspicions, having seen a postcard produced by the Long Island Automotive Museum, of a car that looked just like the Knox in the Museum. Still, it was not until 2010 that I finally verified that provenance.

When going through the car, one of the Museum’s volunteers found the car’s registration hidden under the front seat; it read Waleta H. Clark, Henry Austin Clark’s wife. Clark’s son further verified his mother’s ownership when he visited the Museum. The Knox had been registered in his mother’s name to be issued a vanity license plate spelling out PICKLE.

Knox is a fine product of the early automobile industry in New England. Built in Springfield, Massachusetts, the car is of relatively conventional design except in one regard: its unique air-cooling system. Instead of being water-cooled like most of its gasoline-powered contemporaries, the Knox was air-cooled and used thousands of iron studs screwed into the cylinders to dissipate heat. To be exact, one thousand seven hundred fifty studs in each cylinder give the car the nickname “Porcupine Knox.” Ads also referred to the Knox as “the car that never drinks.”

The car steers via a side lever and a hydraulic damper that reduces road shocks and advanced technology for 1904. The two-cylinder, 16-horsepower opposed engine lays lengthwise in the car. The rest of the layout is not unusual for the period, a planetary transmission and the final drive are via a single large chain.

The Seal Cove’s Knox is a multiple show winner receiving awards at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, and the Misselwood Concours d’Elegance.

You can see the Knox and many other unique vintage automobiles at the Seal Cove Auto Museum located on Mount Desert Island in Maine.

The Museum is open from May 1 to October 31 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily. SealCoveAutoMuseum.org

Roberto Rodriguez

Member, Board of Directors, Seal Cove Auto Museum

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