I don’t remember a time before I loved cars. The furthest I can remember back involved me building cars from LEGO and garages to park them in. I had to be somewhere around 1st grade when my dad bought an old CJ7 that looked like a mail delivery Jeep and completely modified.

By the end, the Jeep was lifted, sitting on fat tires with no top, just a roll bar and bright blue metallic paint job. To top it off, the license plate said CJ4SEAN. In just a short 9 years, that would be my Jeep.

I would eventually grow up to understand that 9 years is a long time to keep anything in my family. My latest memories of that Jeep are from when it was broken and parked behind a trailer. I would sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive it until my dad sold it. That license plate is now hung on the wall at Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

A few years later my dad picked up a project, a 1956 F100.  I instantly loved that truck. We did a few things to the truck and even bought an old Thunderbird with a 302 that was going to be used for parts.

This was going to be the truck I’d drive in high school in just a few years. That didn’t work out either, and the truck and Thunderbird were both sold back to the guy my dad bought the truck from.

From that point on, I just drove whatever I could. My oldest brother was off in the Navy, and he left his Jeep Grand Cherokee, so I drove it around the property. We had a really old Farmall tractor, so I drove it.

My dad had an old Dodge pickup at one point. It was big, long bed, extended cab, and orange. I would drive the garbage cans down to the road with it. I just loved driving.

My grandpa had a fancy riding lawnmower. Growing up, we didn’t even have a lawn, so, of course, I wanted to mow his lawn every time we went to visit him, just so I could feel the steering wheel in my hands.

I knew my grandpa had a really cool old car in his shop growing up, but he never took it out. The car was always under the cover. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how special a 1959 Cadillac is.

After both my grandparents passed away and my dad gave me his dad’s car (3rd times a charm) that is what set me on my current path in the automotive world.

I’ve now owned my grandpa’s car for eleven years. Miles Through Time Automotive Museum was created because of that car, which has now been open for eight years and continues to grow.

My story is just one of many. Cars are my passion and so much more than just a means of transportation. My story led to the creation of a museum, along with a few others, but no matter the path, the story never ends.

Space Farms Zoo and Museum started as a general store, repair shop and 400-acre wildlife refuge in 1927. During the depression, people started paying their bills with whatever they had.

Eventually, people started to come specifically to see the animals and memorabilia on display. This is the only museum I’m aware of with this kind of origin story.

The Ice House Museum is a bit more traditional. This is the private collection of Bill Kidder. Bill passed away in 2005, but his family keeps the museum open seasonally.

Gasquatch is definitely not your typical “museum.” This is a collection of 15 or so classic vehicles that can be seen 24/7 because they are part of a gas station attraction. 

Is it really a museum? Or just a private collection being stored in a business that is open to the public? Does it really matter? You be the judge.

The stories that originate from cars are one of the most interesting aspects of this world. Every car has a story, every collection, every museum, every person. 

You will not run out of things to see and learn.

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

P.S. Make sure you follow AMG on Facebook and join the FB Group to see what’s going on at all the museums.

Last week, I shared a few personal collections of “car museums” that would rival some of the best museums in the country, if you were lucky enough to visit.

This week, I’ll share three museums that are also personal collections, but they took it one step further. These museums are either open by appointment or have very limited hours. 

I want to preface the fact that I really respect the people behind these personal collections to even bother making the effort to be available to the public at all. Having started Miles Through Time Automotive Museum with only one car in 2017, I know exactly how difficult it is to operate a “museum.”

Assuming most people behind starting museums have done quite well in life and/or inherited a collection of vehicles, that is only a portion of what it takes. It is actually almost more commendable that these people would bother making their museums accessible to the public at all, simply because they don’t have to.

Sometimes these types of museums grow into something more. Sometimes they are short-lived, like P’s Crazy Car Museum. Either way, if you ever get a chance to visit, do it.

The McCandless Collection was founded by Mike McCandless the son of Herb McCandless (Mr. 4 Speed) in honor of his dad. You’ll see amazing cars and authentic signage all over the building. 

Lenny’s Classic Car Collection is in an old Willy’s Overland Touring dealership. You can see some beautiful British sports cars if you make an appointment so they can step away from the restoration shop to give you a tour.

The last one for this week is the Miller’s Lake Chelan Auto Museum. Leo and Pollu Miller ar long-time residents of Lake Chelan and their passion for vehicles has amassed a substantial collection that they open for 3 hours every Thursday through Saturday, from June 20th to September 30th.

My intention is to only introduce you to automotive museums all over the country. I encourage you to click the name of the museum to find out exactly where they are located and how to learn even more.

Maybe you can visit one day. Maybe you’ll never find yourself in that particular part of the country or world if you explore the museums HERE. The important thing is you now know about them and, if anything, help spread the word.

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

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 phrase “car museum” gets thrown around so much you’d almost assume there is at least one car museum owner in every city. The reality is, they aren’t car museums, but there are a lot of people with amazing “car collections.”

Some are more than worthy of being a car museum, but lack a very important aspect which makes a museum, a museum. Collector vehicles can absolutely be assets, and while some people have stocks, others have cars. Some people collect baseball cards, others collect full-size cars.

It is pretty safe to assume that there is a collector for everything. Even the Soviet Car Museum I mentioned last week closed. Some people think those are very ugly cars while others love them enough to try to start a museum.

By the way, if you’re a Soviet Car fan, check out Automuuseum. The museum is in Europe, but even if you can’t visit in person, they have a lot of interesting vehicles you can still see.

The number of private car collections in the US far exceeds the number of car museums in the world. I love being able to see private car collections. It gives a window into that particular collector’s interests, which can be very niche or extremely eclectic. 

It’s also a privilege to be able to walk into someone’s private space and view their passion on display. Some private collections are displayed so amazingly, that I can still use them as a reference for doing something similar at Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

Then there are the car collections that blur the line between just a private collection and a museum. These types of places are unique. They are typically the private collection of an individual or family, but intermittently they open as a museum and allow the public to visit.

These types of places typically do not have regular hours. They may only be open by appointment and possibly only for groups. They may only be open for fundraising events, and if they charge admission, it usually goes to a charity.

This week I’m going to share three examples of these types of “museums.”

First up is the Brothers Car Collection. Imagine owning over 600 vehicles and having a 117,000-square-foot building. This collection is world-class and could easily be a full-blown automotive museum if it was open to the public.

Unfortunately, getting into the Brothers Car Collection in Oregon is not easy. Timing is everything for this one. Luckily, you have a chance on August 17th with their cruise-in.

Benson Memory Lane Museum is a little different. This collection is located on one of the Benson dealership lots and is available to visit for special events and tours are given the first Saturday of every month. I’ve been able to visit this one, and although it is not as big as the other collections I’ve mentioned, it’s still worth the visit.

The last one I’m going to mention this week is one I still have not had the opportunity to visit yet, although I will as soon as I get a chance. The American Muscle Car Museum is the private 400+ car collection of Mark Pieloch. 

The 117,000-square-foot facility is located on 42 acres in Melborne, Florida. The building is full of classic and modern muscle cars. You cannot just show up and expect to see the collection. You have to wait for a special fundraising event, which luckily occurs often.

If you get the opportunity to see any of these “museums” or others like it, do it!

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

P.S. Make sure you follow AMG on Facebook and join the FB Group to see what’s going on at all the museums.

*READ THIS FIRST SENTENCE*

Please scroll to the bottom of the email to see the three featured automotive museums and where they are.

If you don’t care or don’t have time to do anything other than just glance at the three automotive museums at the bottom of the email to see if you are interested in them or not, that is okay. You can skip all of this.

The fact that you are even opening this email is impressive to me. 

Did you know that the average open rate for emails is only 20-30%? Social media is even worse. The average organic reach is less than 10%, depending on the platform.

I suppose I am lucky since at least 50% open this email every week. Most people don’t realize how hard it is to reach your core audience.

Whenever I am at Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, and I am talking to visitors from out of town, I tell them about automotivemuseumguide.com. I assume that if they are enjoying one automotive museum, then they’d like to visit others.

Last Saturday I was mentioning the guide to visitors and one of them already knew about it. This seems to be happening more and more. People are discovering automotive museums all over the country easily with the Automotive Museum Guide, which also helps them plan their trips.

There is also no shortage of people I meet who tell me they get these emails. I say tell, because some read them and others don’t. I get it, most of us are busy and bombarded with spam emails. 

You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t read all of this, but I do hope you take the time to scroll to the bottom and check out the 3 featured automotive museums. Click on each one to learn more about the specific museum, and hopefully it’ll become some place you’ll visit in the future.

Sometimes we don’t have another opportunity. The Soviet Car Museum put up a valiant effort to provide a unique experience for visitors, but sadly, the museum has been permanently closed.

Sergerstrom Shelby has had better luck. This museum and event space opened at the end of 2021 and is still going strong with close to 100 vehicles in their collection. As you can imagine by the name, they have a few Shelbys.

3 Dog Garage opened their doors in 2022 in a 3-story, early 20th century brick building.  The building looks amazing and when you add over 100 vehicles in the 75,000-square-foot space, it solidifies the urge to want to visit.

The last museum I want to share is a unique one and an important one. The Malcolm Pray Achievement Center has over 100 years of automotive history on display, but also really emphasizes the discovery of entrepreneurship and success with free guided tours designed to insure the youth.

All automotive museums should be doing that on some level, but for the Malcolm Pray Achievement Center, it is the core of their existence thanks to Malcolm Pray, who sadly passed away in 2013, but his legacy continues on over a decade later.

That’s it for this week. If you want even more automotive museum info, you can join the Automotive Museum Guide Facebook Group HERE. If you want to follow more of my adventures with automotive museums, including Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, my social media links are always at the very bottom of every email.

Until next week.

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

P.S. Make sure you follow AMG on Facebook and join the FB Group to see what’s going on at all the museums.

It’s amazing how much time can just become a blur. I started Miles Through Time Automotive Museum eight years ago. I created the Automotive Museum Guide six years ago, and today marks the 200th email I sent sharing automotive museums.

This means I have shared over 600 automotive museums in just under four years. Some people have been following along from the very beginning, while over 100 new people join every single month. 

Someone new to the Automotive Museum Guide may not realize the guide exists because it started as my research to figure out how to create my own car museum.

Once someone realizes I founded a museum myself called Miles Through Time Automotive Museum. The assumptions about me can run wild. Some of them I wish were true, but usually they are way off base.

I am an open book. It is the only way I found I could create a web of automotive museums and get people to be a part of my museum. If you’re on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or X, you can follow me directly.

I’m not independently or generationally wealthy. I’m just a car guy who inherited his grandpa’s 1959 Cadillac and felt so honored to have it, that I wanted to share it with as many other people as I could and provide a platform for others like me to do the same.

Luckily, my vision of what an automotive museum could be has morphed over the years and has had success. It is amazing when I get emails out of the blue that someone wants to donate a vehicle. Or I check the mail or get an email notification that someone has sent a check or donated online.

There are a lot of passionate automotive enthusiasts in the world, and the fact that you get this email means you’re one of them. The museum I started is just one of many automotive museums you can visit, and I hope you are able to visit as many as possible.

The more I am immersed in the automotive museum world and automotive culture, the stronger my feelings get about how important it is for us to not only preserve and share automotive history, but to learn from it as well.

Automotive museums are just like snowflakes. No two are alike, but they are all beautiful in their own way. You may visit an automotive museum and find it isn’t your favorite for one reason or another, but at least you did your part by visiting, and hopefully you saw something interesting and learned something new.

There is one museum I regret not being able to stop at, especially since I literally drove past the entrance when I was driving a donated car back from California. I was still on east coast time and eager to drive back, so when I drove past Woodland Auto Display it was 4 am.

I will be back at some point though, because I want to see the museum Dick Woodland founded and explore Estrella Warbird Museum at the same time.

Another museum you can visit that blurs the line between auto and air is the Old Rhinebeck Aerodome. I’m a fan of seeing vintage planes and cars together, which is exactly what you will see at this museum.

The last museum I want to share with you this week is an example of a basic automotive museum.  The Roy Peter Bach Museum is operated by the Santa Fe Trail Auto Club. There is very little information available about this museum, but it is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes you just have to start somewhere.

There are so many automotive museums to discover, the best resource to use when traveling the country is the MAP. If you’re a world traveler, there is even more to discover HERE.

If you know anyone who would enjoy learning about automotive museums to visit, forward this email over to them and encourage them to sign up.

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.

Last week I shared my vision for the future of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, which then broke automotivemuseumguide.com. A lot of people reached out to me saying they were not able to access the website.

I spent almost all of Monday fixing the issue and today, no one should experience any problems accessing automotivemuseumguide.com. That’s the goal for today at least. 😉

Last week I also shared automotive museums that were created right around the time I created Miles Through Time. Over the years of creating and running my own museum and trying to keep the Automotive Museum Guide up-to-date, I have noticed the revolving door of automotive museums.

COVID definitely didn’t help with museum closures, but even without that added burden, automotive museums still close pretty regularly. The unique variety of ways car museums can be created is the leading factor why so many car museums close. 

It is sad when museums close, but I call it the circle of life for car museums. There are many museums all over the world you can visit and should as soon as you have the opportunity, because for some of them, you may not have another chance.

The easiest part of an automotive museum is the creation. I am proof of that, since I was able to create Miles Through Time Automotive Museum with one car I inherited and no collections or funding of any kind.

That last paragraph can be misleading. It is absolutely accurate, but to say I created a car museum worthy of visitation from day one would be a stretch. I was able to very quickly acquire borrowed vehicles, but it took me a long time to go beyond just some old cars parked in a building.

Parking old cars in a building and calling it a museum is questionable. There is a lot more to an automotive museum than just parked cars. There is a lot of effort that goes into preserving and displaying the vehicles. 

Being accessible to the public with regular visiting hours is mandatory and ensuring visitors leave inspired by learning something new is always the goal.

If the automotive museum does not do these things, then it may just be a really nice collection of cars and memorabilia.  There are way more amazing private collections than there are museums, and that is okay.

This week I want to share with you three automotive museums that are trying to become real automotive museums and each one has a different angle of what a car museum is.

First up is the Idle Ridge Car Museum. The late James Feneis had a very impressive private collection, worthy of a car museum. James put in motion to create the Feneis Charitable Foundation after his passing, which would turn his collection into a museum, open to the public. The museum is slated to open this summer.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the New York Auto Museum as soon as I heard about it. This museum is supposed to be a 200,000-square-foot facility in Manahattan. I don’t know how progress is going on this museum, but it sounds amazing, and I wish them the best of luck. We will have to keep an eye on this museum to see how everything develops.

The last future museum I want to share is the Legends Racing Museum. The museum is just one aspect of this automotive-themed complex. I really like the vision of this place, which is similar to the vision I have for Miles Through Time, but even bigger.

Motor City USA will be home to the Legends Racing Museum, a theater, pavilion, multiple restaurants, go-kart racing, hotels and more. I really want to see this place come to fruition as well, so I can visit.

It is fascinating all the different angles that can be taken when it comes to creating an automotive museum. There is no right or wrong way and I enjoy visiting all the different types.  

Like any business, the challenge is being able to stay open. Anyone can help by visiting museums, donating, volunteering or just helping spread the word. 

I tell people it is easy for the older generation to come into the museum and enjoy reminiscing. It is much more challenging to capture the interest of someone who doesn’t have any direct connections to anything on display.

Museums serve an important role in bridging the gap between those who remember and those who need to learn. This is still one of the biggest reasons why I’ve been trying to get a supercar for Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

If I can capture the interest of the younger generation with something they wish they could have, the museum can broaden their interests and show them more varieties of vehicles. You don’t know what you don’t know. 

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.