I’m heading to the National Association of Motor Museums’ Annual Conference on Tuesday.

I joined NAAM back when I first started Miles Through Time in 2017. Aside from the big automotive museums, I could find online, NAAM was my only other resource to figure out how to create a museum of my own.

I will admit I didn’t get much out of NAAM for years. To be fair, for the first three years, I truly was a one-man show and didn’t have to do much with NAAM.

It wasn’t until I went to my very first conference in 2020 and the National Corvette Museum, that I discovered the true value of NAAM. I met a bunch of amazing people associated with other automotive museums from all over the country.

The following year, the conference was at the Revs Institute then The Henry Ford, and last year at Savoy. Each year, I’ve been able to make new personal contacts and reunite with others who have become great friends over the years.

Attending the annual conference at NAAM is something I look forward to every year now. I find myself in a unique position when I attend the conference because I am not employed by a museum who was sent to the conference, and I’m not the guy with a car collection who decided to start a museum. And yet, somehow, I am also both, minus the car collection. 😉

It doesn’t matter if I’m talking with a museum director, the founder, or a volunteer docent, just being able to chat and mingle with peers in an industry I never imagined being a part of in the capacity I am, is amazing.

Tuesday, I’m heading to the Petersen Automobile Museum. I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of the Petersen. It’s one of the top automotive museums in the world.

This will be my second visit to the Petersen. My first visit was driving a donated e21 BMW back to Georgia and stopped by the Petersen to visit my friend Leslie Kendall. Little did I know I’d end up spending the entire day there. Half because Leslie and I chatted and half because the BMW broke down in the parking lot. 

At the end of the day, I drove away in that e21 and eventually made it back to Miles Through Time Automotive Museum. If you want to watch that trip, here’s a video. If you donate a car to Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, I may just come get it myself, and driving it back even from California isn’t off the table. 😉

As amazing as the Petersen is, it got its start on June 11th 1994, when Margie and Robert E. Petersen donated $5 million to the Los Angeles County National History Museum.

Interestingly enough, that is pretty much the same amount Miles Through Time needs to build a new building. Perhaps one day, the little museum I started with my Pop’s car will be as famous as The Petersen.

The other great thing about the NAAM conference is that we travel to other museums. The networking and lectures are great, but the ability to go on field trips makes the NAAM conference better than any other conferences I’ve been to.

I wanted to go to the Lyon Air Museum when I was driving the old BMW back to Georgia, but I didn’t have time since I had the opportunity to visit Jay Leno’s Garage, which seemed like a chance of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Jay, but I saw him there patiently, allowing a very enthusiastic fan to talk his ear off. I hope one day I can meet him and show him what I’ve created.

The Lyon Air Museum has a great mix of vehicles and aircraft on display. I was an A10 and C130 crew chief for 11 years, so I also have an appreciation for things with wings and this museum has both.

Another museum I get to visit is the Marconi Automotive Museum. This was another museum I had hoped to visit on my trip back in the BMW, but at that point I was very well aware that it was possible the BMW was not going to make it another 2,000 miles.

Luckily, I get to see the museum this week. The museum was started by Dick Marconi, his wife Bo, and his son John. Marconi has some amazing exotic supercars on display. I only need one at Miles Through Time. The museum hosts a lot of events and admission is donated to the Marconi Foundation for Kids, which is a great cause.

Aside from these museums, I’m also going to get to see some private collections in the LA area, I can’t tell you about.  I will share photos and videos on my Instagram and Facebook if you want to follow along.

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.

It is pretty awesome when people visit Miles Through Time Automotive Museum from all over the country, specifically because they found the Automotive Museum Guide and started receiving these emails.

I hate it when I miss the museum visitors, but when I do get to meet them, it’s amazing. A couple stayed for over four hours on Saturday, and they use the guide regularly to visit museums all over the country.

I hope this is a common occurrence for all the museums listed in the guide. If you visit a museum because you discovered it in the Automotive Museum Guide or I mentioned it in an email, let the museum know when you visit.

This week’s email is going to be brief. I understand some people are bombarded with emails and even this one each week can end up being a bit much. If you miss the email for any reason, remember you can always go to the website under the EXTRAS tab and click Weekly 3.

You never have to miss the three museums I share, even if you don’t have time to deal with the entire email. You can quickly scroll to the museums, get the information you need and move on. Plus, you can always refer back if you want.

First up this week is the Museum of Automobiles. The museum was founded by Winthrop Rockefeller in 1964. The museum housed his collection until 1975, two years after his death when Bill Harras purchased the collection for $947,000.

A new nonprofit was formed in 1976 with vehicles on loan from collectors and the museum has been in operation ever since.

The Academy of Art University Automobile Museum is one you wouldn’t expect to find. This museum recently auctioned off 105 of their vehicles, which raised $14.5 million. We’ll have to wait and see what the museum does next.

If you just looked at the Audrain Automobile Museum, you’d assume they’ve been around for a while, but the museum only opened in 2014. The museum has access to over 400 cars and motorcycles and changes the exhibits often.

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.

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. In the last 12 months, almost 7 million people have seen the museums listed in the guide.

I wish I could say 7 million people have visited the Miles Through Time Automotive Museum in the last 12 months. We’d probably have the funding we need to build the new building, if that was the case. 😉

I never planned to send these emails, but a combination of museum information was changing, and the email list grew into the thousands. The only logical thing I could think of was to send a weekly email to help me manage the information listed for each museum. 

This is my 192nd email. If you got some of my very first emails, you’ll know how much they’ve changed over the years. The main aspects of the email are the three featured museums listed below. 

At the bottom of every email you’ll see three automotive museums from somewhere within North America. You can see what state they are in, and you can click each one to find out more information. 

I could just do that, and some people may prefer that. Every once in a while, I get an email, because the reader got frustrated I didn’t say exactly where the museum was in this portion of the email.

I do this on purpose for three reasons. The first, I don’t want you to know exactly where it is until you’ve given yourself a chance to learn about it. If it’s too far, and you’ll never visit, that is understandable, but at least you will be aware of it and, who knows?

If I tell you right off the bat, the museum is somewhere you think you’ll never go. Some people may never take the next step to learn just a little bit more about it. 

The second reason is that my intention is not to tell you all about the museums, especially if I haven’t visited myself. If you click the museum’s name, it will take you to the guide where you can then get all the pertinent information you need to then learn more about the museum itself.

The third reason I don’t bother to mention exactly where the museums are in the body of the email is simply because you can see that at the bottom of the email where is neatly shows a snippet of each museum and the state it is located in.

I don’t get paid for sending this email and I do not get paid for creating the website. The museum I founded, Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, is one of the many museums listed in the Automotive Museum Guide that needs to be found by visitors.

If I can get more people to visit the museum I founded and more people to visit other museums, because the Automotive Museum Guide makes it easy to find them. I call that a win.

I love it when people reply to these emails, send me a message, email me directly or sometimes call my museum. I prefer when it is for something positive, but I’m always open to constructive criticism. 

This week, I want to share with you a few museums that were visited by someone from the Schwanke Car, Tractor and Truck Museum because of the Automotive Museum Guide.

The Dahl Auto Museum is located at one of the Dahl’s family dealerships. The family goes back 5 generations, spanning over 100 years. You can see cars on display that go back just as far.

The Nuss Collection is similar in the fact that it goes back three generations. This is a private collection you can visit by appointment. You’ll see a lot of big trucks because the collection comes from years of operating Nuss Truck and Equipment.

The last museum I want to share with you is separate from the others. Stahls Automotive Foundation is one I’ve been to twice. To simply say Stahls is impressive wouldn’t do it justice. 

I recently learned Stahls Automotive Foundation will be quadrupling as the Stahls Automotive Museum. The combination of vintage musical instruments (some the size of rooms) and the amazing vehicles and memorabilia, I cannot wait to see Stahls blossom into the museum it deserves to be.

It seems like a lot more automotive museums are growing lately, rather than closing, which is fantastic news. Hopefully, once I figure out the funding to build the forever home for Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, I’ll be able to announce another museum moving and growing.

If you’re reading this on Monday, then have a great St. Patrick’s Day. If you want a chance to win a 2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited and help support the museum I founded, you can enter at milesthroughtime.com/jeep/ and use the promo code LUCKY for an additional 25% more entries.

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.

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. From what I can tell, they have some really nice vintage bikes on display. If you’re into motorcycles, or if you at least appreciate them as art, it may be worth checking them out. 

You may have noticed that automotive museums seem to close constantly. I believe this is just part of the automotive museum’s “circle of life”, partly because of how many museums are created and partly because museums are a massive challenge.

On Saturday, I had a guy come to the counter of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum. Immediately, he assumed we just had some cars and then proceeded to rant for about ten minutes on how he had owned a bunch of cars, been to a lot of car shows and seen a lot of car museums. 

He even claimed to have been to Miles Through Time at the old location and possibly at some other point in the new location, but he couldn’t articulate when.

Ultimately, after about 10 or 15 minutes of telling me how great he is and pausing for five seconds to ask me how much admission was, he turned around and left without actually asking any questions about the museum he was at. Other than to tell me how he couldn’t believe we didn’t have a Gullwing Mercedes. 😉

My point to this story is that this guy may have called himself a “car guy” but was he? If everyone had his attitude, there would be far more museum closures.

There are amazing museums you can visit for free, like the new DFW Toy & Car Museum, that opens April 1st, but that is not the norm, just because of how expensive it is to make museums accessible to the public.

 Sometimes, automotive museums have to make the difficult decision to close. Or sometimes the better option is to join forces. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like mergers are common practice.

More often than not, when a museum closes, you learn about the closure because of the auction that is about to take place. But, what if there was a better option?

What if, instead of closing a museum for good, it was able to join forces with another museum? This could mean the entire collection could be absorbed by another museum and live on within the other museum.

An example of this would be the Unser Racing Museum, which closed in 2023. The stand-alone museum is gone, but the collection lives on within the walls of the Museum of American Speed, which is one of the most impressive museums I have ever visited. I rushed through the museum on one of my cross-country trips, and it still took me an hour. I have to go back.

Another example would be the Museum of Bus Transportation. This museum merged with the AACA Museum, which makes for a better visitor experience for both museums.

Mergers can have some unique complications, but the biggest issue in most cases would be space. I’m not aware of too many museums that have a lot of room for more vehicles. I’m also not aware of any nonprofit museums that have auctioned off their collections and used the funds to help support another automotive museum.

If the museum closing is a nonprofit, then funds generated from auctioning everything will need to benefit another nonprofit. The Horton Classic Car Museum closed in 2023 and the collection was worth an estimated $32 million.

Even if only half the collection was sold, that would mean there would still be $16 million that could be used to help another museum, perhaps build or add on, and then display the remaining collection, so the museum can live on.

Sometimes it is just the remaining family that doesn’t want to deal with the burden of running a museum, so they close it. Not necessarily because it was failing, but maybe they just don’t have the same passion or bandwidth. There could be countless reasons, but for any future closures, I would hope considering a merger of sorts would be an option.

As you know, I am in the process of working towards securing the future of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum. It is imperative that the museum can get its own building, free from an ever-increasing lease. Half of the Horton Classic Car Museum would have easily made it possible for MTT to have its own building and still share the Horton collection.

I hope in the future, as more automotive museums close their doors for good and head to auction, they look at other organizations that share the same mission and core values. Just because one museum closes doesn’t mean it has to be gone forever. Sometimes it can just be relocated and used to propel another museum to a higher level.

I sent a one-off email last week about a Jeep that was donated to Miles Through Time Automotive Museum specifically to help the museum raise funds. I know it’s not a $100k brand-new car, but it’s a really nice Jeep, and it’s incredibly generous and inspiring that people would do something like that to help the museum.

If you have any interest in helping support Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, consider purchasing a few tickets to win this Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. Even if you don’t want the Jeep, you could always take the cash prize, but ultimately, this is just a fun way to help support the museum and many of the automotive museums across the country are doing something similar. 

I’ll be in LA the first week of April for the Annual NAAM Conference at the Petersen Automotive Museum. If you are affiliated with any automotive museum, I highly recommend coming to the conference which includes visiting other automotive museums and some very exclusive private collections.

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.

I still remember it like yesterday. It was the end of 2016, and I was forced to decide whether to start the museum I had talked about or walk away. Ultimately, I decided to go for it, despite every logical reason screaming at me to not do it.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum officially opened in 2017. I spent three years trying to create some sort of worthy museum. I will admit, it was very difficult and many times discouraging.

Nevertheless, I pushed on and time continued to pass. Before I knew it, the museum had been open for three years. Then I had to start over and create an entire museum again. This time, the difference was, I already had a brand, and now I wasn’t alone.

Also, instead of opening a museum with only one car, we had 5. Very quickly, we had as many that could fit in the original location, just because more people were willing to be a part of the museum.

Time continues to pass so quickly. This was 5 years ago and yet my body still hurts from building an entire town inside the museum. Within the last 3.5 years, Miles Through Time expanded two more times.

Eight years have gone by since I first stepped foot in an old Ford dealership blabbing about how cool of a museum I could create without really understanding what it would take. 

I’m extremely grateful Miles Through Time Automotive Museum has been able to exist for as long as it has, and I will do everything in my power to ensure it will join the ranks of the well-established American museums.

When it comes to time, 8 years is nothing. My friends at the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum are celebrating 20 years and their museum is fantastic. I can’t wait to see where Miles Through Time will be in 20 years, which is only 12 years away.

Even 20 years is nothing compared to The Henry Ford, which started planning in 1929. The museum officially opened to the public June 22, 1933. 100 years is right around the country for The Henry Ford.

The Swigart Museum is even older than The Henry Ford. The Swigart Museum is the oldest car museum in the USA. The museum opened in 1920, just 25 years after the first patented combustion engine automobile.

For many businesses, being open for 5 years is an impressive feat many don’t achieve, but to remain open for 105 years is incredible.

Many automotive museums start as private collections. The Larz Anderson Auto Museum is known as America’s oldest car collection, which started with an 1899 Winton 4-hp Runabout and grew to include 32 motorcars and horse-drawn carriages. After Isabel Anderson’s death in 1948, the collection became the Larz Anderson Auto Museum.

No matter how much we may want to stop time, go back in time, or fast-forward in time, we can’t. Time just keeps going and doesn’t wait for any of us. Making the best of the time we have is all any of us can do.

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.

I love discovering new automotive museums. Sometimes, it is a museum that has been around, but it took me a while to find it. Sometimes, it is a brand-new museum.

However, what I love most is discovering automotive museums growing. I am living proof that just about anyone can start a “car museum.” I was a 33-year-old with a car I inherited and a vision, nothing else. No car collection, or any collection of any kind.

There was no money to buy or build anything. I did have design resources, though, thanks to my wife Torie, and a small building I could use because the owner liked my concept. I spewed out a bunch of hypothetical ideas while walking around his old dealership. I did not know the guy, and I had never been to the town the building was in, but apparently, he liked what he heard.

Imagine how easy it would be to open a car museum if you already had a small collection. Perhaps you already own a warehouse where the cars are being stored. It wouldn’t take much more to open a car museum, just a little bit of paperwork.

The easy part stops after the initial creation. I will admit there are plenty of “car museums” out there, that are pretty much just private collections that you may be able to visit.

There is nothing particularly wrong with these types of museums, but they are also the most likely to disappear after they pass away. They also aren’t usually too concerned with any of the normal issues other museums face.

Most museums struggle in one way or another. Sometimes it’s financial, sometimes it’s with staffing (lack of), and almost always with space. I’ll admit, Miles Through Time Automotive Museum struggles with all three.

When I get to see a museum grow, it means they are doing something right. I got to visit the Tucson Auto Museum on one of my cross-country trips last year. It was a great little museum jam-packed with cars and memorabilia. 

Tucson Auto Museum is in the process of getting its new location ready to move into, and it’s much larger.  The new location is exactly what the museum needs to continue its path of success.

The Haas Moto Museum is another museum that has been able to prosper by moving the museum to its new location. There are over 230 motorcycles on display in this museum and they are all beautiful.

The Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum has a beautiful collection. Not only the brass-era cars but also the period-correct clothing. This museum is partnering with the Pioneer Air Museum, which will allow a new 90,000-square-foot exhibition space. You can learn more about this project HERE.

 My bonus mention this week is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. This museum makeover is exciting and extremely impressive. The approximate cost of the re-imagination is $89 million. $15 million will give the museum a state-of-the-art restoration facility and $10 million will be earmarked for an endowment to allow the museum to acquire additional artifacts.

I also have to mention the American Museum of Speed with its 90,000-square-foot expansion. I tried to go through this museum as fast as I could because of the limited time I had, and it still took me over an hour. You could spend a long time at this museum already. It’s amazing, and another 90,000 square feet is mind-boggling.

Since 2017, when I created Miles Through Time Automotive Museum, I’ve moved it once, which was also an expansion, and then expanded two more times since then.

Within the next 3 years, I’ve got to find a way to move the museum one more time. If there was a building large enough, that would be great, but most likely we would have to build it.

Creating a car museum was easy. Keeping it open, profitable, and enjoyable for visitors, is anything but easy. Any of these museums that have been able to not only remain open, preserving and sharing automotive history but actively growing and prospering, deserves kudos.

I’m still learning and apparently have a lot to learn. While I don’t see an $89 million dollar budget in the museum’s immediate future, perhaps there will be a way to raise a few million dollars to be able to purchase land and build a simple metal structure. 

After all, from day one, Miles Through Time was not a complete museum; I just called it one, with my loan car on display. I envision Miles Through Time constantly being improved and added to even after we find a way to build a forever home.  There is always something we can do to improve the visitors’ experience and create a better environment to be caretakers of automotive history.

If you ever want to get involved with helping Miles Through Time, you can reach out to me via email or at the museum. We also accept donations online HERE or by check.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is just one of many, so I encourage you to go out and discover your own favorites. I am, of course, biased towards the museum I founded, but it would not be what it is today without all the different people choosing to get involved. 

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.