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.

I enjoy the vast array of automotive museums all over the country. One day, hopefully, sooner than later, I’ll also be able to experience some automotive museums abroad.

It is amazing to think that, until 2014, I only ever owned one vehicle at a time, which was my daily driver. Then, in 2014, my dad gave me my grandpa’s 1959 Cadillac. I was 30 years old and all of a sudden owned one of the best designed cars from the 50s.

The car is beautiful, but the history means even more. My dad was just a little kid crawling around the back seat when my Pop was behind the wheel. I never got to see my grandpa drive the car since as early as I can remember, the car was always covered in his shop.

Although I have no memories of my grandpa talking about the car or even seeing him with the car, I knew it was special just because of how he kept the car for all those decades.

My grandpa passed away in 2004, and for 6 years I tried to get the car from my grandma. I tried to buy it and do anything I could just to ensure I would be able to continue to care for it.

No matter how I presented my plea to my grandma, she refused to do anything with that car. All of my grandpa’s other vehicles were sold off, except his daily driver, which my cousin was given immediately.

I feared for my Pop’s 59 Cadillac. Alas, my grandma made sure it remained exactly where my Pop left it until she passed away 10 years later. Of course, 10 years later I had moved to the opposite side of the country, but when my dad called and said he wanted to make sure I got the car, I figured out how to get it transported across the country and made room for it in my garage.

My Pop’s 59 Caddy was my first introduction into the classic car world. At least as far as drivable cars goes. I still have a sweet spot for my 56 F100 I never got to drive.

After two summers of car shows, I was burnt out, and I started to come up with the idea that would eventually become Miles Through Time Automotive Museum in 2017.

After starting Miles Through Time with no money, no collection of any kind and no experience, I put as much time into figuring it all out as I could. This is why the Automotive Museum Guide exists today. It is a byproduct of my research.

In 2020, Miles Through Time was moved to its current location and pretty much started over from scratch. Only this time I wasn’t by myself, and instead of one car there were about 7.

In November 2021, I created Vintage Garage Antiques (again not knowing what I was doing) and was able to double the square footage of the museum. 2023 was a big year. We were able to double the size of the museum again and expanded the antique store. That is also the year I was asked to join the board of the National Association of Automobile Museums. (NAAM)

Most recently, I joined another board, this time the World Forum for Motor Museums. I guess you could say I’ve gone global, and I really look forward to being able to visit some automotive museums all over the world. 

You never know what the future has in mind for you or what might be behind the door or around the corner. For that reason, I typically try to just go for it, even if I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll either figure it out or at least know I tried.

Sometimes, walking into an unassuming museum can turn into a pleasant surprise. The Washington County Rural Heritage Museum is probably a place you’ve never heard of, unless you’ve visited the area. And yet, within the county museum, there is an amazing car museum.

The Fayetteville Area Transportation and Local History Museum​​​​​​​ is another local museum you may have never heard of before, and you’d be missing out on visiting the beautifully restored 1890 railroad depot.

There are so many varieties of automotive museums. I suggest staying away from the internet’s “Top lists.” The museums on those lists are fantastic options, but the only represent a tiny fraction of amazing places to visit.

The Mid-America Museum of Aviation & Transportation is another option for you to visit. The variety of automotive artifacts on display should pique your interest and the aircraft are a definite bonus.

Don’t worry about where the museum is or what they do or don’t have on display, just visit if you can and experience what they have to offer. You never know what you’ll see, what you’ll learn or who you’ll meet.

If you can’t visit them in person, explore their website or follow them on social media. There are still ways to connect and discover new things, even if physically walking into the building isn’t an option.

Safe travels!

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’m back now that it is 2025. Quite a few people thought I was done completely when I said last week’s email was the last one for 2024. I’m very glad to hear people actually find value and enjoy these emails on top of helping me keep the guide up to date.

I have made a major change or addition this year that will hopefully help people gain access to these museums, even if this email doesn’t make it into their email box. 

It is going to take me some time to add all the backdates, but going forward this email will be available on the website under the Newsletter tab, which is found under extras.

Hopefully, this way, if you ever miss an email or want to reference back to it, it’ll be easy to find on the website.

I’m never a fan of having to share museums that are closing. Luckily, recently quite a few museums have been growing. I’ve got one more museum to share with you that is moving into a new 100,000-square-foot facility. 

The DFW Elite Toy Museum was started by Ron Sturgeon and has a very impressive collection of cars on display and soon the car museum will be much larger. I’m excited to see this museum in their new space. 

A lot can change very quickly in the automotive museum world. It feels like just yesterday I started Miles Through Time Automotive Museum in 2017, and yet at the same time, it feels like forever ago. 😉

Maine Classic Car Museum was created in 2019, so they’re actually pretty young, but they have 50 of some of the most beautiful vehicles on display.

A lot of automotive museums start as a private collection. Sometimes they turn into lasting museums, but more often than not they disappear once the founder passes on. 

Howard’s Toys For Big Boys showcases Howard Alger’s classic car collection. Howard is still alive and gives tours of his collection, even though he is currently in his 90s.  The local chamber helps Howard keep his collection open, which is free to visit.

If you have the opportunity to visit any automotive museum, I highly recommend you do it. You never know if that museum will be around in another 10 years, or better yet, you’d have the opportunity to see the museum before it gets better.

Have you visited your closest automotive museum?

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.

Today is Veterans Day, and although today is the day, we specifically recognize veterans for their patriotism, love of the country, willingness to serve and sacrifice. I am thankful every day to those who have served and grateful to meet the ones who’ve made it home and especially the ones who have made it to old age.

I have a nephew who is still a fresh Navy recruit. His dad, my brother, is now retired from the Navy. Both of my grandpas were in WWII. My wife served in the Army and I served 11 years as a crew chief on the a10s and c130s. I understand how difficult it can be to not only serve in the military but also have loved ones who served. 

So, although today is officially Veterans Day, just know myself and most other people are grateful for our veterans every day.

I’m on the road this week. I’m heading north for a meeting that will take me to the Auburn Cord Duesenber Museum for the first time. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to visit the National Automotive and truck Museum of the United States and the Early Ford V8 Foundation Museum nearby.

The Klairmont Kollections is also a super cool museum that has been on my list of museums to visit for some time, and it looks like I may be able to make it happen on Wednesday morning since they aren’t open on Tuesday. That is one of the biggest challenges of traveling and trying to fit museum visits in. The schedule doesn’t always make it possible, even though the museum is so close.

These are all bonus museums so far. You can click the bold name to learn more about each of them. This week, I want to share some military museums with you.

First up is the Marine Corps Mechanized Museum. This museum shares Marine vehicles used from WWI to the present day. The majority of the vehicles in the collection are in running condition, thanks to the work of retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant Jim King and his hearty band of volunteers, aptly named “the Dirty Docents.”

On the opposite side of the country, you can visit the U.S. Army Transportation Museum. This museum has over 7,000 artifacts and 135 military vehicles on display. I have personally been to this museum, and it’s fascinating to see all the different vehicles on display.

If you want to go more towards the center of the country, you can visit the National Museum of Military Vehicles. This museum is 160,000 square feet with over 500 military vehicles on display. This museum is called the National Museum for a reason.

If you served in the military, thank you! If you had to deal with your loved one going off to serve, thank you for sticking around, it means a lot.

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.

This is it for 2024. I’ve been sending an email like this every week for almost three and a half years. This guide started as my research to figure out how to create Miles Through Time Automotive Museum in 2017.

Rather than waste my research, I decided to create the Automotive Museum Guide so it would be easier to find all the different automotive museums all over the country. I slowly added more museums as I discovered them, but I didn’t do much with the website until 2020.

In 2020, I found myself recreating Miles Through Time almost from scratch in a new location. I personally had to move to a new house, and the world was in chaos. I also noticed most of the museums I had already added to the guide were changing in some way.

Most museums’ hours changed, admission changed and, unfortunately, a few museums did make it at all. This meant the Automotive Museum Guide was slowly becoming just as obsolete as a printed guide.

My solution to maintain the guide and hopefully increase awareness was to send this email, weekly.  You can skip this top part of the email if you want and just see the three automotive museums listed below, but I’m pretty sure this would become a boring email that will eventually just go to your junk mail.

I try to share something interesting within the automotive museum world from my perspective as a museum founder and a museum visitor. I’m not who you’d expect to be behind the creation of an automotive museum in northeast Georgia with over 130 full-size vehicles on display.

I had no way to create an automotive museum in 2017 when all I had was a 59 Cadillac I inherited from my grandpa. I had no idea if the museum would prosper when it was moved in 2019/2020.

It would have been hard to fathom how over 30 vehicles have been donated to the museum just in the last 4 years, and yet I’m optimistic about the next chapter of the museum.

I still have a lot to learn, but within 7 years, I went from being just a regular car enthusiast taking my Pop’s 59 Cadillac to car shows. To the founder of a 501c3 nonprofit automotive museum with over 130 full-size vehicles and thousands of artifacts.

I’m on the board of the National Association of Automobiles and the World Forum For Motor Museums. I went from visiting 2 automotive museums in my life to close to 100 within the last 7 years. Plus, I’ve helped other automotive museums get created and grow.

The Automotive Museum Guide has grown to encompass automotive museums all over the world, each one individually added by me, almost 600 of them. My perspective is unique in the automotive museum world.

I’m not a guy who has had a lifetime of success and decided to create an automotive museum with my own collection. What I have is a vision and a passion to create a museum that can preserve and share automotive history with visitors from all over the world for generations.

But I need help to do it all, and I’ll share the journey and everything I learn with you.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is not the only museum looking to grow and build a forever home. Last week, all the museums I shared with you were either getting new buildings or just got one.

I have since learned there’s another automotive museum on the path of growth. The Kansas City Automotive Museum is actively working on raising funds to go from their 10,000-square-foot facility to a brand-new 40,000-square-foot facility near the Underground location. This campaign is called Legacy in Motion if you want to learn more.

It doesn’t matter where you live. You can choose to support your local museum or one on the other side of the country, just because you like what they are doing. You never know when a new museum may pop up.

The Brumos Collection is not new. There is an entire story behind the Brumos Collection, best told by the museum. Just make sure you don’t visit claiming to know Mr. Brumos.

Apparently, it often happens, and I believe it based on what I hear at Miles Through Time. Just know there is no Mr. Brumos. 😉 However, the facility was first opened in 2020, which makes the museum you can visit today relatively young, but you’d never know it. It’s a beautiful building and collection.

The last museum I’ll share with you for 2024 is The Cobra Experience. You can only visit this museum on the 3rd Sunday of the month, so it will take some additional planning to ensure a visit lines up with your schedule, but it will be worth it.

That’s it for 2024. If you need any last-minute donation write-offs, Miles Through Time would be happy to oblige since we need to purchase land and build a building. You can donate HERE or any museum in the guide would benefit from your charitable actions.

​​​​​​​Happy New Year!

SCROLL DOWN TO CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S 3 AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUMS.

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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.

Change is inevitable. There is no guarantee change will be better or that you’ll like it, but it constantly happens without our consent and will forever.

Rather than fight the losing battle with change, I like to find ways to turn change into a good thing.

The thought of closing Miles Through Time Automotive Museum in 2019 was real and very nearly happened. Instead, I moved the museum to a new location that was better, and bigger and enabled the museum to be open more often, without me specifically having to be there.

That change was good, but scary. After three years, I still didn’t have any money. I put every bit of the $5 admission I collected back into the museum or to pay for electricity and other bills associated with operating a business.

Basically, after three years, I recreated the museum again from scratch but that time I had more help. Within months, the larger museum was completely full, and we even built an entire town out of reclaimed and recycled materials donated to the museum.

Change struck again within 15 months when circumstances changed that would hinder the museum’s ability to stay in the new location. After a “brief” panic, I figured out how to not only keep the museum open, but grow it.

Vintage Garage Antiques was created in November 2021, which also marked the first expansion of the museum. Eighteen months later the museum and the antique store expanded again, growing to over 47,000 square feet.

This was an increase of about 40,000 square feet in the span of 6 years or about a 470% increase. Not to mention, I went from one car I inherited to about 130 on display, plus thousands of other artifacts and memorabilia.

Now, I’m faced with another change. This change is more serious than any other change I’ve faced at Miles Through Time. The museum is no longer just my car and a few others loaned to the museum.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is the caretaker for dozens of family vehicles and memorabilia. The museum is not about me and never has been. The museum is a platform for people from all over the country to be able to share their little piece of automotive history with visitors from all over the world.

In order to continue to preserve and share automotive history for decades to come, there is one more major change Miles Through Time has to make, which is to move one more time.

The good news is, I found a piece of land that would be ideal to build the museum and create a campus atmosphere. The plot of land is right on the main highway at an intersection and already has a building that would be used for storage, a workshop and the ability to “stay” at the museum.

Here’s a sneak peek of the potential location.

Of course, I will need even more help to make all of this possible. What started as a one-car museum by myself, has truly turned into a co-op-style museum curated by regular people. This next phase is a big one though, which is going to take some major financial assistance, but will also become the most popular attraction in northeast Georgia.

For over 7 years now, I’ve been dedicating myself to growing Miles Through Time because the alternative is all too common in the museum world. Route 66 Mother Road Museum is the latest museum fatality.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is not alone when it comes to growing. Classic Motor Museum is closing on its new location in January. It looks like they’ve raised about $900,000 so far to be able to move to a new location.

Tucson Auto Museum has been working hard to complete construction on their new building, which is slated to open after the first of the year. I had an opportunity to visit the old location earlier this year and look forward to seeing the new location.

You probably know about the new home being built for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. This museum is in the center of the Indianapolis Speedway and is currently under renovation to bring the museum into the 21st century.

Even the Shelby American Collection has built a new location, although in their case the new location is actually the building across from them, and it is, in addition to what they already have, essentially doubling the size of the museum. I had the opportunity to view the new space under construction, and it’s top-notch, and rightfully so considering the cars that will be placed on the tile floor.

Change can be a good thing, albeit scary and stressful. Operating a museum isn’t easy, but it can be very rewarding and when done right, you get to see museums grow, like the ones I’ve shared this week.

If you want to be a part of helping a museum grow, let me know. We need the help and only have three years to make it happen. You can help any museum just by visiting or at least sharing with friends. 

Have a great week and Merry Christmas!

SCROLL DOWN TO CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S 3 AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUMS.