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.