I got a 3-star review last week for my museum, Miles Through Time Automotive Museum. Three stars aren’t terrible, but for me, anything less than a full five-star rating means there is room for improvement.

However, this particular review came from someone who obviously wasn’t a huge automotive nut. Automotive museums are no different from any other art, science, or history museum, with one major exception. 

The Mona Lisa does not have to be exercised. She won’t leak and shouldn’t break. The only concern is that the nail in the wall continues to hold the frame.

The cars in the museum are the museum’s Mona Lisa’s. However, cars break, they break if you use them, and they break if you don’t use them. They have various fluids in them that can leak. Tires can lose air pressure, and keeping them free of dust is a full-time job. 

Cars are great to look at, but their depth is so much more than a painting hung on the wall. The amount of effort necessary to maintain vehicles can be overwhelming.

Miles Through Time has about 130 vehicles on display. We’ve got about 4 vehicles that have tires that just do not want to hold air. A few of them may hold air for a few days, while at least one will be flat before I leave for the day.

Between myself and a few of our docents, the air compressor is constantly being rolled around the museum. Most of the vehicles on display are driven right into the museum and will drive out of the museum when they are done.

This means sometimes cars leak. How much they leak and from where is pretty much the only variable, because if they have fluids in them, eventually they will start leaking. As automotive enthusiasts, we understand this, but for others, seeing a few low tires and some pig mats under some cars can be too disappointing.

The battle is real, and we can always use more volunteers to help at the museum, like every other museum out there. I did not get a request to volunteer from this individual, but you never know.

Museums are a lot of work. The Heritage Museum and Gardens is a wonderful museum that isn’t even open all year long. In fact, this one you need to put on the calendar to visit in the spring. There are over 18,000 artifacts on display.

The Glenn H Curtiss Museum is open all year long, but they do alter their hours over the winter. This museum has a lot of local history on display, as well as motorcycles, cars, and aircraft.

I don’t mention our northern neighbors too often, but Canada is home to quite a few automotive museums you can drive to. The Canadian Automotive Museum is home to the world’s most significant collection of Canadian-built cars.

Don’t forget, you can always use one of the MAPS to find all the automotive museums all over the world.

Have a great week!

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