Reporting on a museum having 2,000 vehicles is tough. The ongoing decision of what to show, what to say, and trying to keep a neutral tone made Part 1 fun, but not straightforward, to prepare.
So let’s move on to Part 2 which will have more editorial commentary.
In Part 1, pictures were presented in the order taken. That is not the case for Part 2.
When a person walks in the front door seen in the first picture, the entrance to the museum itself is about twenty feet straight ahead. The entrance aisle has a row of cars on either side before leading one straight to the obnoxious stretched Cadillac featured in Part 1.
The variety in this aisle is remarkable, which features this delightful Nash.
And this incredible Duesenberg…
Once inside, and past the 100 foot long Cadillac, there were other delights to be found, such as this room:
Yes, it is the Chrysler Lounge, proof Chryslers are special as there was no GM or Ford exclusive room here. However, another American brand had its own dedicated room, but we’ll get to that.
There isn’t a dud in this bunch. Even the very plain, base model 1964 Newport sitting in the back corner, out of camera range, was amazing.
With the various rooms of the museum, several were dedicated to pre-war iron. Cars of this age generally have less appeal over time yet they are a key element of our automotive history. We don’t see them often, so let’s take a look.
A 1931 Chevrolet.
While the sign says “1940 Graham Hollywood”, this isn’t. This car was not labelled but it appears to be a Cord.
This is the 1940 Graham Hollywood mentioned in the prior picture. This Graham used the Cord body shell.
Also using the Cord body shell was this 1940 Hubmobile Skylark.
A 1936 or 1937 Cadillac V12. As with so many other cars, there was nothing to indicate to patrons what they were looking at. Oldcarbrochures.com shows mostly LaSalles (Cadillac’s lower tiered sister brand) for this era, so I’m taking a stab at this. An image search has me torn between the two stated years.
Frankly, since there is undoubtedly documentation for every car here, how hard could it be to label them in some fashion? Some were, but many weren’t.
Here’s a closer look at the engine compartment.
A Chrysler Airflow.
Another Chrysler.
A 1939 Cadillac.
LaSalle, undoubtedly from the late 1920s.
1936 Dodge.
Late 1920s or early 1930s Buick.
1937 Buick.
1941 Cadillac.
Remember only one other brand having its own dedicated room? Let’s mosey over the South Bend offerings…
In Part 1, there were a fair number of “movie” cars featured. That was simply due to my having used two cameras during my visit and using only pictures from the first. All the pictures in Part 2 were from the second camera and, like the museum itself, it is Chrysler heavy. So here’s a few more. The immediate post-war era Chrysler products are not often seen in museums, but such is not the case here…
The scope and magnitude of the Orlando Auto Museum is hard to describe. While Part 1 featured the “movie” cars, which perhaps helped form the opinions expressed in the comments of Part 1, those were but a small portion of the overall museum. Sadly, those cars were given more space, particularly the separate exhibit of cars from the various James Bond movies.
I say sadly due to the display of military vehicles, apart from two tanks, being crammed together into one room. To me, military vehicles have infinitely more relevance than something from a movie. These military vehicles came from all over Europe plus the United States. So let’s take a look.
According to information presented, which was often suspect but seemed better presented in this case, this particular DUKW was assigned to the 818th Amphibious Truck Company. The 818th was an African American unit during World War II. The 818th, along with this particular DUKW, was part of the Utah Beach landings on June 6, 1944.
Further information can be seen in this picture. Click to enlarge.
One could easily experience sensory overload at this museum and quickly grow numb to the variety of offerings. That is understandable. So to prevent that, let’s start winding down.
It is rare to see a Frazer in most auto museums.
Similarly, one is hard pressed to find an unmolested Henry J anywhere.
Seeing a 1960 Edsel anywhere is a treat.
Finding a 1959 Edsel, even if the one on the right is a wagon, is a less remarkable event.
Did I mention the museum is delightfully Chrysler heavy?
They even give a first hand lesson about the differences between the 1960 Dodge and Dart line.
I still can’t remember which is which.
In short, there is a lot to see here. Is there some crap on display? Absolutely. The supposed movie cars, the stretch Cadillac, and some others I did not show don’t do the place any favors.
Does one really want to see a customized 1956 Cadillac with a plastic Marilyn Monroe spilling out? I don’t.
However, like most things in life, one needs to filter through things. The museum is in Orlando, Florida, thus it aims itself toward tourists. The target for that market is expansive. Expansive is also the best word to describe the Orlando Auto Museum. They have things one simply will not see anywhere else.
They even have so many cars, they have to display them on shelves.
There is enough here that one can easily skip whatever they don’t care for and still see an immense amount. Overall my biggest qualm is the general lack of information about what one is looking at or, in some cases, the presented information simply being wrong. That makes it tough and detracts from the experience.
While I have not graded museums before (perhaps I should have), the Orlando Auto Museum gets a solid B. Some of the finer points I have expressed, along with the tacky factor of some specific exhibits like the Marilyn Cadillac and the questionable “movie” cars, forms that grade.
Despite that, if one is in Orlando, I do recommend visiting.
Footnote: As I type this on October 6, Hurricane Milton has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and is heading toward Florida. Orlando is in its path. This hurricane is forecast to be a Category 4, with a 5 being the worst. Update: As of October 8, Milton is a Category 5 and will have just blown through Orlando at the time of publication. For those living in Florida, I hope none of the worst-case scenarios happen.
This would have been a lot of museum to take in! And yes, I hope the damage to the place isn’t catastrophic.
The Stude Room – the Golden Hawk is a 58, and my oh my but someone has a bullet nose fetish.
I don’t think I have ever seen wheels like these on a Duesenberg.
Yes that what I was thinking too, those are modern looking wheels. And the proportions seem off, maybe a later roadster recreation on another chassis?
Overall this seems like a bunch of vehicles rather than some sort of plan, but interesting. I’d rather see this for the day than go to Disney. Of these I’d take home the red 63 Stude.
You’ve triggered a memory from going there…there was also a Duesenberg room but I only showed one of them in Part 1. Why? One of them was a recreation. Given what this group is determining, I wouldn’t rule out this one being similar. Such never occurred to me until you mentioned the wheels.
Ugh.
Thank you Jason. There’s a lot to digest here. I get how it must be overwhelming in person.
I’ve gone to the museum’s website just to see if there was a way to get an answer to my most pressing question, which is where do all of these cars come from? The fact that a number in your photos seem to have pretty much current license plates from a variety of different locations makes me think that a bunch of these vehicles may be on loan from individual collectors or owners. Then again, I’d think that if this was their exhibition strategy, they’d have something about that on their website…and I can’t find that info. LIkewise, the incomplete and wrong info on some of the vehicles leads me to think that there’s no central curation, just rather parking space for whoever wants to park one of their cool cars there. It’s frankly very strange.
And therefore fascinating. Personally, I love bad museums as much as good museums. First, that’s a totally subjective notion (bad vs. good) and second it’s simply interesting to me to see what people find worthy of collecting and displaying. And HOW they do that says as much about the motivations as what is actually displayed.
One of my pet peeves though is the use of manikins in museums…and Dezerland seems to be a manikin rich environment. I can honestly say that my enjoyment of cars is absolutely not enhanced by life-sized dolls all leaning at slight angles with strangely blank features. Why would I need to see 3 manikins dressed in military garb to go with a fine truck like that DUKW?
Well, I still intend to visit whenever I’m back in FL. So, thanks for the article!
Regarding vehicles with somewhat current license plates, one possibility is that the the museum purchased the cars with plates and never removed them.
The Studebaker Champion that Jason photographed, for instance, appears to be this example, which was sold by a Pennsylvania classic car dealer, with the same California plates on the car:
https://www.classicautomall.com/vehicles/3978/1950-studebaker-champion
That looks more like a ’35 V12 Cadillac than a later year.
I gather none of these cars are exercised. Are there any museums that do that? I don’t count Jay Leno’s collection as a museum–yet.
It is a ’35.
The Lane Museum in Nashville does. Employees get to take them home. I saw a couple of them being driven when we were there.
The Lane is the exact polar opposite of this museum: it was started and owned by hard-core car enthusiasts. Everything is documented.
I hope many people are documenting how to repair and maintain old cars, or future generations will be like the Goths in Rome, unable and unwilling to keep the water flowing.
There is also one in Los Angeles where every Sunday they pull out a few cars and drive patrons around the facility.
Sadly The Automotive Driving Museum is closing down at the end of this month .
There’s the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, Ca. that runs and drives every single one of their amazing collection in rotation .
-Nate
I hate to hear that…given the hurricane this week, wife and daughter, who were going to Florida and cancelled, have lots of flight credit. We are wanting to revisit Los Angeles to use the credit, with this museum being a planned stop. Thanks for saying something about it.
Thanks for posting, Jason I will be traveling to Orlando next week. If Milton has not closed the museum I plan to go there.
My primary reason for going to central Florida is to visit a family member and celebrate her 75th birthday. She lives in Maitland which is north of Orlando and told me her house did not lose electricity or internet service during the storm.
My wife and daughter were scheduled to leave for Orlando this past Tuesday and be there for five days – they canceled.
While the pictures I’ve seen are horrible, it sound like the storm surges weren’t as big as forecast, so there is a positive among all of it.
The Renault with a white star, Military Police and USA is going too far. Same with the Beetle both in drab green. Thank god they didn’t hang a General’s flag on the front of one of them. I can tolerate a few things wrong with commercial vehicles but military vehicles, ships, and planes I demand accuracy.
The Chrysler Room I liked so there is that.
It’s a Citroen, not a Renault. And it’s from the ’70s or so, so all sorts of wrong.
The VW pickup is a fake too; the body is from a later era well past occupation (vent window is a giveaway).
Undoubtedly they were “movie cars” too, and just as fake.
Some thought’s on Part II (more positive than part 1!):
I absolutely LOVE the color of that Nash. That car looked very well restored.
The ’37 Cord accord seems to be suffering from Seventies-Lincoln-Vacuumitis (a medical term ;o). This is the first time I’ve ever seen one that did not have the headlight doors closed. Perhaps this is how the guy confused it with a ’40 Graham.
I too really like the Chrysler Lounge.
Speaking of Mopar, the 1960 Dodge display is great, showing the different trims. My Dad had a ’60 Seneca, which was the lowest trim level I think, as his first NEW car. It was light blue. I was really young when it got traded for the ’66 Impala so my memories of it are limited. I’ve always liked these.
I’m praying that this museum made it through Milton ok, but from what I heard this morning, Milton was not as bad as they had feared.
While no expert on military vehicles like tbm3fan above, maybe we can give them a pass on the VW with a US Army white star. It does say “Occupation Force” on the door. It would not be that surprising for us to commandeer vehicles and such from the Germans at the end of WWII. Didn’t we make off with a bunch of V2 rockets (and their engineers)?
The less said about the Marylin Monroe Caddy, the better. I’d rather have the memory of the picture of her with the ’54 Caddy posted here years ago…
The VW’s pickup was built using a ’53 or later body, and these were not factory built, so there’s no way they bought it from VW at that late date. It was a popular kit in the ’70s to convert a VW to a pickup. This is probably a “movie car too.
I’m sorry, this place gets an F from me. The single overwhelming reason is the lack of a simple sign stating the make and year of each car. What are folks supposed to get from this? The overwhelming percentage will not know what they are looking at. They can’t even say “Look, a 1957 Dorkmobile; Uncle Harry used to have one!” I don’t think I’ve ever gone in a museum that didn’t have ID tags. And then of course, the one car that does (Cord) is wrong!! One of the most important cars of the 20th century, at that.
What’s absolutely obvious is that the folks who created this are of course utterly clueless themselves. They undoubtedly don’t know an Imperial from a Chrysler, or a Duesenberg with the wrong wheels, or all the other of endless mistakes and the lack of authenticity.
Imagine going to a vast art museum that had paintings from all the classic painters over history, and no identification on them, or the wrong ones on a small handful of them.
Yes, an ID is a minimum. It does make me worry how many cars now in private collectors’ hands will end up warehoused like this, or much worse, as the old-car-mad population dwindles. The Duesenbergs will be okay, but the others?
As part of a college Baroque art history class, we toured Bob Jones University’s museum of third rate religious art in Spartanburg SC. Every old painting was scrubbed, varnished, and spot-lit so they glowed brighter than the slides of the masters we’d seen in class. I’m pretty sure the professor hadn’t been there before, or she wouldn’t have wasted our time with something so inauthentic and off-putting.
The red Dodge is a Dart.
One of my favorite cars in this period. I disliked the big Dodge with its odd fins that did not reach the end of the car.
As a Cord fancier, seeing a Cord sedan and a Graham Hollywood and a Hupmobile Skylark (virtually identical ?) on the same page is a unique experience. Thanks !
RE the VW pickup. I knew a guy… Owned a VW shop but an absolute maniac, good guy, but a bit on the wild side, lets say an indulgent sort. Last I think I saw him he was driving golf balls off the back end of a VW Bug flatbed towards a golf course driving range. At 10PM.
2K cars may be too many. I did see Harrah’s collection in the late 70s and I think it exceeded a thou in those days. Thankfully before digital cameras or no telling how many pictures I would have taken. Too many for a day? Probably, but I didn’t feel that way at the time.
As a side note, the National Automobile Museum, the successor to Harrah’s collection, is nice today, I’m glad they preserved the collection somewhat, but a mere shadow of what it once was.
The “Unmolested Henry J” has modern seats at the very least .
I also wonder about the overhead valve V8 engine and chrome delcotron alternator in the ‘V12’ car .
Too much to take in in one day but still worth a look methinks .
-Nate
Yes about the alternator but that looks like a legit Cadillac V-12 to me. They had overhead valves, a 45 degree V, and updraft carburetors. There’s something weird about the distributor, either some wires missing or we just can’t see them clearly. But it doesn’t resemble any V-8 I know of.