Blasts from the Past

Yesterday, Dad and I drove about 30 minutes north to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. I had been there before, with Jordan and Phillip and Jeannette's dad and step-mom. I don't really have anything to compare it with, since I think I've only been to one other car museum in my life, but this one seems pretty cool. Most of the cars are luxury models from the 1920s and '30s, along with some from even the turn of the 20th century and more recent. The cars are just so different from anything else you see at car shows or on the street. Most of the cars are just so much bigger than anything seen in many decades. Some of them are close to 30 feet long and I never realized that the reason they call it a "trunk" is because it originally was actually a big trunk strapped onto the back of the car.

I tried to take a picture of Dad and me but in my old age, I've become incapable of keeping my eyes open when the camera flashes. This was the best I could do . . .
Dad found a Duesenberg manufactured the same year that he was born . . .

I was more interested in this 1999 Plymouth Prowler . . .

. . . while Dad liked its next door neighbor, the last Duesenberg raced at Indianapolis. He said he first became aware of Duesenbergs listening to races like the Indianpolis 500 on the radio . . .

This is Frank Lloyd Wright's 1929 Cord L-29 Carbiolet . . .

Toward the end of our tour, I got interested in looking at the hood ornaments, which you really don't see nowadays except perhaps on Jaguars.

1948 Rolls Royce

1938 Packard

1937 Cord

1936 Pierce-Arrow

1929 Stearns Knight

1926 Duesenberg

1929 Lincoln

It was also interesting to consider that almost all these cars of the past, were made by dozens--no, hundreds--of companies no longer in existence. There was a map on display that showed car manufacturers located in almost every city in Indiana in the 1920s and '30s . . . there were ten different brands made in Auburn alone in the years prior to the first World War! As we face this current economic crisis, you wonder if we would be better off if we weren't so dependent on the Big Three of Detroit, and whether ten or twenty years from now we would even miss them if they were gone.