Midwest Guest

Where I live: Driving America opens at The Henry Ford

Workers put the finishing touches on "Driving America" at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, last week as a reimagining of the museum's premiere auto exhibit for the 21st century approached its public debut, set for Sunday, January 29.

Museum visitors familiar with the exhibit's former incarnation as "The Automobile in American Life" should be pleased to see some familiar and favorite artifacts like the 1960s-vintage Golden Arches sign, a 1930s-vintage tourist cabin and a diner car from 1946, interspersed among a vehicle collection spanning automotive history beginning in 1865 with a Roper steam carriage (thought to be the oldest surviving American car) and continuing into the present day to include innovative and alternative vehicles like hybrids and Segways.

I wrote about the upgrade early last year as workers began dismantling the old exhibit, making repairs and preparing to close the exhibit during the a year-long renovation, so I was especially thrilled when the folks at The Henry Ford invited me for a preview of the redesigned exhibit.

While "The Automobile in American Life" represented a real step forward from traditional, static collections of artifacts in terms of interpretive exhibits and using a variety of media to engage viewers at its 1987 opening, "Driving America" represents another leap forward in visitor engagement with sophisticated interactive elements and a new emphasis on the automobile's impact on our culture and everyday life.

Last year, I wrote that some historians questioned the old exhibit's emphasis on automotive history from the manufacturers' point of view to the near exclusion of that history from the consumers' point of view and slight attention to the idea that the automobile led to a fundamental change in our entire culture over time. I'd like to think that they would appreciate the new exhibit's emphasis on that cultural change and enhanced interactive elements that give visitors more personal ways to relate to museum artifacts.

I enjoyed exploring the exhibit with the museum's 18 touchscreen kiosks. The 42-inch touchscreen stations are a first for The Henry Ford and offer some really cool ways to access museum artifacts on, and off, of the museum floor.

Word searches give visitors access to artifacts and related items, while an app-like interface with app-directed interactive features gives visitors some really fun ways to access information.

Want a closer look at something? You can pull up a photo and enlarge it with a flick of your fingertips, much as you can enlarge a section of the screen on your smart phone or tablet.

I heard several people say they had a lot of fun playing the "Talk like a Trucker" game on one kiosk where viewers tried to guess the correct meaning of phrases commonly used by truckers who used Citizen Band (CB) radios during their 1970s heyday. I hate to admit it, but I did pretty well at this game because I actually had a CB radio during my days cruising Woodward Avenue as "Highway Star" (my CB name or "handle").

I also loved the Car Tunes kiosk, where I listened to audio clips of car-related songs dating from 1900 to the present day.

The My Collections feature sounds especially cool, as visitors will use Radio Frequency Identification Cards issued at the exhibit to bookmark favorite items, photos or videos to create a custom collection accessible on their home computer, smartphone or tablet via a special link sent to their email address. That feature wasn't available during the press preview, but I look forward to trying it out next time I visit the exhibit.

I'm glad to see many of my old favorite pieces in the exhibit, and I'm especially excited to learn that visitors will now be able to order food at the Lamy Diner. I remember how much fun we had stopping for an ice cream cone at the Blue Moon Diner car in Kalamazoo's Gilmore Car Museum, and I'm thrilled to see we'll be able to enjoy a similar experience much closer to home!

"Driving America" covers 80,000 square feet with 130 vehicles and more than 60 cases of automotive-related artifacts. The new 15-minute film playing at the exhibit's 100-seat theater explores automotive innovation and, in the words of The Henry Ford's senior curator of transportation Bob Casey, the car as our "chariot to the unknown" and agent for expanding our personal freedom.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Around the block with Ohio's Canton Classic Car Museum

Cars are the stars at Ohio's Canton Classic Car Museum, but there is so much more to see and do at this wonderfully quirky stop along the Lincoln Highway.

Has anyone ever seen a gas price sign like this one?

We visited the museum as part of our exploration of the Ohio leg of America's first coast-to-coast highway and definitely recommend it as a fun roadside pit stop.

Check out Cruise into Ohio's Canton Classic Car Museum to learn more about our visit and check out some more pictures of the museum's collection.

We used The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate by Michael Wallis as a guide book and found it invaluable when we traveled the Lincoln Highway through Ohio.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

Thanks to the Canton-Stark County Convention & Visitors Bureau for their assistance with planning our recent visit to Canton and arranging for comped media passes to the museum.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Cruise into Ohio's Canton Classic Car Museum

"We're so much more than cars!'

That's the first thing Canton Classic Car Museum director Char Lautzenheiser tells visitors, and we found that to be more than true when we recently toured the Ohio museum with her.

Lautzenheiser fell in love with museum when she toured it as a young girl with her father, shortly after the its 1978 opening, and she began working at the museum in 1986.

"I feel right at home here," she said, as she led us through the museum.

The museum really does have a homey feel to it with vintage toys tucked into unexpected corners, Oriental-style rugs covering many of the floors, and chairs scattered around the building where visitors can sit and enjoy the kaleidoscope-effect of the museum's eclectic collections.

The museum's 45-car collection ranges from a 1901 curved-dash Oldsmobile to a 1970 Plymouth Super Bird, with plenty of vehicles in between.

You can check out iconic cruising cars like the Super Bird, a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air or a 1959 Cadillac Biarritz, but I especially enjoyed some of the museum's quirkier vehicles.

A 1937 Packard hearse with a V-12 engine and hand-carved mahogany body panels resembling black curtains sits alongside a small "funeral parlor" and behind a street sign for Hemlock Road, in one of just many instances of the museum's quirky sense of humor.

Lautzenheiser invited us to sit among the potted plants in the parlor area next to the car on a quiet day and listen as she opened the hearse's side doors with a prolonged "creeeeeak" and asked "What does that sound like?"

Tim and I agreed that it sounded just a door opening on the old "Addams Family" or "The Munsters" television shows, and Lautzenheiser laughed as she told us that was a favorite stop with some of the museum's youngest visitors who like slightly spooky stories.

A black 1937 Studebaker Canton Police car sports bullet-proof windows more than one-inch thick that have gun portholes in the middle of them, making it easy to imagine yourself in the midst of a car chase involving some of the 1930s most notorious gangsters.

This cute little Isetta is a 1957 BMW vehicle used by retired television reporter Neil Zurcher during trips he did for a northeast Ohio television show called "One-Tank Trips". The one-cylinder car got about 77 miles per gallon, and if you look closely, you see that the entry door is at the front of the vehicle.

The museum has a 1922 Holmes car built by a Canton company owned by Arthur Holmes. The company built about 500 air-cooled luxury vehicles, billing them as the country's most comfortable cars, although some wags called the car the homeliest on the road at the time.

Check out this 1918 Holmes Automotive Company newspaper ad about a test drive from Canton to New York and touting the car's superior performance over rough roads, steep mountains, and winter storms while averaging a "remarkable mileage of 13 miles to the gallon".

The company lasted only from 1917 until 1922, failing after charges of embezzlement and fraud against a company vice president.

The building itself has an interesting story and links to early automotive history in Canton.

George and Joseph Sacher opened a bicycle repair shop there in 1913. They got wind of news that the nation's first transcontinental highway-The Lincoln Highway-would pass within six blocks of their business and quickly switched their bicycle shop into an automobile garage. The garage was the largest Ford dealership in the country as the Sachers convinced Ford to ship parts to their business in order to more economically assemble cars in Canton.

The dealership lasted until 1929.

In 1978, Marshall Belden Sr. established the Canton Classic Car Museum in the building to store his antique car collection and share it with the public.

Cars weren't that interesting to Mrs. Belden, who added her own nostalgic items into the collection. The museum has vintage clothing, movie memorabilia, toys, furniture, advertising signs, a few items from Canton's defunct Meyers Lake Amusement Park, political memorabilia, and some things that just defy easy categorization. It's like a real treasure hunt as you move from room to room, never knowing just what you'll find lurking in a corner, tucked into a shelf or hung high upon a wall.  

The treasure hunt continues online where I recently saw the museum selling everything from a rare, ready-for-restoration 1933 V-16 Marmon to pallets of assorted foreign car parts to a 1994 Saturn factory cut-a-way display vehicle.

If you happen to tour the museum with Lautzenheiser, you'll have a great time learning about the collection. A word of warning, though, don't try to stump her when it comes to automotive lore and history. The woman knows more about those subjects than anyone I've ever met!

Be sure to check the Canton Classic Car Museum site for discount coupons, and visit the museum on Facebook.

Want to learn more about America's first coast-to-coast highway? Check out The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate by Michael Wallis. This book proved invaluable to us as a guide when we traveled the Lincoln Highway through Ohio.

Check out Tales from the Road: Memoirs from a Lifetime of Ohio Travel, Television and More by Neil Zurcher or Ohio Oddities: A Guide to the Curious Attractions of the Buckeye States by Neil Zucher to learn more about off-the-beaten-path adventures in Ohio.

Check out Discover something for everyone at the William McKinley Museum and First Ladies' National Library and historic Saxton-McKinley Home for more about Canton's museums.

Thanks to the Canton-Stark County Convention & Visitors Bureau for their assistance with planning our recent visit to Canton and arranging for comped media passes to the museum.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Canton

Photo Friday: West Michigan's Gilmore Car Museum

West Michigan's Gilmore Car Museum opens for the season on May 1 amid the largest expansion in its 45 year history.

The museum, set on a 90-acre campus dotted with restored barns, historic buildings, and replica structures is already one of the largest automotive museums in the United States, but completion of new construction projects will double the museum's display space and allow it to become a year round destination.

Check out yesterday's story for details about the museum and its ambitious expansion, as well as more photos of its picturesque campus.

Does Tim look happy about ending our visit at the museum in the restored diner car for a dish of frozen custard?

Want to learn more about Kalamazoo and its automotive history? Check out The Kalamazoo Automobilist by David O. Lyon or Checker Cab Photo History by James Hinckley.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Gilmore Car Museum expands and reopens for the season

The Gilmore Car Museum in western Michigan draws over 50,000 visitors each year and is one of the largest automotive museums in the nation, but its ambitious expansion continues as it reopens to start its 45th season on May 1.

I love it when a museum says "cameras encouraged!" on their web site, especially when the museum and its contents are so photogenic. We'd visited the Gilmore in the past, so we knew it would be a great place to go with our cameras when we stayed in nearby Kalamazoo late last summer.

The museum, set on 90 acres between Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek and Lansing, is a spacious campus dotted with restored barns, historic buildings and replica structures housing the automotive collections. I remember thinking how much space the site had for expansion during our visit, even as there were several more buildings there than we remembered from previous visits, so I'll be particularly interested to see the changes there when I visit again.

Construction of the 40,000-square-foot Genevieve and Donald S. Glimore Automotive Heritage Center continues as the museum reopens and prepares to become a year-round destination. The museum's Facebook page posted updates through winter on the new building, which will have exhibition space, theater, research library, offices, gift shop, meeting rooms, and storage areas.

Museum officials project an autumn 2011 completion for the new building, which will connect several existing buildings to more readily allow much of the museum to remain open year round for the first time.

The new building's design, based on an old brick paper factory, may appear vintage, but the design incorporates environmentally friendly materials and an energy efficient geothermal heating and cooling system.

The Heritage Center is part of a master plan the museum began nearly a decade ago, investing major money into infrastructure upgrades, new exhibits, and community outreach programs. The institution managed to raise $10 million in private donations to build the center in 18 months-an impressive feat made even more impressive in the face of Michigan's challenging economic climate.

Don Gilmore, chairman of Upjohn Pharmaceuticals, started collecting vintage cars in the early 1960s. He land at Hickory Corners and moved a couple of restored barns there to store his collection. His wife Genevieve suggested turning the site into a museum, so the couple established a non-profit foundation to support the museum, opening it to the public in 1966.

The museum began inviting other groups to share their campus in 1987 as a cost-effective way of expanding the museum, while allowing smaller groups that may have difficulty supporting a full museum to house their collections in individual buildings at the Gilmore. The museum currently includes dedicated buildings or displays featuring vehicles from the Classic Car Club of America, Franklin Automotive Collection, Pierce-Arrow Museum, and the Tucker Historical Collection and Library.

The Cadillac-LaSalle Club, Lincoln Motor Car Foundation, and Model A Ford Museum all expect to break ground and/or finish their new buildings at the Gilmore in the next year or so.

The museum site recommends allowing 2-1/2 to 3 hours to visit the museum, but car buffs and photographers can easily spend the entire day there, wandering the grounds to check out more than 200 vintage cars displayed inside the barns.

It's fun to stroll from barn to barn, occasionally spotting a vintage car or the Gilmore's authentic London double-decker bus on the road.

I particularly like the re-created gas station, constructed onsite in 1998 using original blueprints from 1929 and filled with lots of cool 1930s gas station memorabilia from that era.

The perfect way to cap off your visit is stopping at the 1941-vintage Blue Moon Diner for a lunch, a piece of pie, or a dish of frozen custard (as we had during our most recent visit).

Living near Detroit, I always knew about our reputation as The Motor City, but I was surprised to learn just how many car companies called Kalamazoo home over the years. Check out The Kalamazoo Automobilist by David O. Lyon or Checker Cab Photo History by James Hinckley.

I liked the Gilmore's exhibit about Alice Ramsey, the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States. Read more about her trip in Alice's Drive: Republishing Veil, Duster and Tire Iron by Alice Ramsey.

We visited the Gilmore Museum while visiting Kalamazoo. Read more about that at The Kalamazoo House: An urban B&B in southwest Michigan, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts anchors vibrant West Michigan art scene, and Abraham Lincoln visits Kalamazoo, Michigan.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Kalamazoo

Photo Friday: 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan

Growing up in the Detroit area, I always remember the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) as one of the events of every year and, after a rough couple of years, this year's auto show seemed to generate more excitement and draw more crowds to the show's home at Detroit's Cobo Hall.

I attended the last day of this year's NAIAS with the Photowalks Detroit group, who organized the trip and secured tickets from show organizers for about 50 Detroit-area bloggers.

The mood at the show seemed more upbeat than the mood at the last show I attended in 2009, and organizers told us they hoped to break some attendance records for the 2011 NAIAS. This year's event definitely seemed more crowded than that 2009 show, which is good for the industry, but not always as good for getting the photos you really want.

I did come away from the event with some decent photos, and I'm sharing a few of them here today.

Click here to see more of my photos from this year's auto show, and click here for the Photowalks Detroit group pool to see photos taken by others in our group as well.

Check out my story about the 2009 NAIAS, Cars star at North American International Auto Show.

Curious about the NAIAS show, how it began, and how it changed over the years? Check out The First Century of the Detroit Auto Show by Robert Szudarek.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

The Henry Ford upgrades "The Automobile in American Life" exhibit

The woman greeting us at the door of The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, during a recent visit reminded us that the museum closed some sections of its massive automobile exhibit as it begins a major makeover scheduled to continue throughout this year.

Considering that some of the newest vehicles in the The Automobile in American Life exhibit include a 1983 Honda Accord and a 1981 Ford Escort, you could say the exhibit is a bit dated.

However, I remember when the display represented an innovative step forward for the museum, and interpretive installations in general, during the 1980s. 

The Henry Ford originally displayed its collection of over 200 vintage cars pretty much parked fender-to-fender in seemingly endless rows.

Some people objected when museum officials suggested reducing the number of cars displayed and renovating the exhibit by arranging it thematically with other artifacts to represent the impact of automobiles on American culture throughout the 20th century. Many wondered if displaying fewer cars and departing from the traditional way of displaying them would have met the approval of Henry Ford himself had he still been alive.

I remember attending the unveiling of the then-new exhibit at a preview before its official November 1987 opening.

The exhibit covered 65,000 square feet (about a quarter of the museum's total main floor) and cost over $6 million, according to Wayne State University professor Charles K. Hyde in a review for the January 1989 issue of the Technology and Culture journal.

It featured about 100 automobiles and a variety of other vehicles, displaying them chronologically from newest to oldest along winding and elevated paths resembling highways.

Some of the bigger objects the museum acquired for the exhibit particularly wowed me when I first saw them. Things like a vintage McDonald's neon sign, a 1946-vintage diner car, a 1960s-era Holiday Inn motel room, a 1930s tourist cabin, and an old Texaco gas station grouped with the vehicles gave you the feeling of stepping back into time to go on a great road trip and checking out some cool retro stops along the way.

Exhibit renovation begins, January 2011

Joseph J. Corn of Stanford University mentioned those big artifacts in his review of the exhibit in the July 1989 Organization of American Historians journal, saying they helped demonstrate the automobile's impact on roadside America and engaged museum visitors by drawing them in with more familiar sights to lead to smaller, older, and less familiar artifacts placed further back into the exhibit.

Hyde criticized the reliance on celebratory images, as well as the exhibit's heavy emphasis on the manufacturers' point of view to the exclusion of the experience of consumers and auto workers. Corn thought it put too much emphasis on big technological breakthroughs, while ignoring many incremental changes that cumulatively led to fundamental change for the industry and our culture over time.

Hyde and Corn both saw the exhibit as a major breakthrough for interpretive exhibits using a variety of media in visually exciting ways and far more engaging for visitors than the traditional, static artifact arrangements.

Now the museum is ready to makeover the exhibit once again, promising to keep visitors' old favorites while adding new items and interactive elements, according to a brochure we got from the woman at the museum entrance during our latest visit.

Workers already closed and started dismantling some sections of the exhibit, tagging artifacts for moving or storage during our visit. Work also continues on identifying and repairing some general problems like leaky roofs and resulting water damage.

While I've always loved the current exhibit, it should be exciting to see how museum officials update it for 21st century visitors as they head towards completing the upgrade in early 2012.

Here are a couple of links to photo posts I've done about specific objects in the museum's Automobile in American Life exhibit-one about Lamy's diner and one about the vintage McDonald's sign and its move from its original location in Madison Heights, Michigan.

Curious about how Henry Ford amassed such a large collection of cars and other historic objects? Check out Henry's Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and His Museum by Ford R. Bryan and Sarah Evans.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Enjoying classic cars "Down on Main Street" in Clawson, Michigan

Metro Detroiters love their wheels, and summertime here means a series of anxiously anticipated car shows and cruises.

One of the biggest classic car cruises of the season takes place this Saturday as the 16th annual Woodward Dream Cruise rolls down the storied Woodward Avenue cruising strip.

Can't wait for Saturday? I'm posting a few photos from last weekend's Down on Main Street classic car show in Clawson. We got some great shots as the weather was decent this year, and there were, as always, a lot of great classics.

Checking out the rides

This shot makes me think of "American Graffiti"


Trophies awaiting the judges' decisions

Classic elegance

The Clawson show, now in its twelfth season, happens the Saturday before the Dream Cruise and is always the perfect way to get revved up for the festivities out on Woodward.

 

Check out my story, Classic cars congregate in Clawson "Down on Main Street", for more about the Clawson car show.

Clawson honors military dead with 21-gun salute "Down on Main Street"

My Dream Car

Cruising Woodward is a long-time tradition in this area. Check out this vintage Midwest Guest story, Car Crazy, for more about the event's history and some memories from my father and myself about cruising Woodward over the years.

 

You can also check out the book, Cruisin' the Original Woodward Avenue by the Woodward Heritage Team. My dad enjoyed this little volume full of vintage pictures when I gave it to him as a Father's Day gift.

 

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

Fin

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Where I live: Classic cars congregate in Clawson "Down on Main Street"

Take a trip down to the classic-style Main Street in Clawson, Michigan, this coming Saturday afternoon (August 14) and check out my favorite classic car show of the season, the 12th Annual Down On Main Street Car Show.

Clawson closes the half-mile stretch of Main Street between Normandy (13 1/2 Mile) and Fourteen Mile Road, creating an outdoor showroom for hundreds of classics that can include cars, trucks, and other vintage vehicles like trailers, snowmobiles, boats, or any other type of historic transportation you might imagine.

While anticipation builds all year for the Woodward Dream Cruise, an event that can draw a million visitors to metro Detroit each August, Clawson's show strikes me as a more enjoyable way to actually see and fully appreciate some great vintage vehicles. The fact that the Clawson car show occurs the week prior to the official Woodward cruise each year also makes it a great preview for Dream Cruise fans anxiously anticipating the Woodward event.

The Down on Main Street show, presented by the Clawson Lions Club with assistance from the Clawson-based United Street Machine Association, draws hundreds of show vehicles. Show organizers review the entries, awarding trophies in Choice, Outstanding, and Best Show categories.

The small-town and family-friendly-street-party vibe makes Down on Main Street a more relaxed alternative to the larger event out on Woodward. You're also far more likely to be able to chat with the cars' owners or check out their photo albums showing their vehicles' restoration.

The angle parking arrangement of vintage vehicles along both sides of the closed road creates a broad concourse where spectators can check out the show vehicles without the crush of crowds the Woodward event generates--making it easier to take photos, too!

I like the ability to zoom in on details like pristine whitewalls, fancy chrome hood ornaments, and some kitschy and fun adornments like the car tray attached to a vintage police car I spotted one year.

Admission to the Clawson show is free, while proceeds from the show vehicle entry fees benefit Leader Dogs for the Blind and other charitable projects supported by the Clawson Lions Club.

There are usually several food stands located along the show route, and Clawson's recently re-energized downtown offers plenty of dining options from a classic root beer float at A&W to a number of sit-down dining choices along the way and well within walking distance of the show route.

I really missed this show last year when pouring rain dampened everyone's spirits and kept both spectators and crowds away--well, maybe except a few hardy souls with umbrellas and one lone photographer getting drenched while taking a photo with her point-and-shoot camera.

I'm hoping this year will see the return of sunny skies and great weather for Clawson's Down on Main Street car show!

 

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Retro repro sign at Michigan McDonald's

I always loved the vintage sign that stood in front of a McDonald’s in Madison Heights, Michigan, until that restaurant modernized their signage and donated the old sign to The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

That vintage Micky D’s sign made an appearance in one of my very first posts here at Midwest Guest in 2008, and it made a cameo appearance in my 2009 story about a vintage diner at The Henry Ford.

McDonald’s ceased using the Speedee character featured on the vintage signs in the early 1960s, so, you might imagine my curiosity when I spotted this sign earlier this winter in front of a Micky D’s in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.

It turns out that the Dearborn Heights sign is a retro reproduction in front of a McDonald’s that bills itself as the “world famous 50s McDonalds”. A closer look at the sign shows it marked as a “50s” restaurant in the spot where the vintage sign at The Henry Ford features the 15-cent burger price.

Franchisee Eric Bardha spent $500,000 and one year to create a 1950s themed McDonald’s to replace an aging McDonald’s, opening the retro restaurant in 1988.

The restaurant’s 1950s theme is particularly well-suited to its location on Telegraph Road, a major metro Detroit cruising route throughout the years that still draws classic car owners for the annual Telegraph Tomorrow Car Cruise each summer. The 50s McDonald’s is popular among classic car owners who show up for classic car nights at the restaurant.    

There is a similar retro reproduction sign at a Lapeer, Michigan, Micky D’s.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved