Bumper to bumper
Published 12:18 pm Friday, June 29, 2007
On a wildflower viewing trip to Eastern Washington, I commented that plant lovers can take a long time covering the same small patch of ground. That prompted a response from a fellow plant lover that her husband could spend an hour looking at one old Oldsmobile.
Every hobby has its fanatics, but car enthusiasts are a special breed. The folks who love old cars – from true classics such as Packards and Pierce Arrows to the Fords, Chevys and muscle cars of their youth – get their fix at shows and rallies that sprout like wildflowers every summer.
You don’t need a sunny day to indulge the passion, however, as long as you’ve got the wheels to head down the interstate to Pierce County. There, in a jumble of buildings that used to be a military school for boys, is the LeMay Museum, a collection of some 400 hundred mostly American cars that span almost the entire 20th century.
It’s an amazing walk through automotive history and it’s open to the public. There are true classics and one-of-kind vehicles such as a 1948 Tucker with the Cyclops headlight, a pristine 1906 Model N Ford, a predecessor to the Model T, and a glamorous 1937 Cord 812 Westchester. And there are hundreds of American cars that once ruled the highways: big-toothed Buicks and high-finned Caddies, boat-tailed roadsters and smart little convertibles from the 1940s.
Lots of convertibles, it turns out. The man who collected these cars loved ragtops. Harold LeMay, who built a fortune in refuse hauling and towing, was passionate about collecting. So much so, that by the time of his death a half-dozen years ago he had a collection in excess of 3,000 vehicles. His wife, Nancy, said that she had a five-bedroom house with a 300-car garage. It’s said to be the largest privately owned automobile collection in the world.
Word of the LeMay collection spread among car fans, and a car show at the end of August began attracting thousands of people to the LeMay family estate. The 30th annual LeMay Museum Car Show and Auction, Aug. 25 this year, is an opportunity to see the cream of the LeMay collection and even bid on a car if you are in the market.
Planning and fundraising are well under way to build a state-of-the-art museum next to the Tacoma Dome to showcase the LeMay collection. But you don’t have to wait, thanks to the LeMay Museum, where cars are stored and displayed on the sprawling grounds of a former school, the Marymount Military Academy, in Spanaway. It’s about a two-hour drive from Everett, south of Tacoma and a little off the beaten track.
A small group of auto aficionados, including two couples from Everett, began a recent tour on an overcast Wednesday morning.
Tours, which last about two hours, are guided by volunteer docents who know these cars from headlight to taillight. Our guide was A J Cue, who displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of the collection and a real love of cars. No detail is too small to interest a true car lover, and our group kept our guide on his toes with questions and comments.
Over the next two-plus hours we wandered through buildings stuffed with vehicles, from a cavernous warehouse where vintage cars and trucks were packed, literally, from bumper to bumper, to the smallest display space, a former shower room for the military cadets that’s home to a prized 1949 Kaiser Manhattan convertible gleaming in a coat of Indian Ceramic paint.
“LeMay collected everything,” Cue said. “He never met a car he didn’t like.”
Over the years the collection has been refined to fewer cars, but still there’s a lot. You won’t find every car ever built here, but you are sure to find many old favorites. Volunteers keep everything polished and buffed. Many of these cars are from the era when chrome was king.
The number of cars in the big warehouse is mind-boggling – our guide estimated about 150 – and they are displayed fender-to-fender behind ropes. It’s a wonderful cross-section of American metal, and if you don’t find your favorite (there’s the distinctive LaSalle, but where’s the bathtub Nash I wondered), be patient.
We had plenty of time to walk, talk, look and “remember when.” Nostalgia for the cars of our youth is a big part of this tour. The back of the building has a collection of vintage of trucks with names that were new to me. Who knew Pierce Arrow built a truck?
Our next stop was LeMay Hall, a handsome room that once served as a theater. The cars that line both sides of the building are a gleaming parade of great automobiles which, like their hood ornaments, are true works of art: Stutz, Marmon, Hupmobile, Franklin, Rolls Royce, Pierce Arrow and Page. There’s the ‘37 Cord. The 1906 Ford Model N has pride-of-lace on the stage. Look up, and there are intriguing “microcars.” Who remembers the tiny three-wheeled Messerschmitt and the bubble-shaped Isetta?
The gymnasium is packed with an impressive lineup of Chevys arranged by year so you can study the evolution of car design into the 1950s. We followed our guide through more rooms eagerly awaiting the next goodie.
I’d already spotted a classic from Chrysler: the advanced-design 1935 Chrysler Airflow that foreshadowed aerodynamic car design by decades. And I could check the rear-engine Tucker off my list. Finally, there was the bathtub Nash. My parent’s good friends drove one, until they got frisky and moved up to a Studebaker Starlight Coupe.
The bulbous Nash may not be the prettiest car, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And when it comes to car design, today’s cookie-cutter models have nothing on the past.
Mike Murray is an Everett freelance writer.
If you go …
The LeMay Museum is in Spanaway, south of Tacoma. The address is 325 152nd Street E., Tacoma. Directions are posted on the museum Web site. On the final leg of the trip, driving 152nd Street East/Military Road, it’s easiest to spot the sign for the museum on your left if you begin looking for a larger sign that says Span-a-Park.
Admission: Tours of the museum are guided, and it’s best to make a reservation before you go by calling 253-536-2885. Admission is $15.
Car show: The 30th annual LeMay Museum Car Show and Auction is Aug. 25 at Marymount Academy and the nearby LeMay family estate, with a shuttle bus between the two locations. Entrance is by admission.
Information: 253-536-2885, www.lemaymuseum.org.
