So we rotate the big exhibits on an annual basis. This does one of two things: it keeps the exhibits fresh for returning visitors (which is a great marketing tool) and it allows cars that would normally be tucked away in the basement storage area to see the spotlight. We get asked often: How do you change exhibits at the museum? Well, here’s an inside look. We’re closed to the public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which gives us time to move cars in and out of the building without visitors around. This is helpful, as we have pretty strict pedestrian safety rules, like “no running over guests with the museum cars.” Our building is a former bread bakery, and during renovation, before the museum was open in 2003, the loading dock for the bread delivery trucks was turned into a ramp, and a large roll-up door was added. The cars can come on and off the floor pretty easily.
The following four exhibits were changed out over the last month. Let’s start with the installation of our celebration of the Fantastic Fiat 500.
Previously, this area held our Radwood exhibit, highlighting the best of our 1980s and 90s cars. First, of course, Radwood had to be taken out. It was 14 cars and three motorcycles. We were without a curator this past winter, so Jeff Lane offered to do the exhibit planning. Here’s is Jeff’s very analog exhibit layout for Fiat.
To start, you fill in the far corner of the museum floor.
Here are Gabriel and James, our collection technicians. They are responsible for light mechanic work, including getting the cars clean, fueled, and ready for car shows, displays, or just transport. These two are vital to the museum’s mission.
Most of the cars in the collection run and drive, but some just can’t get started for various reason. This little Polski Fiat Bis (That’s the water cooled one from the late 1980s) would not start, so it had to be towed in and pushed into place.
Each of our cars have a display sign next to them. The text is printed on legal size paper, and slide in and out of the plastic sign. The bases are made of flywheels and camshafts…this looks cool, and provides a bit of weight so the sign doesn’t fall over. I go through and edit each sign’s text to make sure it makes sense and that it works with our new exhibit.
We usually arrange the cars chronologically. The 1936 Fiat 500A Topolino is the first car you’ll see when entering the exhibit. Time to vacuum each car’s Here we are vacuuming each car’s interiors and doing some last minute detailing.
The following week, it was time to switch out two exhibits for one. The “Staff Selects” exhibit and the “Oil and Water amphibious cars” exhibit were both taken out. In their place went “Open and Shut: A Diverse Display of Doors.” The museum’s collection has many cars with interesting closures; among those cars is this 1994 Hobbycar Passport, with its four parallel-opening, double-pivot doors:
This is a good example of how we tow a vehicle. This old John Deere tractor is basically our tugboat, pulling and pushing cars that do not run. The Peugeot engine in this low production 1990s French “mobile office” does not run well. Yes, we can fix it, but since it is going on display, why put time and effort into something that will just sit static for a year? Next year, it will get some mechanical attention once it leaves the floor (at least that’s the plan). This is the view from cockpit of the Von Dutch Rocket Car, which runs, but is just easier to pull around. Technically, it has NO doors. James pulls with the tractor, I steer:
Above are more examples of different doors and hinges. The grey and blue car is the 1945 Surlesmobile, replete with electrically-powered, retractable, hide-away doors. Don Surles was stationed in occupied Japan at the end of World War II, and had this concept turned into reality by the Tokyo Bus Works. The story of the Surlesmobile can be found here. The Renault next to it is the Avantime that Jason has driven before, in another website’s video, and features a “double-kinematic” hinge system, which maximizes the opening space without swinging the door into the car parked next to you. Ta-dah! We have an exhibit:
Next up, changing out our propeller-driven exhibit, “Wingless Wonders,” to our prototypes-and-one-offs exhibit, “One of One.” Before:
While I missed getting shots of these propeller-driven vehicles coming off the floor (it apparently didn’t take long), there was one complicated move: getting this WWII-era, propeller-driven Tatra-on-skis out to the garage. You know, a normal Wednesday at the Lane.
We put the Tatra on skates, which is another tool we use for non-running cars or cars with locked brakes. Here’s “One of One” in place:
And finally, undoing the Stacked exhibit. Here is the before:
Yes, that’s a Tatra T-815 rollback below a Citroën Tissier rollback, below a 1934 Goliath Atlas pickup, below a Subaru Sambar pickup, with an ACOMA Mini Comtesse in its bed. Here’s a video on how we constructed this behemoth:
Concerned about balance, James and Gabriel knew they couldn’t undo the cars the same way they went together, so the two got our trusty forklift (also an invaluable tool for a car museum), and picked the top two cars off of the Goliath first.
How to do this without damaging the backbone frame of the Goliath?
Ratchet straps and a forklift, baby! Have a look:
Whew! In the museum world, that’s called a “buttcocks-clencher.” The Citroën Tissier is going to chill on the back of the Tatra out in the garage for a bit, like a baby whale swimming atop its mother out to the deep ocean.
And finally, in Stacked’s place we have a flight of Renaults, from the Le Car to the R5 Turbo 2.
This is the condensed version; exhibit planning takes months of work to get the look and fit right, plus it takes time to make sure all the information is as factual as possible. It’s a real production, with many moving parts. It’s not as easy as just getting the toys out of the toy box. Oh, and of course there’s a VW Beetle museum in Austria, I wonder what it is about the F150 that no one has made it the centrepiece of a museum? “This is a behind scenes look at how our museum changes out displays.” Random dude on the internet “Your museum sucks and you don’t know what you’re doing” In a different field the Isett Heritage Museum near Huntingdon PA is a perfect example of celebrating the ordinary. What may seem at first glance like a bunch of not even yard sale worthy junk is actually a fascinating collection of ordinary household items, arranged so you can see how household technology changed and advanced over time. Appliances, utensils, fax machines, telephones, typewriters, etc. All ordinary, but when you put them all together you see how things have changed over the years and we can share the impact of technology with younger generations. Here at Autopian I hope we can celebrate more humble vehicles. From a personal level I really enjoyed being at the Jaguar club show a couple of years back with my ’88 XJ6. Best in show was the obvious, beautiful, Pebble Beach-worthy SS100 and that’s fine but I had the only XJ40 factory code model at the meet. It may be the red-headed stepchild of the XJ lineup, but isn’t my car also a valid part of Jaguar history? Put another way, the commonplace car will never be the centerpiece of a collection but it can be part of a retrospective or more complete collection. Like most I’m not sure I’d visit a Mustang museum where the best car they have is a Mustang II, but no place that claimed to be such a museum would be complete without something like a ’74 Ghia in powder blue with a landau roof just to show the unvarnished history of the model. Autopian has a cool inclusive vibe going, don’t be the guy to ruin it for everyone. “Everyone has seen an American flag. Just burn that shit already.” Also, just because you know something doesn’t mean everybody else does. I had to check — the plates of this Fiat 126 BIS are legit, and the vehicle in question was legally prowling Polish roads until at least 2016. I;m glad that it ended up in a museum instead of in a crusher 🙂 Wish I lived closer as I’d LOVE to visit, and working there would be my dream job! I have a BA with an Advanced Major in History (Minor in English), a BEd. degree, I’ve worked in a museum for several years, currently sit on the Board of one, I’m a teacher and I love cars, especially the weirder and quirkier ones! Lane would be like heaven for me!!! I envy you people… For the cars that didn’t run or were asked not to be started, they had a WWII era Jeep with tires on the bumpers and a tow strap. Put that thing in low gear and it could move nearly anything. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLut-Ms0NV/ A question that has been kicking around in my head and is applicable to your interests. Has anyone incorporated stepper motors into a crawler setup yet? As far as the stepper motors are concerned, it’s an interesting concept in theory. I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that they power wheels or robotic arms – or in this case legs. The ultimate off-roader (that a human can pilot) is a donkey or a mule. Plain and simple. Hyundai has put out some super interesting concept “cars” that basically use legs instead of wheels to navigate tricky terrain. They also bought Boston Dynamics (the company that created the super creepy but also charming headless dog bots), so I think they’re actually serious about heading in that direction eventually. It will be interesting to watch. I’m definitely not an engineer, but I imagine that Hyundai’s future all-terrain-conquering car legs would probably use stepper motors. So… I think you’re onto something there. https://www.hyundai.com/content/dam/hyundai/ww/en/images/brand/02-technology-with-a-human-heart/brand-elevate-stg-m.jpg In my mind a portal axle setup with an independent motor per wheel would yield great possibilities. Want to lock one wheel on a boulder while the other three pivot the car around it by going at a different speed for each wheel? No problem! Just call up that program and the degrees to rotate. https://twitter.com/electric_off_rd/status/1522076766512287744?s=21&t=nTUbbiAf1DvwRukPt7nVqQ Let’s see if that works. (Please add jpeg and gif support in comments when you guys can. That would be super. Thanks.)
