Little Maxwell takes us to see some grown up cars.

Ship’s Log - Stardate:  20-15-08-09.  Mission Day 76

Captain’s Entry:

Who knew there were so many cool museums and things to do in and around Elkhart, Indiana? Today we took a drive over to Auburn to see the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. On the way home we passed the road leading to the Midwest Windmill Museum. We’ve only just scratched the surface of this area’s entertainment value. We’ve decided we must return to visit the Wick’s Pie Shop in Winchester. After all, Old Fashioned Sugar Cream Pie is the official state pie of Indiana. It doesn’t take much to get OUR MOTORS RUNNING. Small pleasures . . . and speaking of motors running . . .

It was a long drive in little Maxwell, but certainly worth it! The cars in this museum are not just automobiles, they are works of art. These cars scream art deco with their swoopy fenders and extravagant hood ornaments, grills, and running boards.

We spent three hours inside this museum that formerly housed an auto showroom on the first level and the national headquarters of Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg automobiles on the second level. We felt like we were visiting the Great Gatsby’s estate.

First Officer’s Entry:

The captain was not being facetious when she spoke of Indiana’s cool museums.  We really enjoy museums and some of the ones that sound the weirdest often (OK, sometimes) turn out to be the neatest. 

The Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg (ACD from now on) was the first museum that we’ve been to that rivals the Barber Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama.  The BMM is bigger and has more individual displays, but the ACD has an art-deco elegance that’s hard to dismiss.

As with the BMM, it is impossible to sufficiently describe the magnitude and magnificence of the ACD.  It is beyond incredible.  Its size and scope and elegance don’t fit into my head.  Heck, it doesn’t even fit into my imagination.  Suffice to say that it is two full floors, each the size of multiple football fields, full of million dollar automobiles.  The cars are mostly Auburns, and Cords, and Duesenbergs, of course, but they also have a whole lot of other historically important automobiles.  For example, they have both a Studebaker Avanti and a Jaguar XKE on display, which in my humble opinion are the two most beautiful automobiles ever created. 

Even if you are not a “gear head” it is a “must see”, for the art aspects if nothing else.

OK.  I’m gushing like a teenager so I will stop now.

We leave for Dearborn, Michigan tomorrow.  We will spend four days there seeing the Henry Ford Museum.  I understand that is a multi-day experience and I hope it lives up to its hype.

End Log.