LeMay – America’s Car Museum

July 11th, 2012

1937 Cadillac hood ornament

The LeMay – America’s Car Museum opened in Tacoma, Washington in June 2012 and is dedicated to America’s love with the automobile. The museum is housed within an amazing looking building of shining metal with a huge wood framed interior. The cars inside are equally as shiny!

LeMay – America’s Car Museum

The inspiration behind this museum was famous car collector Harold E. LeMay (1919 – 2000) who was a local Tacoma businessman. In the mid 1990’s he had amassed a private collection of 3,500 vehicles (a Guinness World Record). The vehicles on display come from the LeMay collection aswell as those from other private collectors and corporations.

LeMay – America’s Car Museum

There are different themes and sections of the museum housed in over four levels where you can see an incredible collection of up to 350 cars, trucks and motorbikes from the early 1900’s to modern-day, including some classic “muscle cars”. I love the look of cars from the 1930’s to the 1950’s with their classic lines and in some cases fins! The different sections of the museum are connected by a series of huge ramps that also have cars on display along them. Every car on display is beautifully maintained and it is a car lovers dream! The following is just a sample of some of the classic cars you can see there.

Harold E. LeMay Collection

Clockwise L-R: 1914 Ford Model T, 1923 Lincoln Touring Car,1930 Duesenberg, 1930 Chrysler Roadster, 1933 Cadillac and 1929 Cadillac

Clockwise L-R: 1942 Packard Rollston Town Car, 1942 Ford Deluxe & 1942 Chrysler Royal Business Coupe, 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air and 1951 Studebaker Champion Starlight

Clockwise L-R: 1955 Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria & 1966 Ford Mustang, 1959 Chevrolet Impala, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, 2005 Ford GT, 1983 DeLorean DMC-12 and 1961 Chrysler 300G

 

Custom Coachworks

Clockwise L-R: 1930 Rolls-Royce Town Car, 1931 Duesenberg SJ Derham Convertible, 1941 Packard Darrin Convertible Victoria and 1934 Lincoln KB V-12 Dietrich

 

Nicola Bulgari Collection

The famous designer of luxury goods has a fantastic collection of classic American cars which are on loan to the LeMay museum.  

Clockwise L-R: 1961 Buick Electra 225, 1932 Cadillac V-12 Fleetwood Limousine, 1940 Cadillac Series 6229, 1934 Studebaker Land Cruiser Commander, 1941 Buick Roadmaster and 1936 Hudson 65 Custom 8

 

Ferrari in America

Clockwise L-R: 1949 Ferrari 166MM Touring Barchetta, 1953 Ferrari 375MM, 1973 Ferrari Dino, 1991 Ferrari F40, 1976 Ferrari 308 and 1971 Ferrari 365 “Daytona”

The LeMay collection has approximately 2,000 classic cars, so along with additional exhibitions from other collections there is no shortage of changes that can be made at the museum. Apparently the plan is every few months to change over at least 25% of the collection that is on display to ensure there is always something new to see in the museum to cater for repeat visits.