My Museum Adventure

[j.a.f.e.]

Saturday my wife went to a baby shower held at my best friends house. Fortunately the mom to be banned men from all the fun so my friend, his son and I went to a little known but quite impressive museum - the Nethercutt Museum on the border of LA and Sylmar - the northeast corner of LA City in an industrial area. Two buildings of mostly 20's, 30's and 40's cars with some older and newer treasures tossed in. One building is called the collection and includes a basement with some spectacular cars, the first floor is the Grand Gallery with a collection of some of the most valuable cars in the collection - according to the docent over 100 million worth, the second floor has mostly some radiator cap mascots some custom and one of a kind and some from various makes when cars still sported cap mascots, the top floor holds a collection of antique musical reproducing pianos, Nickelodeons, cylinder & disc music boxes, orchestrions and a Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ. 

It's getting close to Christmas so they have started to decorate for the holidays. Nice touch I think.

The other building contains the car museum with some amazing cars and there are dozens of them. If you are ever in the LA area and have some time this would be a great way to spend some quality car time. The curated tour of the collection and entry to the museum is $20 and includes a locomotive Pullman car from the teens (it was raining so we couldn't see that part). The museum alone only is $5. Most amazing most or maybe all the cars had current plates.

My camera wasn't working - possibly because it got wet from the rain so I did the best I could with my phone.

The first image was from the second floor looking down at the grand gallery. The yellow car is a Packard, the silver a Dusenberg. There is a replica of the Benz Patentwagon - considered the first car just off to the left of the image and a Dusenberg engine behind black Rolls parked sideways.

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According to the docent the grand gallery is decorated as the showrooms for these marques were typically built. 

The blue car is a Hispano-Suiza - a Spanish luxury brand. The greenish car is an Isotta Fraschini.

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[j.a.f.e.]

The car is a is a Ruxton a very early front wheel drive car. The paint job sure looks like something out of Great Gatsby.

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The photo taken from the balcony behind me were eight display cases of radiator caps. Some pretty cool, some pretty funny. Some were from the marque and some after market or custom made.

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[j.a.f.e.]

The top floor had antique automated music machines. Never seen some of these.

Some of them were played for the tour but he said they were all working. There was a whole floor of player pianos, and all sorts of other musical automata. 

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All over the museum were these stanchions. I think they're pretty cool. Not sure if they're real camshafts and flywheels of custom made pieces I didn't think to ask.


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[j.a.f.e.]

The museum part had an astonishing number of cars. I will be going back.

The row on the left are all Pierce Arrows. There were other rows that were marque specific (like RR) and some were mixed.


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Some of these cars were monstrously huge - like this Olds. 

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I thought this copper hood on the Pierce Arrow was pretty cool and pretty unusual.

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I have more pix if anyone is interested.

[jabberwoki]

That museum is on my bucket list.
Nice post Jaffaroonsky

[bmwrd0]

OK, that one car looks like a strawberry sundae!

Awesome place though. Not sure when I will get down that way, as I don't have any family down there anymore, but I will keep it in mind if I do.

[1965 Comet Caliente]

I usually think of '50s and '60s as old cars, but these are truly 'old' cars.

[goodfellow]

Absolutely stunning cars and memorabilia. Thanks for the pics. Cars back then had personality and soul. We lost most all of those traits in the government controlled industrialized post war era.

[j.a.f.e.]

Thanks Jabby.

bmwrd0 hope you can make it down. Yeah the paint job looks more 60's than 20's not sure I could look at that all day.

1965 Comet  50's and 60's cars are old and officially antiques usually given as 45 years old and older but some states vary. But I think it's a testament to the builders these are still around and in the case of this collection still driven.

goodfellow I think there are many reasons cars now are different but most of the ones I showed were custom built and almost all of the collection are coach built bodies not something most people could afford.

I am adding in a few more pix.

This hood ornament really struck me as pretty funny.

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This is generally considered the last Packard. Not this particular car but the model. After this the Packard marque was put on Studebakers as the companies had merged. A short time later Nash bought it all and it became American Motors.


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1947 Lincoln Continental. I think this is one of the most beautiful Lincolns ever.

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This is the so called coffin nosed Cord. It had pop up headlights!

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[j.a.f.e.]

This Daimler had a pretty cool hood ornament. People even then had a sense of humor.

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A little something for everyone.

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A 1907 Westinghouse in unrestored condition. For a car 118 years old it looks pretty good. I hope to look that good at that age.

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And finally a car from the basement. Pretty cool looking to me. I think it's a Caddy but I was being rushed out and didn't have time to get more info.

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