Another Private Collection
Back in my younger days I liked to autocross our Corvette on as many weekends as I could. Then, as the kids started to show up it seemed that was no longer realistic and my personal car hobby had to slow considerably. Still, I always managed to have a fun car in the garage but it also had to serve as a daily driver. As the kids got older and free time became more available once again I began to get more serious about my car passion. Soon I was getting back into car shows and cruise-ins. I was even able to have a car that was special and not a daily driver. Today, I am very fortunate to have multiple collector cars and a wife who is equally passionate about the cars I still enjoy almost anything auto related but our real focus has turned to driving the cars and visiting others’ collections.
Several of our local AACA (Antique Auto Club of America) clubs have a car cruise every month, year round. The number of participants can vary but often will include 75 individuals and 35 or more cars. The tours typically will include a one to two hour (sometimes even longer including overnight trips) one way drive through beautiful Tennessee back roads. During these excursions our group will usually visit multiple points of interest and have a terrific old home cooking “meat and three”. (In Tennessee a “meat and three” is a restaurant that specializes in home cooked meat main course with a choice of three sides of Southern vegetables.) The grand main event of the tours is a visit to a museum or private collection of cars or memorabilia. After the main attraction everyone is free to head back home on their own by a route of their choice. It is a fantastic way to spend a Saturday with your spouse and other car enthusiasts.
On these trips you can find members driving their daily driver (their project car is still not drivable), 1920’s original antiques, authentic 1950’s hot rods, new and vintage Corvettes, muscle cars, and even a vintage Rolls Royce. We enjoy looking over each others cars as much as the main attraction collection. Best of all, we are driving these cars and having a lot of fun with other car people.
Below are some photos from one recent visit to an enthusiast’s collection. In this case there were not a lot of cars but the memorabilia was breath taking! For obvious reasons we can not tell you the owner’s name or location.
