Volo Auto Museum

Yesterday when Marcia was talking to her son John over the phone reminiscing about the old homesteads in Barrington, he suggested that we visit the Volo Auto Museum which is not too far from Barrington.  So that is what we did today.

The Volo Auto Museum is rated by some as one of the top ten auto museums in the nation.  It cost us $20 to get in, but it was well worth it.  At the entrance there is this gas station exhibit (below), which kinda kicks off the atmosphere of the place.

The Museum is laid out into four different buildings, along with the main entrance building which includes the “Betty Boop Grill” and the “Kids Exhibits”, and another area where they have new arrivals.  When they have “car shows”, there is a large show grounds area outside, but we did not travel in that area since there was no car show today.

The Betty Boop Grill (above) is a nice little place to eat, and well decorated.  After going through half of the exhibits, we went back to the grill to get some lunch.  We both had the BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich, which turned out to be pretty good.  There were a few others in there eating too, and everyone seemed to be enjoying their lunch.

Just beyond the entrance is the Kids Exhibits, and I really enjoyed it too.  All sorts of vehicles from various kids cartoons and movies.  Below is a sample of what they have.

As we went outside to enter the first exhibit building, we looked at the new arrivals.  This museum offers many of their cars for sale, a bit of a unique trait compared to other car museums.  Marcia fell in love with this 1966 Ford Mustang (below).  It is painted in Arcadian Blue with a Blue-White Pony Deluxe Interior.  It is a 280 V-8 3 speed, and has only had two owners, and has been driven 67,500 miles. They are asking $14,999.

As for me, I loved this 1960 Austin Healy 3000...the closest thing to my first car, a 1965 Austin Healy Sprite.  This Austin Healy has a 6 cylinder, overhead valves, 4-speed, with 31.235 miles and the pain in the butt dual carberators.  They were asking a mere $45,998!  Sorry, did not have my check book on me....

As we entered the first exhibit hall, this old RV caught my eye....reminded me of the travels we made when I was a kid with my family in our old VW Bus.  Told Marcia we could have saved a lot of money on our Motor Home by buying this VW RV for under half the price....but she did not seem to like that idea.

The number of cars in this museum is unbelievable....a few hundred is my guess.  The age ranged from the early 1900's on up, but we don’t recall seeing any which were made in this century.  Below is just a small sample.  In some cases I have written down the model information, and sometimes the price they are asking for.  Remember, if you click on a picture, it will open up to a larger size.....

They also have a number of cars which have been in movies and TV shows, and others which were built to honor a movie star or famous musician, a few of these are shown below.

And finally, the early style cars...they just don’t make them like this anymore!

Well, we really enjoyed our couple of hours at the Car Museum....it was not very crowded, Marcia was able to get around in the GoGo without a problem, and we felt it was worth the $10 each to get in.  If you are ever in the area, you should put it on your “things to do” list.