Location | Dayton, Ohio |
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Coordinates | 39°45′13″N84°11′30″W / 39.7536°N 84.1918°W |
Key holdings | Wide collection of Packard Automobiles |
America's Packard Museum is an automotive museum located in Dayton, Ohio. [1] [2]
The Citizens Motorcar Company, known as America's Packard Museum, is a restored Packard dealership transformed into a museum that displays twentieth-century classic Packards and historic Packard artifacts and memorabilia. [1] [3] Originally, The Citizens Motorcar Company sold Packards in Dayton, Ohio beginning in 1908, and moved into what is now the museum building in 1917. Robert Signom II, the museum's Founder and Curator for 27 years, acquired the building in 1991 and painstakingly rehabilitated it to its original Art Deco grandeur. The original 20' tall porcelain and neon Packard sign, removed from the building in the early 1940s, returned to its former position at the corner of Ludlow and Franklin Streets in 1992 for the grand opening of the museum. Since that time, the museum has grown in size and stature, winning the James Bradley Award of the Society of Automotive Historians in 2004. Car Collector magazine also named the museum one of the "Top Ten" automotive museums in the United States. More than 50 cars are on display, from 1900s Brass Era cars, the streamlined Classic cars of the 1930s and 1940s, to the modern Packards of the 1950s, as well as war machines, parts, accessories, and original sales and service literature. A notable highlight of America's Packard Museum is the original Articles of Incorporation of the Ohio Automobile Company, which later became Packard Motor Car Company. In 2019, Robert Signom III was named Curator to continue the legacy of Packard, and the mission and vision of the museum founded by his father. America's Packard Museum is a Section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization under the Internal Revenue Code.
The Winton Motor Carriage Company was a pioneer United States automobile manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. Winton was one of the first American companies to sell a motor car. In 1912, Winton became one of the first American manufacturers of diesel engines.
Packard was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana, in 1958.
The Franklin Automobile Company was a marketer of automobiles in the United States between 1902 and 1934 in Syracuse, New York. Herbert H. Franklin, the founder, began his career in the metal die casting business before establishing his automobile enterprise. Controlled by Herbert H. Franklin it had very few other significant shareholders. Franklin bought its vehicles from the H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Company which was only moderately profitable and frequently missed dividends on common stock.
The Brass Era is an American term for the early period of automotive manufacturing, named for the prominent brass fittings used during this time for such features as lights and radiators. It is generally considered to encompass 1896 through 1915, a time when cars were often referred to as horseless carriages.
Charles Edgar Duryea was an American engineer. He was the engineer of the first working American gasoline-powered car and co-founder of Duryea Motor Wagon Company. He was born near Canton, Illinois, a son of George Washington Duryea and Louisa Melvina Turner, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but spent most of his life working in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was in Springfield that Charles and his brother, Frank, produced and road-tested America’s first gasoline-powered car.
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Larz Anderson Auto Museum is located in the Anderson Carriage House on the grounds of Larz Anderson Park in Brookline, Massachusetts and is the oldest collection of motorcars in the United States.
Alexander Winton was a Scottish-American bicycle, automobile, and diesel engine designer and inventor, as well as a businessman and racecar driver. Winton founded the Winton Motor Carriage Company in 1897 in Cleveland, Ohio, making the city an important hub of early automotive manufacturing. His pioneering achievements in the automotive industry included taking one of the first long-distance journeys in America by car and developing one of the first commercial diesel engines. Winton left the automotive manufacturing business when he liquidated his car company in 1924 to focus on his powertrain engineering firm, Winton Gas Engine & Mfg. Co., which he had established twelve years earlier to focus on engine development. This business was sold to General Motors in 1930 and became the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division. Winton died in 1932 and is interred in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.
Mercer was an American automobile manufacturer from 1909 until 1925. It was notable for its high-performance cars, especially the Type 35 Raceabout.
Zimmer Motor Cars was a manufacturer of neo-classic automobiles. The company was originally incorporated in Ohio in July 1980 as the Zimmer Motor Cars Corporation. In August 1980, it was registered as a Foreign For Profit Corporation in the State of Florida under file number 846776. The company was a subsidiary of the Zimmer Corporation, then based in Pompano Beach, Florida.
The Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum in Ypsilanti, Michigan is an automotive museum that features cars assembled at the nearby Willow Run Plant and vehicles made by Hudson Motors. The museum is an official site of the MotorCities National Heritage Area, which is "dedicated to preserving, interpreting and promoting the automotive and labor heritage of the State of Michigan."
The New Amsterdam Historic District is a historic district located in Detroit, Michigan. Buildings in this district are on or near three sequential east-west streets on the two blocks between Woodward Avenue and Second Avenue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
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Packard Motor Car Showroom and Storage Facility is a historic automobile showroom located at Buffalo in Erie County, New York. It is a three-story, reinforced concrete frame structure with restrained Neo-classical detailing. It was designed by Albert Kahn in about 1926 and served as a Packard dealership for 30 years.
The Packard Motor Car Company Building, also known as the Press Building, is an historic, American office building that is located at 319 North Broad Street between Pearl and Wood Streets in the Callowhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Afton Station Packard Museum, a privately owned automotive museum on U.S. Route 66 in Afton, Oklahoma, was situated in a restored 1930s Eagle D-X filling station. It housed a showroom, 18 Packards & other vintage automobiles plus a collection of Route 66 memorabilia, including items from the now-demolished Buffalo Ranch Trading Post.
The Davis Divan is a three-wheeled convertible built by the Davis Motorcar Company between 1947 and 1949. The brainchild of used-car salesman Glen Gordon "Gary" Davis, it was largely based upon "The Californian", a custom three-wheeled roadster built by future Indianapolis 500 racing car designer Frank Kurtis for Southern Californian millionaire and racer Joel Thorne. After building two prototypes in 1947, Davis embarked on an aggressive publicity and promotional campaign for the car, which included numerous magazine appearances, a lavish public unveiling at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and a promotional trip across the United States.
Homer B. Roberts (1885–1952) was a graduate of Kansas State Agricultural College and veteran of World War I who was the first black man to attain the rank of lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps. He began his auto business by placing ads in the local paper advertising used cars. By the end of 1919, Roberts had negotiated over 60 car sales exclusively for African-American buyers. He hired two salesmen to work his lot, offered auto insurance and payment terms to customers, and later founded Roberts Motors, the first African-American owned car dealership in the United States.
The McClure-Nesbitt Motor Company is a historic automobile dealership in the South of Main neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It was listed on the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2017.