Those searching for an actual slice of Americana will discover more than they bargained for at the brand new Maine Classic Car Museum. Since the museum opened to the general public Monday, traffic has been astonished at what Motorland co-owners Tim Stentiford and Tom Marshall and their crew had been capable of showing off at the ten,000-square-foot facility off Route 1 in Arundel. Along with a show of one hundred sixty uncommon and conventional motors, there’s a set of antique postcards, displays of antique vehicle advertising, antique gasoline pumps and filling station symptoms, a group of vintage toy Pez dispensers, Matchbox automobiles, old Maine and early 20th-century worldwide license plates, and local Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel memorabilia. But the primary attraction at the brand new museum is the vehicles, which includes a $1.Eight million 1948 Tucker, one in all handiest 47 surviving models of the fifty-one Tuckers ever made. Some 45 cars are exhibited indoors from the big series, assuring museum site visitors something new to peer will usually be on show year-round.
“Our first undertaking was to determine out the way to first-rate inform the story of every one of those vehicles,” said Maine Classic Car Museum Curator Karen Sigler. “We need the general public to peer every automobile and know approximately the lifestyle of the time they came from.” Rarities abound on the museum, including a 1939 Alfa Romeo, one of the most effective six finalists within the world. Manufactured solely for the ultra-wealthy for the duration of World War II, simplest forty or so these sleek and streamlined sedans have been ever offered.
Stentiford bought the Tucker this 12 months at a public sale for a vehicle museum closed in Tupelo, Mississippi. The car turned into conceived using Preston Tucker and, in brief, produced in Chicago in 1948. Though the agency ceased operations in 1949, the vehicle was a trailblazer in phrases of engineering and protection functions. It featured a rear-drive and a 3rd directional headlight that would spark off at steerage angles of more than 10 degrees to light the car’s route around corners. In making plans degrees for years, the museum is a treasure trove for all and sundry interested in records or nostalgia.
“Everyone has a car tale, and we’re right here to have fun it,” Sigler said. “We have motors here that had been made starting from 1913 to 1971,” Stentiford stated after years of following his ardor for classic motors; he’s excited about finally being able to exhibit his collection to museum site visitors. “It sounds cliche, but it clearly is a dream come genuine,” he said. “And when is the last time a brand new museum opened in Maine? It’s been a protracted adventure, and through the years, we had to pass and regroup. However, we’ve subsequently found out the vision of combining the affection of motors and records to pay it ahead.”
He said he has a brand new preferred seemingly every day. “With over 110 years-plus of vehicles right here, we’ll by no means run out of factors to discover and enjoy,” Stentiford stated. And every automobile within the series holds a few types of unique memory for Stentiford. “We have a 1957 Nash Ambassador, and that becomes the ultimate year it becomes made,” he said. “About sixteen years ago, I informed my son Kurt, who become four on time, about how my personal father named all of his motors Betsy. I requested Kurt if he ought to come up with a pleasing Nineteen Fifties film-superstar form of name for the Nash, and he at once blurted out ‘Miss Pinky Brown.’ When I requested why that call, he talked about to me that the Nash is painted pink and brown.”
Stentiford has his Motorland commercial’s assetsenterprise’s assets to maintain and restore the classic motors, selling and maintaining antique motors. Motorland’s group of workers includes a mechanic, a frame store employee, and an upholsterer. “They have the potential to restore and preserve a vehicle absolutely,” Sigler said. Inside the collection, there are 3 Ford Edsels, a 1927 Packard that President Franklin Roosevelt once rode in, an elegant VW bus, several Woody wagons, a 1931 Cadillac, amphibious cars, a 1951 Hudson and Sigler’s private preferred, a 1951 Lincoln Lido. “It’s no longer a high-priced or innovative vehicle, but I simply love the aesthetics of this vehicle,” she stated. “I simply can’t take my eyes off it.” Her 5-12 months-old son prefers the 1951 Hudson Hornet, once owned by the legendary NASCAR motive force Marshal Teague in the 1950s.
“He makes a beeline for that car on every occasion he’s here,” Sigler stated. “He sincerely loves the whole lot approximately it.” Being round antique motors every day has given Sigler perception into conventional vehicles, and she or he’s even learned a few matters she didn’t understand earlier than. “I would have in no way recognized that many antique cars had 6-volt batteries,” she said. “All of the motors nowadays have 12-volt, and I never knew that about the older automobiles.” She said her paintings in the museum are not anything short of exhilarating. “It’s quite a laugh,” Sigler stated. “I get to be a part of the records every day. I get to power those cars and to live and breathe them. This museum goes to be large for the local economic system and bring people here from everywhere in the international. It’s genuinely a destination.” The Maine Classic Car Museum is at 2564 Portland Road (US Route 1) in Arundel. It is open seven days per week from 10 a.M. To 5 p.M., Admission is $10, and kids beneath 7 are admitted for free.
