Savoy Automobile Musuem now open!

The Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville opened on Wednesday, and it promises to be one of the great automobile museums of America! I hope to visit within the next few weeks, and I encourage local FChatters to do the same. Hopefully it could be a future venue for events like Italian Car Day.

https://savoymuseum.org/

 

I went on Friday and enjoyed it. The $15 admission seemed a bit stiff, so I went ahead and applied it toward a $55 annual membership, which seemed like a better overall deal, anticipating car shows, auctions and other events they will probably schedule in 2022. (That membership also provides free admission to the Booth and Tellus museums nearby.)

The cars are far enough apart to provide easy photography, and the lighting is very good, which is important since no flash is permitted. Note that the only non-American car on display was Bobby Rahal's Lola Indycar!

The cafe has a big enough menu to provide useful options for lunch; the gift shop is a bit limited for now but should have expanded inventory in time. I think that all auto enthusiasts reasonably close to Cartersville should give the Savoy at least one visit.

 

Perhaps the most interesting vehicle was one that I never knew existed. It's a 1936 Chevrolet Coupe Delivery, with a pickup bed in the back. Over 3000 were built over a six-year period, but few survive. This predated the similar Ranchero/El Camino concept by over 20 years!

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It's actually named for a rusted-out 1954 Plymouth Savoy that was found on the property when they first cleared it. The hulk is on display outside the museum. It's owned by the same consortium that owns the Booth Museum of Western Art and the Tellus Science Museum, also located in Cartersville.

 

Last night I attended a dinner and presentation about the Tucker automobiles. The guest speakers included the curator of the AACA museum in Hershey, PA (which owns 3 of the 51 Tuckers built) and two of Preston Tucker's great-grandsons, who participated in the restoration of the #44 Tucker, which is on loan to the museum and was on display in the theater. A lot of discussion dealt with what the 1988 "Tucker" movie got right and got wrong. After the Q & A, we were allowed to view the car up close. Interestingly, a set of fitted luggage was sold with the car, rather like the fitted luggage made available with many Ferraris.

More such programs and car shows will be on the museum program in the coming months. If you haven't been there yet, you must go!

 

If you know Ivan Ruiz, you might want to visit the Savoy museum on Sunday (9/4):

"Ivan Ruiz, owner of the 1962 Lancia Flaminia GT 3C Touring Coupe, 1967 Iso Grifo, and the 1970 Maserati Ghibli Spyder, will be at Savoy Museum from 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm, September 4,2022 to answer questions about his vehicles on display in the Pirelli: The Story of a Company – A 150‐Year History of Passion and Innovation exhibit closing tomorrow!"

 

The museum was quite busy today, and it appears many came to see the Pirelli exhibit before it went away. I thanked Ivan for loaning the museum his cars, and he said that he was glad to but that he'd be glad to have them back home! He might bring one of them to Italian Car Day, and he is planning on also doing Festivals of Speed at Avalon and the Chattanooga Motorcar Festival! He will have a busy October, as I'm sure many of us will. Here are his three cars: the Iso, the Lancia and the Maserati.

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They are setting up a pavilion exclusively to host car shows. I am trying to convince John Montgomery to consider moving Italian Car Day there next year, since the current venue (FoA) is a tight fit.

 

On my recent trip west, I visited both the Petersen museum in Los Angeles and the LeMay museum in Tacoma. Both great museums, with many more cars on display, but right now I think that Savoy already matches them on quality.