America On Wheels Museum

America on Wheels is an outstanding transportation museum in Allentown, PA. Altogether there are two floors of automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. Currently, there is an outstanding LEGO exhibit complete with a life size LEGO Batmobile and a LEGO transportation city. The museum has a great collection of antique cars. Some of the best include their extensive collection of Ford Model T’s. They even have an early “horseless carriage” built by a native Henry Nadig who lived near Allentown. Some other gems in their car collection include early steam powered cars, early electric powered cars, cars with wooden doors, and even carriages that horses pulled. You really get the idea of the evolution of the automobile from these exhibits. Another gem in the museum is the collection of Mack Trucks. Mack Trucks are made in Allentown so they feature a few of them. Again, like the automobiles they show early trucks and have more recent designs as well. You can even sit in one! Finally, there is a nice collection of Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles. The current LEGO displays are amazing. The variety featured in the displays is outstanding. There is a cafe on the second floor of the museum and there is a gift shop at the entrance. The staff here was helpful. If you’re in Allentown you will want to check this place out.

I enjoyed this museum visit a lot. I went with my 9 year old son and we had a good time talking about the cars, reading a lot of the information, and talking about all of it. The info on the sheets in front of each display were a perfect dose of informative, to the point, and contextual enough to give you an understanding of significance/relevance. I especially enjoyed some of the quick videos in the Mack truck section. The courier/messenger one had me DYING because it was INSANE to me. The art car one was fantastic because it features stuff from the Houston Art Car show ❤️. It gives you a lot to think about. There is a really AMAZING Lego table (for eyes only!!!) that has so much attention to detail, it was so fun to look at. It reminded me those where’s Waldo books where there’s just so much going on. Cognitive fatigue set in and so I didn’t get to see everything as closely as I wanted to, but this museum was so cool, I’m glad I went. The dude at the front desk had good vibes and it was just a neat place. I wish I had taken more time at the restoration exhibit/section. (Some of the mannequins were things that might incidentally/accidentally show up in a nightmare or two.)

I have passed this place my entire life and never thought twice about it. I was looking for something fun to do with my son who loves cars and finally gave this place a shot. The museum is incredible. As soon as you walk in they had a life sized Batmobile completely made of legos. Regular sized legos. Further on, they had cars going as far back as the 30s, motorcycles, horse drawn carriages, the first electric car, hydrogen powered cars and a huge Lego room and build. It was incredible. Every vehicle had a placard to learn from, some had interactive things for kids and even informative/interactive things for adults. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves, but if you have any interest in cars and have some time, I highly recommend this place.

If you're a car person or history buff this is the place for you. Detailed well thought out exhibits, interesting informative displays take you centuries back all the way forward to more recent times. Very nostalgic and worth the entrance fee.

Such a lovely museum. Really enjoyed all the cars on display and the vast amount of information as you walk throughout. They have 2 floors, a little theater room and gift shop on the ground level and an old style cafe on the 2nd floor that’s not in use, but more for display. We came here for the 1st time on a Thursday afternoon so it was nice and quiet and we took our time walking throughout. Took us about an hour and a half to really enjoy everything. Would really recommend coming here for a lovely afternoon.

Not a large museum so good for someone looking for a couple hours of visiting. But the bonus if you are there on the right day is getting to see the RB restoration shop I'm getting a wonderful explanation of many facets of restoring vehicles to like new condition

It was a nice museum. It wasn't packed or very busy. It was small and if you breeze through it, it would take about 30 minutes but it was nice to walk through it. Small kids might enjoy the truck section since there are 1 or 2 interactive vehicles. I probably wouldn't go back but glad I visited the place.

It was a nice experience for the kids to check out this museum. We did a getaway in PA and had nothing to do but luckily this museum was a nice little surprise for a budget. It was cool. If you are in the Allentown, PA area and had nothing to do, it’s worth checking the museum out to kill time and learn some history.

This is such a cute place to spend the day. They always have different exhibits. It's 3 floors & fun for adults & kids. I love the Christmas train & time to visit

Great value and gem of a museum! What a wonderful blend of history, mechanics, extremely friendly car-enthusiast attendants, and diverse amount of hands-on activities for the kids!

Wonderful way to travel back In history. Beautiful cars with lots of information about them. They rotate the cars out every 6 months, so you will want to come back. The volunteers were so willing to answer any questions and were very knowledgeable. A MUST SEE PLACE.

Had fun. I enjoyed all the interactive content, especially. I would like more. I kinda want the opportunity to hear what the motors sound like.

The America On Wheels Museum is located in Allentown and is not difficult to find, but depending on what direction you come from there is a one-way street. Parking lot is reasonably large, with the museum building being modern and fully handicap accessible. Lobby area alone has several cars on display. General admission is $12 for adults, which isn't bad. Before arriving, make sure to check the hours as the museum isn't open late. Museum is two floors with permanent displays on the first and rotating displays that change every six months on the second. Displays include many old cars and several rare models, but also includes displays for scooters and toys. The museum has a significant amount of space decided to Mack Trucks, as they were previously based in Allentown. Some of the permanent displays are borderline out of date and will need to be refreshed in the next 5-10 years. The second floor houses the Hubcap Cafe, which looks cute with its 1950's design, but was closed during my visit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This floor has a large amount of information about car restoration. The rotating displays are also housed here in a large open space, which during my visit was several Hudson automobile's. A few volunteers were also around to answer questions and talk about car stuff. Touring the museum takes about 1-2 hours depending on your pace. Gift shop is lean with not a lot of selection. Overall, this is what you'd expect a car museum to look like, and it's worth a stop.

If you are a gear head like one of us, you'll love this museum. It is not that big but great collection of mostly American automobiles and motorcycles. Time flies by so fast when you're inside. Friendly and knowledgeable staff. Highly recommended!

Beautifully designed and well curated museum. Though it is not a massive museum, the collection is impressive and all the vehicles were impeccably kept and the space is bright, clean and organized and spacious space to house antique cars. The best thing is all the employees here are volunteers and they have extensive knowledge of the vehicles and history of this museum. I am thankful for all the collectors who loaned the vehicles for us to admire and enjoy. Highly recommend coming here for a visit!!

Not too much on display. The exhibit---purses and autos was actually kind of silly and a stretch to make it something most visitors would enjoy. Also, using a Groupon to save, it is not a simple scan rather you have to fill out a form with the information like confirmation code. So much for technology. The docent caught us immediately coming through and let us know there would be a raffle on a '95 Buick Roadmaster---oh boy sign me up--NOT! It was not an extensive collection which was disappointing for all of the positive reviews. I would say the museum has some work to do with more automobiles like similar museums. Do I care about slot cars? The answer is no as well.

Wonderful place and people - be kind it's moderate in size - and still awesome great work people!! We'll be back and we'll tell all we know we appreciate you

America On Wheels Museum is a nice museum displaying a variety of motorcycles, bicycles, antique autos and trucks and race cars. A nice place to stop and kill a few hours. They charge $12 for general admission, however if you go to Groupon you can get it for $5.50! Definitely a place to checkout if you like cars or motorcycles.

By no means am I a car guy. But I am a history guy and with that in mind along with this place being fairly close to home (and cheap) it's become a spot that we swing by every other year or so to see old favorites along with anything new. The first thing worth mentioning is that if you know anything about this area and if you are in any way familiar with the truck industry then you know that a place like this is going to be heavily Mack Truck influenced. While Mack has it's own company museum in a different part of Allentown where you can take a free multi-hour volunteer led tour, AOWM has it's fair share of Mack trucks/memorabilia/company history-propaganda which should scratch the itch of learning about the company for all but the most die hard foaming spark plug lovers. In the lobby currently is the Megatron truck from the Transformers movies along with a few sports cars that appeared in I believe different movies. The rest of the first floor is comprised of the South Gallery which has all the aforementioned Mack stuff plus the North Gallery which has a diverse collection of personal (non-commercial vehicles) vehicles, pedal cars, a few motorcycles, an early electric car and even a Stanley Steam powered vehicle (it's not really a car per se). If you take the back staircase to the 2nd floor it has a lot of pictures & artwork going up the stairwell that most people probably don't even know is there. www.yelp.com/biz_photos/america-on-wheels-museum-allentown?select=EjqR43sjkgGHUwmdKu22CA The second floor has a large display of some higher horsepower cars, their Restoration Learning Center, small art gallery and even smaller library. Overall AOWM is certainly a spot that is worth a visit. I'm not going to say that it's unique to the area as there is another car museum not that far away in Boyertown and I'm also not going to say that the average person coming here is going to make a day of it but especially considering the low admission cost/smart layout and diverse collection of vehicles, it's a nice spot for maybe ninety minutes to two hours. If you go: The museum has plenty of free parking and short of coming on some kind of special event day I can't imagine this ever being an issue. We've been here three times on Saturdays and Sundays and it's been fairly dead. I would imagine that weekdays would be even more so. Below I have listed the admission prices but honestly only a fool would pay that as the museum takes part in every imaginable discount program like Living Social, Groupon and things like the Smithsonian's free museum day. Also note that while their website lists hours for their soda fountain, The Hubcap Cafe, (americaonwheels.org/visit/hubcap-cafe) two of the three times we've visited it's been closed during hours when it was supposed to be open. January through March: Wednesday - Saturday 10am-4pm Sunday Noon-4pm April through December: Tuesday - Saturday 10am-5pm Sunday Noon-5pm General - $10.00 Seniors (62+) - $8.00 Students (6-16) - $6.00 Children (5 & under) - FREE Children 12 & under FREE on Sundays

Really neat place. Our 3 year old enjoyed. Lots of cars to see. Especially enjoyed the "fin" cars upstairs. They had buy one get one admission, so for 4 adults it was $20 to get in. I think fair. I wouldn't want to pay full price ($10 each) though.

As a gear-head, I smiled the whole time I was there. What more can I say? Loved it. Period. Go there. Their exhibits change often and they have wonderful special events.

A really cool museum. Very informative. All kinds of information on cars, trucks, motor cycles and early bicycles. Staff was very friendly and helpful. For the holidays they had The Little Brass Band playing Christmas tunes. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Ben meaning to stop here for a long time and glad we finally did. Very well done. Reasonably priced and nice exhibits. Plan on 1-2 hrs to see everything with some amount of detail, but you could need longer if you are REALLY into cars! Very friendly staff explained the theme changes about every 6 months so we will definitely return.

A must stop for anyone who is interested in history of automobiles. A very nice selection and assortment of race cars motorcycles, trucks and memorabilia. Also an awesome collection of old kids cars.

We bought a Groupon deal for 2 people for $8 and had a great time exploring this museum. The museum far exceeded our expectations. They had several cars, trucks, bicycles, children's cars, etc. I think if they added an audio tour it would be really informative and beneficial. All in all a very unique museum that is great for a family day out. Also, a great museum for kids. They also have an old timey diner on the second floor (food is only allowed inside the diner), a gift shop as you enter, and a library with books and magazines related to cars.

This place is a diamond in the rough; rough being the section of Allentown you have to go through to get here. Beautiful small museum with lots of hands on interactive stuff for kids. My husband is a car guy and he really enjoyed all the history and wide display of vehicles. I gave four stars because the cafe isn't open during the week, but it wasn't busy so I understand why.

I'm going to begin by saying that car museums just aren't my thing so take what I say with a grain of salt. This is a nice little museum with a variety of vehicle focused displays including bikes, motorcycles, cars and trucks. Highlight for me is PeeWee's bike. I think the museum lacks some interactive displays, and the ones that were interactive weren't working. I also think they completely missed the boat on the vehicle obsessed toddler set. They should have a tot spot, or more areas that are kid/touch friendly. In all, I think it's a good way to spend an hour or so, especially if you're out of town.

Came here on the Museum Day Live! and got through the museum in ~1hr. It was a nice museum with a variety of exhibits (not just cars - bikes, motorcycles, trucks, etc). There was one section focused on the Mac trucks (bulldog is quite cute~!) and another section focused on restoring old cars. The exhibit upstairs apparently rotates and the day we went, it was cars with wooden doors/bodies. It was quite a collection of old cars! The guy checking the "smiley face" admission stamp is very friendly and explained to us what each floor had after hearing that it's our first time. Normally admission is $8 per adult. On the day we went, there were a bunch of old cars parked out in the parking lot with hoods up and the owners were there to answer questions. There was one car that can swim! SO COOL!

We have visited America On Wheels 3 times over the past few years. Each time we are delighted! It is great for ALL AGES!!!

Excellent museum on all wheel-based transportation. Exhibits are well done and interesting. Just enough on each subject matter with being overwhelming. The tour of the adjacent restoration shop is also very informative and interesting. The owner is ofter there to provide a lot of interesting facts. Don't miss this gem. Easily accessible and has lots of off-street parking. FIVE STARS

Great place to take family and friends. Tours are very entertaining and the staff there will male you laugh, I recommend this to daycares and other centers around the area!

I can't speak to the museum portion but it was a terrible spot for a meeting, unless they have a quieter room somewhere in the building. I attended a company seminar in the large room on the 2nd floor. The acoustics are absolutely awful due the concrete floor + high metal ceiling/roof. There is no sound baffling or dampening material anywhere in the room. The speaker's voice was echoing all over the place, questions were getting lost in the din and every cough or sneeze went off like a gunshot. It got louder as the museum got more crowded. The wall between the meeting room and the hallway doesn't go all the way to the ceiling. There's at least a 1-2 foot gap of just space that allows outside sound to reverberate right into the meeting space. There was music playing in the museum, then vacuuming sounds from the cleaning staff, then we could hear a tour being given word-for-word ON THE FLOOR BELOW. While the folks on the tour seemed to be enjoying it, no one in the meeting space was (especially those of us who showed up late and ended up sitting next to the wall). Plenty of parking and a unique venue compared to your standard hotel meeting room, but I'm afraid that's all there was to recommend it.

Another Allentown gem. Lots of cool cars, history of Mack trucks and a couple bikes. Very informative and these cars are immaculate!! Definitely a nice afternoon trip took us 2 hrs to go thru it.

Great museum that showcases all forms of transportation that has wheels (sorry boats). They have a lot of local flair and certainly support Mack Trucks. The museum is probably about a 45-1 hour experience. There is even a little cafe inside that serves hot dogs, milkshakes and floats and a gift shop.

Great museum. If you're in Allentown or the Lehigh Valley, check it out.

Visited recently when it was too warm to ski in the Poconos. We took a ride to Allentown & stopped by this cute museum. My husband & son were more interested in the cars than my daughter & I but I do have to say I loved to see the vintage cars & to read the history behind the car. We spent a little over an hour walking around & exploring.

Great little museum. Not very big but you can spend an hour to hour and a half seeing everything. Worth making the trip and fun for kids.

What a nice museum. It is well kept and has some great facts. A definite must see if you are interested in vehicles. The vehicles are amazingly kept in shape. All of the workers were so helpful, knowledgeable and kind! Thanks for all you do

I been their a couple times beautiful place very relaxing. The big problem is they need more diversity. The cars they have are beautiful, but most can not relate to them because they are before there time the people that really would enjoy them are know longer living . They need to get more vehicles that are very unique and have special places in the baby boomers lives. The ones that are 90% of there now paying customers. GMC Typhoons & Syclones Buick grand Nationals AMC AMX's Dodge little Red Express pickup first edition dodge viper also the dodge Prowler the list goes on . Old ,Old cars are nice but you want to see what you grew up around and cars you can understand more so .You have to keep up with the times Sears ,JC Penny and Woolworth never did ,and look now .One other comment you had a Corvett there ,and I was sratching my head why it was there I asked the women that worked at the entrance what was so special about this car at the time they were a dime a dozen two just like it parked in the customers parking lot outside She stated titled as a 1983 and that year they did not make Corvetts ,and she replied isn't that cool . It was the same Corvett you could see on just about every street corner at the time total waste of a car spot . How it got into the museum I will never understand

Nice place for the kids who like cars, history or even adults honestly. But, it is very small for what it is. I'd like to see a small change.

This is where I got married!!!! I don't even know where to start.... the museum itself is gorgeous and impressive...its huge and very clean. I never even knew this museum existed until searching for my perfect venue. Linda Merkel the director of the museum was so helpful, she was very quick to respond to my questions everyone who was working at the museum the night of my wedding was so nice. Everyone really went out of their way to make my day special. It is a beautiful place to visit. If you want to plan a different and unique party and you love antique cars...do it here. One thing to remember is this venue does not have the typical wedding venue luxuries, such as, china, silverware, cocktails, linens, or an actual restaurant with a dishwasher or an event staff. These things need to be rented which can add unexpected costs. With that being said...it was totally worth it, and my husband and I truly had the best day of our lives.

For years I wondered what was there. Finally got my chance while attending a fund raiser held there and have to say this place is really cool. The night we were there, the museum had a problem with the computerized lighting and some of the display sections were closed. Will defiantly be making another visit. This is a worth while time. Can't wait to see the Indian Motorcycles.

Was down her May of 2014, Small museum, but had lots of nice older cars, and trucks. I liked it, and the kids had fun. Has cafe inside. Will defiantly visit again.

Great museum! Fun for adults and kids. Even if you're not a "Car guy" or "motor head", this place provides a fun walk through time reflecting the significance of various cars, trucks, and much more. Check out the gift shop or cafe!

Step back in time with me. America on Wheels Museum is great. The exhibits are changing all the time so there is always something new to see. The cars, bikes, and trucks are kept pristine. They hold car shows and fundraisers regularly. Bring the kids and make an afternoon of it. Their milkshakes in the Hubcap Cafe are the best. They are closed Mondays.

My kids and I have been about 3 times and have had a great time every time.. The people working there are very friendly and I love the displays set up . We will return again in a heartbeat.

We loved this museum. Super unique, and the volunteer at the front desk was so helpful and friendly. What a cool little find that's not far from home! We were disappointed at the actions of one employee; I don't know her name, but she was shorter with glasses and short hair and quite loud. The front room was being worked on, and there weren't barriers up; we went into this section to look around, not knowing we shouldn't be there, and this lady went crazy saying we couldn't be in there. Then, after enjoying the whole museum, we were interested in buying a print that we saw upstairs was advertised for sale. It said "#3" on it and to mention this number in the gift shop to buy prints. We told the gentleman at the desk, and hee called in someone who could get into the room with prints, which happened to be this same lady. Acting like we were being a total inconvenience, she goes, "What is the #3? I don't know #3, and I need to hurry up because I have something else I need to do." We waited patiently for about 5 minutes, and she said they were out. It was really a shame she was so rude because we loved the museum. Don't let this review stop you from going. It was a great place full of motorcycles, race cars, trucks and some fun interactive things for kids.

This is a really cool museum with rotating collections that keep it interesting. Very clean and well laid out with lots of history. It's kid friendly and has 2 levels with something for everyone. The area by the river isn't the easiest getting around so make sure you know how to get out as most of the roads are one way in another direction.