Tom B.
Yelp
If you're a car lover, this place is not only a required stop for you, it's taking a place as one of the better destinations around the country. They even sponsor their own Councourse D'Elegance (Kirkland), which they count next to Pebble and Amelia Island as the best in the U.S. They even make that proclamation in an exhibit inside. That's their opinion, but it certainly gives you a sense of their level of ambition.
What you see from the outside looks like a big pile of air-handling equipment. When you drive by on the 705 spur, it kinda looks like a vent pipe a block long fell over in an attractive configuration, or some sort of ICBM-sized slinky toy or something. Don't let this fool you. It's very thoughtfully designed.
Once you snake your way around the T-Dome parking lot (or up D Street), you see a bank of windows on the south facade. The day I went, the front windows displayed a muscle car (late 60s Camaro), an Italian sports car (Di Tomaso Pantera), an antique motorcycle, and an antique pickup truck. Muscle cars, Italian cars, old bikes, and old pickups are actually NOT the focus of the place; they're among the sparser collections here. So they put them up front, I think, to show they have them, and are not completely ignoring these segments of motoring history.
You walk through this big lobby (which actually feels more like a little display gallery), around the admissions desk, through a little gift shop, and into the first collection. The museum extends for three more floors below you, with long, gently graded ramps on each side. There's also an elevator, but collections and displays fill every ramp. There's a small theater at one end of floor 2, and there are other miscellaneous displays. But 97% of the exhibits are just one car after another.
Once you get inside, you immediately get a sense of the emphases they place here: American stuff. First you see many classic Vettes, including a split window and a Grand Sport, along with many stock examples from good years of factory-production Vettes. Then you move gently upslope toward some classic American cars going all the way back to the turn of the last century; there's a single-cylinder 1906 Cadillac tourer across the walkway from a Hurst/Olds 442 Indianapolis pace car and a 65 Riviera. They just throw these classics at you one after another.
Around the corner and down the first ramp, you see coachbuilt status symbols from pre-WW2, including a magnificent Deusenberg Model J. There's a ramp of Ferraris, most of which are post-1980, and a ramp of British cars from the 50s and 60s. There's a big ramp of NASCAR cars, some of which are historically significant, and a ramp of electric and solar cars, both production and prototype. The main galleries show lots of different cars, almost all American, going back through the 20th century. Great stuff.
The little theater shows different documentaries about manufacturing and racing, as well as history of the Lemay itself. In one corner of one floor there's a slot car track for the kids, and it's very cool and very elaborate.
Bottom line, this place is a little spendier than a movie, but unquestionably worth it for the car lover. A serious car lover could easily spend most of a day here, too.
Here are some additional areas that would have been fun to see, but it's no knock on these guys that they have little to none of them:
Muscle cars (they have maybe 10-12, though they're good ones)
Race cars other than NASCAR (2? One was a smaller funny car--nice surprise.)
Racing history exhibits other than NASCAR (none)
Classic Japanese cars (none)
German cars (~5)
Italian cars other than Ferrari (1?)
More pre-1980 Ferraris (2-3)
More vintage and antique bikes and motorcycles (~20)
Hot rods (none)
Mods (there was a T-Bucket next to two vintage Model Ts, which was cool)
Lead Sleds (1?)
They only have a fraction of their collection at the downtown museum, though, and they're always rotating through new exhibits and special events. I'm sure a lot of these things will appear from time to time.
Overall, the Petersen Museum in Reno and Jay Leno's collection are the other two collections that come to mind as serious comparisons for ACM. It's definitely in that class. I will definitely be back here.
