Karen Y.
Yelp
Situated along the path from the main entrance into Saratoga Spa State Park, the Saratoga Automobile Museum is not hard to find. On Father's Day, I saw a lot of antique cars parked around the museum. Apparently, it was a yearly event for them to gather around. There's a mineral water station across the street from the side of the ex-bottling-plant-turned-Automobile Museum building if you're thirsty or looking for some rotten-egg-soda-tasting water, but it's good for your health!
On a historical note, this building used to be a water bottling plant, but because they couldn't successfully sell the mineral water the way Coke and Pepsi sells soda, they had to finally close down. They just couldn't get people to desire the healthiness of mineral water. Hence, the building was turned into an Automobile Museum instead.
Anyway, near the front entrance of the Automobile museum is one of Saratoga's colorful wooden horses (good for a snapshot.)
Upon going in, admission was $8 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, and $3.50 for children. They are closed on Mondays (Oct-May.) What I didn't know was that on Father's Day, fathers enter the museum for free. Too bad my youthful husband did not get a free pass. Along with our tickets, a "Saratoga Museums Pass" is included where I get buy one, get one free admission at participating local museums (expires in a month.) The lady at the front register is very pleasant and answered all our questions and offers a lot more information.
Also, while you are at the front desk, pick up a free Jaguar XK 120 ruler/bookmark or two or three or four. It's a free souvenir (while supplies last I guess.)
Before we go further to official look at the exhibit, there is a little children's room on our left where children can color our own cardboard "little trees," the famous green tree that looks like an air freshener for cars. Along the wall, you can see where this "little tree" have appeared in the movies as the DVDs movies are stuck to the wall. After children are done coloring, the back has a circular velcro thing, so they can stick their artwork on the big tree wall. I chose to keep mine as a memory.
The exhibit that is presented to us from May 16th-November 7th, 2009 was titled, "Mid-Century Marvels" (the Dennis Dammerman collection.) From the chatty staff member who was performing maintenance by vacuuming diligently due to all the traffic that happened early in the morning, we obtained lots of information about Dennis Dammerman, who owned all these precious cars, which are in good condition and drivable. Dennis Dammerman is a retired General Electric Senior Executive who collects all these vintage cars. The convertible cars look so awesome. That same staff member is also nice enough to taking pictures of my husband and I together.
I'm not a car expert, but I think these cars are beautiful and priceless. We are not allowed to touch the cars, but we can certainly take pictures alongside them. Lincoln, Buick, Chevrolet, Thunderbird, Jacuar, Austin-healy, Mustang, Pontiac, Mercedes, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac automobiles are shown on the first floor.
On the second floor, if I go up the narrow stairs, there are all the racing cars from the early 1900's. It's not obvious that there is a second floor, but we followed the stairs anyway. I love watching some TV footage of one of the early races. I can't imagine to think of all the polluction back then. Incredibly, the racers are all racing from 30-50 miles an hour and that is considered fast back then. They also have really antique cars like the early tractors and early cars that look like carriages.
The museum was small, but we still enjoyed ourselves. The gift shop area was also small, but I could get some souvenirs for just a dollar such as a pen and one of their famous "little tree" air fresheners. I believe the majority of people have seen one of these. What was odd was that the person behind the counter was really slow and didn't seem to know what he was doing. According to the computer, he charged me just $1 for the "little tree" car air freshener, but $1.07 for the pen. I guess we have to pay tax on a pen, but not an air freshener? Weird.
A nice tip before you leave is to go to the bathroom, even if you don't need to. It is located near the beginning of your path, near the entrance and before the "little trees" room. There is a water cooler there where you can take paper cone cups to drink some refreshing bottled water. If you plan on visiting the other spring stations in the Saratoga Spa State Park, I suggest you hold on to them to try all the spring and mineral water stations. People come up to me to ask me where I get that cup, and I gave away the Automobile Museum's secret.
PROS: beautiful, vintage automobiles on display
CONS: As all the other yelpers say, price I guess and there's a slow cashier at the gift shop. Can't touch the cars on display.
