Warning! Today’s post is very picture-heavy… consider viewing on the website with your computer instead of on your mobile device.
www.UrbanEscapeVehicle.com
Day 2 of our rally started off with a fine selection of muffins, pastries, and more; all in the grand Alpine Coach Association tradition 🙂 And oh… I forgot to mention, yesterday we had breakfast burritos! Our hosts for this rally have sure outdone themselves already!
After our satisfying breakfast, everyone jumped in their respective vehicles or car-pools and headed out for the days scheduled activity; a guided tour of the Nethercutt Collection & Museum located in nearby Sylmar which is only 20 minutes away from our park.
Once again, here’s our itinerary for the week:
If you’re a “car-nut”, this place is for you! The Nethercutt Museum & Collection consists of two buildings of the finest restored vintage and antique automobiles in the world. They also have a huge assortment of mechanical musical instruments; but I was here to look at the cars 🙂
Be sure to click on the name above for a link to their website, or click here for a YouTube video tour that I found online taken in 2012. And if you are so inclined, here’s a link to another YouTube video of this fine car collection which was filmed for the TV series; My Classic Car from Season 9, Episode 10. On the My Classic Car episode, the host, Dennis Gage, tours the maintenance shop and restoration area of the Nethercutt Museum – which was something we weren’t able to see during our tour.
We all gathered for our guided tour outside one of the buildings until they opened the doors.
I’ll let you read about the founders and how the museum collection came to be, from the website link I provided earlier.
So now… sit back and enjoy some of my favorite pictures from the day. But don’t worry, I didn’t include all 300 of them.. just my favorites, maybe 100, or so 🙂
Here we are listening to our tour guide inside an exquisite re-creation of an opulent automotive “grand salon” of the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Then we were set loose to browse the fine automobiles on our own recognizance.
It is my strong opinion that this is where the term “trunk” comes from. What do you think?
I’ve always liked the decorative “mascots” or hood ornaments… I’m sure some of these cost more than a new car nowadays.
Hope you’re not too bored with all the hood ornaments already, because there’s more to come…
But first, we ascended the semi-spiral staircase to the upper level(s).
Once on the first upper level, we viewed the fine displays and antiques.
And remember when I said earlier that there were more hood ornaments…
I have to wonder if there’s a larger collection of these anywhere else in the world?
We ascended yet another set of spiral stairs.
And found ourselves in the world of mechanical musical instruments, and they all worked…
But, before we listened to all the antique musical boxes in the huge room, we viewed the Louis XV style grand dining room.
Check out the infinite number of chandeliers effect in the mirror.
We viewed and listened to the various mechanical musical instruments that included: Nickelodeons; Cylinder & Disc Music Boxes; European Orchestrions; Grand Pianos; and more. Link here for more info on these devices if interested.
After viewing and listening to some of the finely tuned mechanical musical instruments, we got a mini-concert from the Wurlitzer pipe organ. All of these instruments were demonstrated by the museum’s mechanical music master technician/curator who acted as our tour guide.
After our senses were astounded with the visual and acoustic grandeur, we descended the many flights of stairs to depart the building.
We then went across the street to the second of the Nethercutt Museum buildings for a self-guided tour. By the way, did I mention that this is all free of charge? Here we were greeted by more finely restored automobiles and memorabilia that we wandered around gaping at.
I don’t think I’d kick any of these cars out of the garage for leaking oil on the floor, would you?
This 1936 Pierce-Arrow Travelodge trailer was a big hit with the Alpine Coach group.
And now, just when you thought there couldn’t be any more hood ornaments to take pictures of…
There were also display cases full of other types of antique automobile memorabilia.
Even headlights…
and horns…
spark plugs…
and more cars… Yay!
And then, just when we thought there couldn’t be anything more to astound us, we toured this cool train and luxury car that is stationed behind the building. Click here for more info on this 1937 Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson Locomotive and Pullman Private Palace Car.
We stood in line to get the free tour of the locomotive and the 1912 Pullman Private Car.
After listening to our tour guide give us the details, we toured the inside of this fully-restored luxurious palace car:
We stepped out of the car and onto the massive locomotive.
Yes, we even got to ring the bell.
That was one awesome locomotive! See a YouTube video of it’s farewell trip here.
And what an awesome museum! This is definitely a must-see attraction and you can’t beat the price.
We finally exited the museum late in the day and headed back to the campground.
On the way back to the campground, we made a stop at the local Camping World to get a new flex-hose water connection. I replaced the water filter when we got here, but the short flex-hose that connects to my quick-disconnect, developed a leak. Apparently, I overtightened it. Oh well, it was only $7.
Then we pretty much just lazed around for the rest of the day recuperating from all the walking. At least, that’s the excuse we used.
I hope you enjoyed today’s post. Tomorrow we take a tour of the William S. Hart Park & Museum, so check back in for a full recap.