On view January 15th thru March 31
Packard’s Henry B. Joy led the charge in creating the Lincoln Highway. (Univ. Michigan Archive)
Each year over a hundred driver teams compete in a weeklong cross-country trip in vintage automobiles. This year, The Great Race will follow the western route of the world-famous Lincoln Highway, the nation’s earliest transcontinental highway. Today we take for granted our ability to speed across the countryside in the comfort and style of the automobile, but at one time the car was little more than a simple farm implement or an exotic toy for the wealthy.
Traveling the Lincoln Highway was a dusty and bumpy experience, but nonetheless held the promise of glamour.
The huge undertaking to build the network of roads that made the automobile a useful option for great masses of people began with the Lincoln Highway Project. The freedom and mobility cars afforded accelerated the pace of change in many aspects of modern life. The Automobile Driving Museum salutes the pioneering spirit that created the Lincoln Highway over 100 years ago and that still exists today as embodied in The Great Race.
The exhibit will feature vehicles dating back to the 1915 inception of the Lincoln Highway and rare archival photographs from Lincoln Highway collectors. The story of the Lincoln Highway includes titans of the automotive industry, former and future Presidents of the United States, and thousands of brave travelers who set out to cross America on it’s first threadbare highway at the start of the age of automobiles. The car culture of the United States, with it’s fast food outlets, roadside hotels and state of the art service stations was born on the Lincoln Highway 100 years ago.
As we look ahead to this year’s Great Race (June 18-26) we will showcase some of the vintage race cars that will make the trip from San Rafael, California to Moline, Illinois on the old Lincoln Highway. These amazing vehicles must be seen to be believed.
57 Ford Thunderbird
1964 Studebaker Daytona
1936 Buick Beerster Speedster, participating in the Great Race 2016
1929 Ford Model A V8 Roadster
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