Land Rover celebration highlights weekly roundup of museum news

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Land Rovers from all generations were on display at a special event in England | Bicester Heritage photos

The inaugural Land Rover Legends gathering was held during England’s most recent bank holiday weekend at Bicester Heritage, the former Royal Air Force base that has been turned into a collector vehicle center, where thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles gathered to celebrate the iconic and now 70-year-old off-road vehicle brand.

Among the event’s features were presentations inside an aircraft hangar of Land Rover vehicles and interviews with people about their adventures around the world with those vehicles. 

Land Rover Legends also included an inaugural national awards presentation with top honors going to a 1954 Series 1 “Dido” (Footman James Award), a 1991 Discovery 1 (most original vehicle), a 1976 101-inch Forward Control (best restored), a 1954 Series 1 “Grip Karosse” (best bespoke vehicle) and best club display to the Land Rover Series 2 Club.

In addition, the Brian Bashall Memorial award went to a Land Rover used on the 1955 Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition from London to Singapore. The vehicle was considered lost until found by Adam Bennett on the island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The award is named for the late founder of the Dunsfold Collection. 

Seal Cove museum incorporates period advertising into new exhibit | Museum photos

Seal Cove opens new season with new exhibit

Seal Cove’s new exhibit

The Seal Cove Auto Museum in Maine’s Mount Desert Island has opened its 2018 season with a new exhibit, “Selling Lifestyle and Leisure: Art, Advertising the Automobile.” 

The exhibit features original and large-scale advertising reproductions, special guest vehicles and multi-media presentations to tell the story of automobile advertising and design, and of social trends that shaped the advertisements and the artists who created them. 

Guest vehicles include a 1901 Victor steam carriage, 1912 Alco 7-passenger touring, 1929 REO Flying Cloud, 1931 Franklin, 1910 Pierce Arrow and a 1957 Chevrolet BelAir, which is the youngest vehicle — and by 25 years — on display in the museum.

Walk of Fame style floor is part of exhibit at Lamborghini Museum | Museum photos
Cars at the stars

Lamborghini opens ‘Film Emotions’ exhibit

“Film Emotions — Lamborghini and the World of Cinema” is the theme of a new exhibit at the Lamborghini Museum in Sant’Agate Bolognese, Italy. The exhibit features Lamborghini cars that have played a role in movies, ranging from the Miura in the 1969 film The Italian Job to the Aventador in the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises. The exhibit runs through October 31.

The exhibit is based on the format of the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. 

Mullin Museum’s 1960 Citroen ID19 Le Paris bodied by Chapron takes Best of Show at Malta | Museum photos
And the winner is!

Mullin museum’s 1960 Citroen wins concours honor

The huge exhibition of Citroen vehicles at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California, may have ended but the museum’s collection of the French cars remains in the news. You have to figure that at least a couple of the Mullin Citroens will be part of a featured class in August at Pebble Beach, and the museum’s 1960 Citroen ID19 Le Paris recently took Best of Show honors at the Valletta Concours d’Elegance on Malta.

The car is one of only nine bodied by Henri Chapron and one of only three known to still exist, and of those the only one still on its original chassis. 

The Le Paris won in a field of more than 80 cars in a concours staged within the walls of historic St. George’s Square in the baroque city of Valletta.

Special events this weekend

The Saratoga Automobile Museum in update New York opens its “The ’50s” exhibit with an evening reception June 1.

Expanded tours of “the vault,” the vehicle storage galleries located beneath the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, begin June 1 in a 10-year partnership with Hagerty, the insurance and vehicle valuations company. Docent-led tours ranging of either 75 minutes or two hours are available.

It’s Spring Fling! weekend at the Museum of Bus Transportation in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and among the features is a parade of vintage buses from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday. 

Canceled by rain a week ago, Muscle Car City in Punta Gorda, Florida, has rescheduled its monthly auto flea market and car corral for June 3.

At the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire, the 70th anniversary of Land Rover is being celebrated through June 3 with “Adventure, Animation and Land Rovers,” a family-oriented program. The museum also has launched its “Car S.O.S. Exhibition” in conjunction with the National Geographic television program in which Fuzz Townshend and Tim Shaw bring cars back to life. The S.O.S. showcase includes seven cars rebuilt by the TV team.

“Spies and Soldiers” continues through June 3 at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, England.

Mark your calendar

The California Ag Museum in Woodland stages its Tractors & Brews event on June 7 from 6 until 9 p.m. On June 12, it will benefit from the sale of several vintage-style tour buses being offered at the Ritchie Bros. auction in Dunnigan, California.

The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia plans a special 10th anniversary celebration on June 8. Admission to the museum will be free that day, and the museum will remain open until 7 p.m. However, while tickets are free, visitors must obtain them in advance through the museum website. As a special birthday gift, rides will be raffled off in some of the museum’s cars.

The Newport Car Museum in Rhode Island will be closed June 4-8 in preparation for the opening June 9 of its newest gallery, American Muscle “Then and Now,” which will showcase such cars as a 1961 Chevrolet Impala SS 409 convertible, 1965 Ford Mustang convertible, 1964 Pontiac GTO, a pair of 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28s, 1970 Dodge Hemi Challenger and others. The museum also is adding vehicles to some of its other galleries.

The Seal Cove Auto Museum in Maine hosts Cars & Coffee: Steamers on June 9. The event, from 9 a.m. until noon, will feature steam-powered vehicles. 

The Kansas City Automotive Museum hosts its Oddballs and Obscurities Car Show on June 9 from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. The museum also will participate in the annual Motori in Piazza car show June 3 at Zona Rosa in Italy.

On July 8, the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, UK, stages its Simply Jaguar car show.

Britain’s National Motor Museum at Beaulieu stages its “Classic and Vintage Commercial Show” on June 9-10 with more than 300 trucks and buses on display. On Father’s Day weekend, the museum opens its new summer exhibition, “The Art of Kustom,” featuring automotive creations by Andy Saunders, who will drive one of his customs onto the museum grounds and will unveil his newest project, Metropolis, a transformed 1939 Peugeot 202 pickup, found in a field in France and believed to have been requisitioned by invading forces during World War II. 

“Chevrolet Racing: Louis to Le Mans” is the theme of a new special exhibit opening June 11 at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The exhibition, scheduled to run until January 4, 2019, showcases cars and artifacts from Chevrolet’s racing history. 

The AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, hosts its annual CARnival Car Show as part of its 15th anniversary celebration on June 16. Activities include valve-cover races, antique car rides, behind the scenes tour of the Schmidt Collection storage building, and tethered hot-air ballo0n rides.  

“Gear Up” is the title of a S.T.E.A.M.-oriented summer camp being offered June 18-22 at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in northeastern Indiana. The camp, which runs daily from 9 a.m. until noon, is geared toward those aged 8-10. 

The Seal Cove Auto Museum in Maine will stage a Demo Day on June 21 with rides in antique autos and talks by museum curators.

“1980s Performance? Yes!” is the theme of an exhibit to run from June 23-July 8 at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia. The museum is looking for cars such as an IROC Camaro, SVO Mustang, Buick Grand National, Mazda RX-7, Omni GLH and Nissan Z cars to include in the showcase. For details, visit the museum’s website.

The France Family will receive the fifth annual Cameron R. Argetsinger Award for contributions to motorsports on June 28 from the International Motor Racing Research Center in Watkins Glen, New York. The program will be held at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. Previous recipients were Chip Ganassi, Richard Petty, Roger Penske and Mario Andretti.

The British Motor Museum hosts its “BMC & Leyland Show” gathering on July 1. As part of the cruise-in, convoys of cars will leave from Cowley and Longbridge and arrive at the museum. 

Exhibition poster

“Silver Arrows 1934-1939” is the title of an exhibit to run from July 7 to September 2 at the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands. The exhibit will feature seven of the famed Mercedes-Benz racing cars.

National Corvette Museum curator Derek Moore will lead a special Museum in Motion tour from July 8-12 with a theme “Ford vs. Chevrolet.” The trip, says the museum, will be “a fascinating expedition through American automotive history. In this tour we will see for ourselves the way that innovators, inventors, and entrepreneurs used the automobile as a vehicle to change our world forever.” Visits include The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village and the GM Global Propulsion Center. For details, visit the museum website.

The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia offers its first Race Car Summer Camp for ages 10-16 from July 9 to 13. The camp will use motorsports to explore STEM subjects, and each camper will design and race a CO2-powered car. For information and registration, visit the museum website.

Old Fords featured in the UK

The British Motor Museum hosts its 10th Old Ford Rally on July 15. The event, which is expected to feature 400 classic vehicles, including commercial vehicles and tractors, is the largest of its kind in England.

The AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, offers Model T driving experience classes July 18, 21 and 28 and August 4 and 11, September 8 and 9 and October 20. 

The Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan, welcomes its Class of 2018 at a gala ceremony July 19. Those being enshrined are Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota; Tom and Ray Magliozzi of Car Talk radio fame; Frank Stronach, founder of automotive supplier Magna International; and Mike Jackson, chairman of AutoNation dealerships.

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