the Stutz Car Museum, a new museum that opened in downtown Indianapolis last year, in the very building where the cars were built. It is free and open to the public

The Stutz Motor Car Co. was liquidated in 1939. The sprawling Stutz campus was used simultaneously by two different companies until 1959 when the Paper Package division of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly acquired the buildings it did not yet own. It kept the factory in use until 1982.

For the next decade, the plant was severely under-utilized and slipped into a state of disrepair. For a few months, former Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Curator Jack L. Martin planned to create a “world-class museum of automotive history” at the plant, but those plans ceased in 1988 due to a lack of funding.

In 1992, the factory was only partially occupied when local businessman and car guy Turner Woodward acquired the facility. His team embarked on a multi-year restoration project that converted the plant into a business center and a haven for dozens of artists. In 2021, Woodward sold a majority ownership in the plant to New York City-based SomeraRoad, Inc.

Fortunately for automobile enthusiasts, as well as the city of Indianapolis, the new owners also believed in the “adaptive reuse” concept of revitalizing existing historic structures. While Woodward gets the credit for saving the factory, the new owners continued that work, creating what it has called a “multidimensional live-work-play atmosphere” by reportedly investing $100 million in the complex. Today, it’s home to offices, restaurants, retail shops, fitness centers and events.

The 10,000-sq.-ft. car museum that opened early last year is in a single-story building that was once a machine shop for Stutz. The cars on display are owned by Woodward, and while most of the vehicles on display are Stutz, there are other cars on display, as well.

https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/resources/a-look-inside-the-new-stutz-museum

https://www.thestutz.com/