https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1565577878258384&set=a.288932279256290
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label museum. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Friday, June 19, 2026
Shively Motors began as a small Dodge-Plymouth dealership operating from a downtown garage in 1939 in Chambersburg Pa. It recent years it's created a Mopar museum of about 3 dozen cars
the General Manager at Shively Motors in the 60s, Bud Faubel, was directly connected to Chrysler’s factory-backed drag racing efforts.
Faubel’s “Honker cars” are the reason Shively Motors is remembered outside south-central Pennsylvania today.
https://moparconnectionmagazine.com/gallery-shively-motors-mopar-museum-and-car-show
Monday, May 25, 2026
the last time I posted about the Mahan collection (of Macks and Cats) 7 years ago, I didn't see these photos of their museum
Last time I posted, they had this 16" gun from the battleship New Jersey, but they hadn't made it this nice
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/01/one-hell-of-nice-collection-of.html for the last post
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Friday, December 05, 2025
The Imperial War Museum has a strange way to display a Land Rover?
I obviously didn't look too close, and though it was a Jeep
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
Gary came across a very cool website... open jobs at car museums - The Jobs Boards of the National Association of Automobile Museums - but they are only hiring exec directors, managers, CEO, president.
https://naammuseums.org/jobs-board/
The Petersen is focused on donors and sales. https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=4273552364&keywords=petersen%20automotive%20museum&location=los%20angeles%20ca
Canepa, as always, has a lot of positions to fill... if you live way the hell in the middle of no where between Monterey and San Jose. So... with all the car stuff going on up there... why the hell are they half staffed? They need a whole list of people, I kid you not
Project manager, Engine Builder, Upholsterer, Fab/machinst/welder, Sales, marketing/historian (needs a bachelors) detailer, service tech, paint/body manager,race car techs, Porsche techs.
2 years minimum in every job description, manager jobs require bachelors and 5 years.
I still don't see why they aren't flush, with Monterey just around the bay 40 miles away, and San Fran/San Jose over the hills, 75 miles to San Fran, 32 miles to San Jose.
SEMA has a job listing, for all the corporations in SEMA https://semajobs.com/jobs/ but half the 34 jobs posted, are Canepa.
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Sunday, November 02, 2025
Edward Chavez (1917–2004) was a recognized master of scratch building within the model-making community. Fascinated by aviation from an early age in San Antonio, his model commissions expanded from private aircraft owners to professional work for the Piper Aircraft Company.
Interested in aviation since his childhood in Texas, Chavez served as a B-24 gunner in World War II.
After the war, he joined the U.S. Postal Service and, while in the military reserve, was commissioned to construct aircraft recognition models in 1947.
He later served as a captain in the Korean War and was awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze Star.
In 1961, the Nut Tree Restaurant in Vacaville, California, contracted Chavez to build display models of famous aircraft after seeing models he had made at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum
So, my immediate curiosity was " What the hell was the Nut Tree?"
.
It all began in 1855 when pioneer Josiah Allison came from Iowa to California in search of gold but instead discovered his knack for farming.
Allison staked out 225 acres of land in Vacaville, and was doing so well in the farming business he convinced his brother-in-law, Alpha Brown, to move his family there too.
During the Brown family’s move out to California via covered wagon, Sallie Fox, Brown’s step-daughter, picked up some black walnuts that had dropped from a tree along the trail and carried them in the pocket of her gingham pinafore (sleeveless apron).
Their covered wagon caravan was attacked at some point, Sallie was wounded by an arrow and Alpha was killed. Once the remaining family arrived in Vacaville, Sallie planted the nuts throughout Allison’s property in 1859 and over time one particular tree grew very tall and strong
The seed eventually grew into the tree that provided shade for the first iteration of the Nut Tree, a roadside fruit stand that opened on July 3, 1921, a bad crop year due to a harsh frost, under the walnut tree the farmer's ancestor had planted in Vacaville Ca (location, location, location) on the family’s 135-acre plot along what was then US Highway 40 (now Interstate 80).
In it's 2nd year, it served 900 cars a day, they then set up a diner, and by 1949 were serving 1000 meals a day
They began expanding their offerings, adding oft-requested items like ice cream and chewing gum. Thirsty drivers started stopping for water, so they also kept a bucket of ice cold water on hand. “Whenever a thirsty-looking person approached the stand, he was offered a well-filled cup even before he asked for it,” Power said. “We beat him to it.”
To get drivers to slow down (in a 35 mph zone?) they put up signs in both directions farther down the road, alerting drivers to the upcoming Nut Tree stand. A few years after its grand opening, the Los Angeles Times called it “one of the most unique and profitable fruit marketing stands in the country.”
Due to its free pineapple appetizer, the Nut Tree grew to be the 2nd or 3rd largest importer of pineapples from Hawaii in 1950.
“For many years, the Nut Tree was the second-largest [buyer] of pineapple from Hawaii,” says Kassis. (Pike’s Place Market in Seattle was the largest pineapple purchaser.) “And eventually, the Nut Tree became the quality standard for Dole. Their fruit was [internally graded] green, green-ripe, ripe and the Nut Tree.”
They had pineapples for their famous appetizer, and it was always free because the fruit symbolized hospitality, and they supported the idea that you always exceed expectations (Ever heard of Zig Ziglar and the phrase "give them the pickle"?)
Nut Tree invented Marshmallow sauce, and put it on fruit dishes, most famously, the free pineapple slices
Poisoned by decades of car exhaust, Sallie Fox’s walnut tree was regrettably felled in 1951.
In 1953, they hired graphic artist Don Birrell (age 28), as the museum’s rookie director, shortly after he graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (which eventually became CalArts, the Disney-backed school that has long produced many of its Imagineers)
Chouinard, Dean Batchelor went there, as well as Bruce Meyers (Meyers Manx) and I've posted a couple artists as well, for their INCREDIBLE art https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=Chouinard
The aviary keeper Bill Toone—who earned a master’s degree in avian biology from UC Davis and went on to become the youngest-ever curator of birds at the San Diego Zoo
The Nut Tree gift shop, which was the first Herman Miller furniture dealer in Northern California, sold everything from Eames chairs to Dansk plates
Charles Moore, a founding architect of the iconic modernist Sea Ranch enclave on the Sonoma Coast famously admired the lighthearted vernacular of Disneyland’s exaggerated edifices, and wrote of the Nut Tree with equal fondness in a 1965 essay published in Yale’s architecture journal Perspecta.
“It offers the traveler a gift of great importance. It is an offering of urbanity, of sophistication and chic, a kind of foretaste, for those bound west, of the urban joys of San Francisco.”
In 1978, the San Francisco Chronicle called the roadside attraction an “oasis of taste”—a metaphorical achievement earned by coming a long way from its literal seed of origin.
When Gov. George Deukmejian hosted an extravagant lunch at the State Capitol for Queen Elizabeth II in 1983, he requested catering by the Nut Tree restaurant, one of his personal favorites.
In 1961, the Nut Tree Restaurant commissioned Chavez to build display models of renowned aircraft. Beginning in 1962, Chavez produced numerous models for the restaurant over twenty-seven years
In 1974 the family relinquished control to a management organization, and the writing was on the wall, the restaurant closed in 1996 because of lawsuits stemming from millions in losses of the 2nd gen or management, and the 3rd generation (17 siblings and cousins all working the family business), and after 2 years of court nonsense, the settlement resulted in a sale of the property 2 weeks later, and poof, it's nothing but history now.
In WWII, Ed Jr. learned to fly and service aircraft, and when he returned from his tour of duty, he bought a private plane.
“The idea for a Nut Tree airport simply grew from there,” says Kassis.
When the airport was built in 1955, the landing strip was just dirt. But once pilots began to enjoy the experience of flying into the Nut Tree, lights were installed, the runway was paved and a taxiway was added. It had 25000 travelers a year
The Nut Tree landing strip, described as one of the most innovative private airports in the nation, became a model in the industry and was featured in international magazines including a two-page spread in the October 1960 issue of Saturday Evening Post.
Events began to transpire—the first Cessna air show took place in 1960, for example, and in 1982, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the guest speaker at the final (25th annual) Rotary Fly-In.
Chuck Yeager was also a keynote speaker at one of the Fly-Ins—he was a buddy of Ed Jr.’s and would stop by the Nut Tree on his way to San Francisco from his home in Grass Valley.
(Other celebs that stopped in, included Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Richard Nixon, the Reagans, and Walt Disney)
https://www.sactownmag.com/nut-tree-forever/
https://www.publicnow.com/view/0B971E49D748E8FA8D8D0781A3AF06DCBE912A3C
This post took 4 hours
Monday, October 06, 2025
Le Musée Pop Central started with a single DeLorean, now it's a museum of movie and tv-cars
There's a replica Ferrari Daytona from Miami Vice, a screen-time LTD from Men in Black; the Monte Carlo from Drive; a police car from Back to the Future 2, a taxi from Blade Runner, and a 6000 SUX from Robocop, all purchased from Gene Winfield.
Plus a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 from John Wick 2 that Keanu Reeves drove out of the warehouse where the bad guys had stashed it. And Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari 308
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a68095209/french-museum-pop-car-culture-automobilia/
Sunday, September 28, 2025
1938 Yellow Coach model 1204
the Pueblo Trolley Museum includes 8 vintage street cars and 28 buses
https://www.facebook.com/oldpueblotrolley
Thursday, September 25, 2025
the Overloon War Museum displays the work of the Plane Hunters Research/ Recovery Team Belgium, a display unique in the world, nowhere else is an aircraft exhibited like this
The aircraft had crashed in Belgium in 1945 after being hit by anti-aircraft fire, smashing into the ground at a sharp angle and disappearing meters underground.
It hit at such speed, and impact, that everything, everything was bent and broken.
The initial recovery in 1945 only managed to recover four bodies.
A second attempt was undertaken in 1946, but was abandoned due to the ground conditions.
It was only in 2016 that a renewed recovery was undertaken, during which the remains of NN775 were recovered along with the three missing crew.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)