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The Gilmore Car Museum, A Cultural Institution

A recent visit to The Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Southwest Michigan helped me reflect on the significance of collecting. Not just cars, but collecting in general. It is a ritualized-yet-personal, cultural-yet-individual, social activity. This trip was a reminder that collecting is more than a pastime. It involves history, nostalgia, gregariousness and fun.

Collecting things is as old as human history. Six-hundred years before the start of the Christian calendar, King Ashurbanipal built a monumental collection of texts – probably the largest library ever at that time. Four-hundred years before that, Zhou Dynasty rulers collected valuable artistic items that are still sought after today sometimes carrying multi-million dollar price tags.

A collector is someone who “collects things of a specified type” according to the Oxford Dictionary. But the act of collecting is far more than assembling a collection of certain objects. It is a practice of expression, social participation, personal identity formation, and collective cultural development (Dillion 2019). Social scientists observe similar traits and behaviors across collectors of everything from stamps and coins to hair from famous people to magnets to cars.

The Gilmore Car Museum is a profound testament to the connections between collecting, nostalgia, and history. It houses over 400 vehicles across a 90-acre parcel of land, some more than 100 years old. It simultaneously showcases automotive evolution and the depth and breadth of cultural and emotional narratives that these machines embody. For many enthusiasts, classic and modern cars are expressions of specific styles and historical eras, linked to personal and collective memories. Collective memories are the foundations of culture in society. Cars are culture.

Photo credit: Time Magazine

A Baby Boomer might personally remember turning 17, borrowing the family’s 1962 Chevy Bel Air and taking a date to the drive-in movies for the first time. The same every day, yet iconic car brings to mind collective memories of post-war economic boom, and infrastructural planning prioritizing driving automobiles over all other modes of transportation, ultimately turning America into what Cotton Seiler calls a ‘Republic of Drivers’. Although this took place in most other industrializing countries of the time, the vast amounts of land in the U.S. available for building roads, diners, dealerships, drive-ins and car-enthusiast-get-togethers is truly exceptional.

The act of collecting vehicles often stems from a desire to preserve, relive and celebrate the past. Collectors of almost all things tend to have this desire. Whether it’s a cherished family car from one’s childhood or an iconic model that encapsulates a specific era of American life – cars are memories. Ken Fischang, Director of Commercial Operations, and himself a collector is no exception:

This statement captures the linkages between Ken’s own childhood, culture of his early years and specific car brands such as a Cadillac. The Gilmore Car Museum itself reflects the nexus of all things collecting and collectors. Cars trigger sensations such as feelings of freedom, technological ingenuity, and cultural identity. These sensations are collective. Collectors thrive in communities, sharing their knowledge and treasures at car shows or rallies, or at the Gilmore Car Museum, where the camaraderie is as cherished as the chrome.

Through its extensive collection and thoughtfully curated exhibits, the Gilmore Car Museum offers visitors an immersive journey into the intertwined stories of automotive innovation, personal nostalgia, and historical context. This place is a destination rarity with a near perfect 4.9 score in Google Maps with 4,400+ reviews as of Dec. 4th, 2024 when I last visited.

It also provides collectors such as Bill (Museum Trustee President) and Barbara Parfet a place to showcase their cars. This is something the collectors I know love. What good is a rare, prized item locked in a basement somewhere? Unless that basement protects it from pillaging! Visitors to the Museum can see a car on loan from The Parfets’ collection: A 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Sports Tourer that is one of two ever produced. The other was destroyed in the chaos in Germany. The first owner of this car in Dresden, (former Eastern) Germany hid it in a garage during WWII, buried the garage underground and planted a rose garden above it. It was unearthed safely only 60 years later after the fall of the Wall and German Reunification.

Photo credit: Judith Offerhaus

Visitors to the museum who are either not car collectors or cannot afford to buy cars for collection purposes, still can become collectors when experiencing cars and their stories. Like this incredible and immaculately restored Benz. To be a collector one only has to collect linkages between this car, what they or their parents may have experienced related to WWII, and the cultural importance of cars in their minds. Collecting does not require a material collection – it can take place entirely in our imagination, culture and fantasies. It is an experience and attitude.

Children regularly play the game ‘if you could have any car, what would it be?’. For me as a child it would have been a DMC Delorean, their role as a time travelling machine in the movie Back To The Future permanently imprinted their value and ‘coolness’ in my mind. Even though I understand these were poorly designed and underpowered as cars, they are high performing and limitless as symbols. When I view them, they embody the potential for technological and cultural advancement, if not space-time exploration. The childish thrill I get seeing a Delorean reminds me of kids who often collect toy cars, like Matchbox cars. This is in principle no different than collecting real cars. They are toys, but they are the experience of collecting. Each kid has their favorites, each kid imagines driving them someday, having a garage… maybe racing.

For car collectors, each vehicle is a machine and a story. It is carefully preserved with meticulous attention to detail. Their garages are often filled with memorabilia linked to the specific cars they own. They want things in original, or restored to be identical to original form, to preserve the storytelling that links their own existence and cars to wider American or global life and meaning. Or, they want original everyday cars that are customized to be one of a kind – variants of something making them rarer and more valuable. Just ask any comic book collector about ‘variants’ if you want to delve into the esoteric and eclectic mores of collecting.

The experience of collecting as something beyond any person or item is visceral at the Gilmore Car Museum. It is impossible to pass through without engaging in the passion of car collecting by chatting with employees or other visitors, reading the signage, and immersing in exhibits of cars placed amidst historically relevant artifacts.

The Car Museum puts on a Winter Wonderland Event each year that brings the linkages of nostalgia and collecting further into focus. Each decade since 1900 is showcased, usually next to a car from that era. In each there is a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments, toy gifts below it, and with a radio or television nearby all presenting artifacts and media from that time. Visitors can experience how Raggedy Ann was to the 1920s what the first Nintendo system was to the 1980s. 

Photo credit: Judith Offerhaus

In addition to providing the chance to ride in vintage cars through a Candy Cane Lane complete with Christmas music and light show, the Christmas event at the Gilmore Car Museum is a further reminder that collectors’ vision extends far beyond the present. They see themselves as guardians of a legacy, ensuring that vehicles and their stories remain vibrant for future generations and that the experience is fun if not thrilling. Their craft is an intricate dance of nostalgia, history, and dedication, making them not just enthusiasts but stewards of the general spirit of automotives and the role of cars throughout history.

Header photo credit: Judith Offerhaus