Martine Sitting in a Classic Corvette

I was dismayed to find that two superb auto museums closed down in 2024. In both cases, the museums grew out of personal car collections. When the museum founders passed on to that garage in the sky, both museums started to run into hard times.

The first was the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard with its Bugattis and Art Deco paintings and furniture which closed in February 2024.

Hitting closer to home was the closure in October of the Zimmerman Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo. There was a time when we visited the museum every few weeks. Martine loved it because they concentrated on American cars and because they allowed visitors to sit behind the wheel. She was particularly fond of a classic Corvette illustrated above.

There is an excellent article in Hemmings.Com about the Zimmerman Museum’s frantic attempts to raise cash after Stanley Zimmerman died in 2020. The article contains some excellent photos of the museum’s holdings.

Museums based on private collections have a high mortality rate. They are like restaurants, which, especially after the Covid-19 lockdown, are dropping like flies.