Ten years in the making and many disputes with developers and state and local governments later, the LeMay Museum has finally broken ground as of last week. Fitted with a budget of about $100 million and a timeline of 18 months until completion, the LeMay Museum will bring to light the astounding collection of Harold E. LeMay, founder of a waste management business in the state of Washington.
Harold E. LeMay was able to collect about 3,000 cars during his lifetime which is deemed the largest collection of its kind by the Guiness Book of World Records. In 1998, LeMay founded the LeMay Museum with the intentions of displaying his marvelous collection for all to see. Unfortunately, Harold LeMay was unable to see the completion, or even the start for that matter, of his museum before his death in 2000. Of course, as they say, behind a great man there is a wonderful woman and following his death, LeMay’s wife, Nancy, took on the project. With her many fundraising efforts, Nancy LeMay was able to allocate $15 million of her own along with $11 million from the state of Washington, and $1.6 million from AAA car club.
The design for the museum consists of a spiraling display ramp and lots of chrome and glass featuring 500 of LeMay’s classic automobiles sitting on nine acres. Retail shops, dining, and entertainment venues will also take up shop on this parcel of land. Developers project a total of about 425,000 visitors and $34 million in revenue per year.
Among his collection of 3,000 automobiles, LeMay has a 1916 Buick Abadal, a 1924 Lincoln L Towncar, a 1929 Ford Model AA, a 1950 Chrysler New Yorker Convertible, a 1959 Chrysler 300E, a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray, a 1983 DeLorean DMC 12, and just about everything in between.
We have an idea! Let’s take a Porsche and chop it down the middle just to see what it would look like! Sound crazy? That’s because it is! We will admit to not understanding certain elements of art, but we think the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany has gone way too far. They not only sliced one, but many Porsches as a sick and twisted demonstration of the inner workings of this beautiful beast.
Okay, let’s regain some sort of composure here. Give us a second.
Now, albeit insanely demonic, the “modified” Porsches do serve an educational inside look at the design stages of building a Porsche. This exhibit consists of various stations that start with the clay models of the Porsche and end with the full on models being sliced open to reveal their guts. This artistic display even shows details such as the first aid kit and the seats being cut in half. The murder on display alone would not be highly educational, but the videos positioned at each station help that aspect with narrations of each stage of development.
Putting aside the immoral destruction of the galloping stud, this display may be kind of cool. It’s not every day you get to see this type of vehicle in such a different perspective. Of course, this is why we had to post these pictures for all to see. Tell us what you think.
Porsche fanatics – yes, we know that they are a lot of you – will be thrilled to know that the car Porsche considers as the “first ancestor of all Porsche sportscars” will be making its maiden voyage to the US where it will be prominently displayed at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia from March 21 to June 20.
The car, of course, is the Porsche Type 64, which if you must know, was developed back in 1938, making it the predecessor of sorts for the fabled Porsche 356. As a matter of fact, the Type 64 is so important to the history of the brand that just about every Porsche model created thereafter – from the 356 to the newest Porsche 911 - took its styling cues and construction methods from this very same car.
After being meticulously restored, the Type 64 sat in what Porsche describes as the “first and most prominent exhibit” since the company opened the new Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen last year. The three-month trip to the US marks the first time the car will leave its safe confines to be exhibited at the High Museum of Art’s ‘The Allure of the Automobile’ exhibit.
It’s pretty easy to surmise that the history of Porsche can be traced to this one car, which makes it even more compulsory for all Porsche enthusiasts in the US to make the pilgrimage to Atlanta to see up close and personal the car that has shaped Porsche – literally and figuratively – to become the brand that it is today.
Press Release after the jump
Full story
The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart has only been open for about 11 months but in that span, the museum has already attracted thousands upon thousands of visitors from all over the world.
We don’t know how they kept count, but Porsche recently announced that they’ve just welcomed its 500,000th visitor to the Museum of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG – or Porsche Museum, so as not to confuse anyone.
It’s a remarkable achievement for Porsche, which only opened its new state-of-the-art museum 11 months ago on January 31 of this year. The Rosenberger family was bequeathed with the distinction of becoming visitor no. 500,000 and Porsche will award them so kindly with a free high-power test drive of the brand’s new flagship luxury sports car, the Panamera, for an entire weekend.
We figured that Porsche should just give them the car, but we don’t make that decision. Nonetheless, taking it home for an entire weekend for all your friends and neighbors to see is a pretty sweet deal in itself.
Porsche’s state-of-the-art museum in Stuttgart, Germany will have a special guest in the coming weeks in the form of the new 2010MY 911 Turbo. The exhibit, which will be held from November 21 to 29, will showcase the new 911 Turbo alongside some of its predecessors, in addition to the never-released prototype of the 911 Turbo, which, incidentally, was the same car that was used during the 911’s testing and development stage.
If the special exhibit isn’t enough to make Porsche enthusiasts wallop in excitement, the German automakers are also in the process of releasing a new coffee table book – the fourth one from Porsche’s in-house publishers – entitled, “Porsche Turbo Stories”.
The 224-page book will be available from the Porsche Museum shop for
around €15 in both English and German versions. The latest book from “Edition Porsche-Museum” chronicles the storied history of the 911 Turbo including the release of never-before seen photos of the sports car that were dusted off from the company’s archives. In addition to that, the book also highlights every 911 Turbo ever built – from the first 911 Turbo 3.0 that rolled off the lot in 1974 to the latest incarnation, which was revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
If you’re a Porsche fanatic and you happen to be near the area from the 21st to the 29th, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relive the history of one of the most iconic cars of our time.
