Unfortunately, the question isn’t “what car belongs in the Smithsonian?” We could probably spend most of the holiday season discussing that one. No, the National Museum of American History has only 73 of the finest cars to choose from, and has nominated only eight to be displayed. You see, this isn’t one of those hypothetical deals… the NMAH actually wants you to vote on which car you think is most deserving of the honor, and the top-two vote-getters will be displayed from January 22- February 21. And your nominees are…
1880 Long Steam Tricycle
1894 Balzer
1903 Oldsmobile Curved-Dash Runabout
1929 Miller Race Car (FWD)
1948 Tucker
1953 Glasspar Roadster
1987 GM Sunraycer
1997 GM EV-1
For more information on these cars, and to vote for your favorite surf on over to the NMAH’s “Race to the Museum” page.
Otherwise, let the debate begin… which is most worthy?
Vote on two? Well then, I would vote for the 1880 steamer, for context on how steam was there before the ICE gas engine became dominant, and the 1903 Olds Curved-Dash for the “oldest car company in America that’s no longer around, kids” pick.
1903 Olds Curved-Dash for the “oldest car company in America that’s no longer around, kids” pick.
Weeps silently into his coffee and goes looking for a picture of his long gone 1987 Oldsmobile and his DVD copy of “A Christmas Story.”
Almost all the the 1st generation cars used a Stanhope style body with a tiller. The curved dash on the Olds must be the most .handsome.
I need to pull out my “There is a special feel in an Oldsmobile” cassette tape that came with my dad’s (later to be my first car, unwisely) 1985 Ninety Eight Regency Brougham. My father was so excited about that car at first, and later so disappointed in the quality (it was delivered in November 1984 to him without functioning power windows, a leaky roof, malfunctioning HVAC control) that he turned Japanese – after requiring me to buy it from him with my hard-earned lawn money at blue book value – and hasn’t looked back.
Only two? I’d pick one each from different “eras.” How bout the Curved Dash Oldsmobile, Tucker, and EV1? Each historically significant in it’s own way.
While the EV1 was revolutionary at the time, I don’t think it was historically significant. To have significance, it has to have some measurable affect on society as a whole. The EV1 didn’t create a market, it was not the first commercially available electric vehicle, and I fail to see the relevance other then, “Hey, that was a neato car.”.
To have significance, it has to have some measurable affect on society as a whole.
Well, it did get a bunch of celebrities to make complete idiots of themselves in public. That has to count for something.
How bout it being part of the continuing GM bitch-slap? The sound track of the GM story should be “Chain of Fools.”
(BTW I’m not saying that the EV-1 could have saved GM I’m just saying that they mishandled the situation in more ways than the average human can comprehend.)
Is there a “none of the above” choice?
Are you a philistine ? The Curved-Dash Olds and the Miller are both legendary , and the Tucker is a film-star.
As far as the Miller goes, I humbly suggest the Miller 4WD.
http://www.milleroffy.com/miller_fwd_pikes_peak_web.jpg
Definitely the Tucker should remain on display. Along side a Ford Model T. How about a Chevy Citation? Ha ha!
Zackman, I had the same thought about the Citation! It would be the perfect example of how arrogance, parochialism and sloth can bring down a large corporation. Granted, the X-Cars didn’t bring down GM all by themselves, but all of the sins of this once-proud corporation are exemplified by these cars.
I would think the first Fords going off an assembly line would be there.
I understand why people might want the EV1 or Solar Racer there, but most of the list I don’t know enough about to comment on why it would be in this museum. Maybe this is the list of cars they have on hand.
It was, until Henry Ford moved every brick of it to Greenfield Village.
My first pick would be the 1894 Balzer, as it clearly illustrates the “bicycle builder” origin of many of the early automotive pioneers.
2nd pick is the 1929 Miller, for the “nothing new under the automotive sun” aspects of its design.
Your point about bicycles is well made. The Dodge brothers started out making bicycles – one of the brothers invented an improved dirt-free rear hub. Their bicycle company became part of a Canadian cartel of bicycle manufacturers which started making cars. The Nash company was called Jeffery Automobiles before Charles Nash took it over. Jeffery also started out making bicycles.
One could argue that without the development of the bicycle industry first, the automobile and aviation industries may never have happened. The Wright brothers’ bicycle shop is in Greenfield Village in Dearborn.
I believe the Wright Bros. bike shop is in Dayton, Ohio.
The Wright Brothers shop IS in Greenfield Village now; along with an entire town full of buildings transported there for the sake of keeping history alive. fun place to visit.
Olds gets my vote as it was real transportation and not one-off motorized bicycles like the first two. Ford Model T would be my preference, however.
I’d pick the Tucker and the EV-1. Both are more attached to releveant object lessons of history, which is really what a museum like the Smithonian is there to present. If you want automotive beauty, go to the MoMa.
The Olds is a solid choice. But most of these cars, while technically interesting in their day, had little cultural impact compared to other vehicles of the era. Is this a list of technological innovation in automobiles? Some of these vehicles were never offered for sale.
Ford Model T should definitely be represented as the first vehicle that got average Americans on the road in mass.
It would be nice to know what else is in their collection before selecting among these low- or no-production vehicles. How about a ’53 Corvette? Or the first Ford V-8? Or a Chrysler Airflow?
I tried checking their website, but it’s useless. It appears to be designed for people who want to wander around and browse, rather than to help people looking for specific information. You would think that an inventory of the car collection would be obvious, simple and easy. But if it’s there, I couldn’t find it.
Man, the Tucker is a fascinating automobile and story, but it’s a hot mess when it comes to design. That is one seriously ugly car, with a completely disjointed design. No two elements hang together visually. If Detroit hadn’t run him out of business, then Bauhaus would have.
It all depends what the criteria are. Do they want the most historically significant car? Well, that’s a subjective judgment but that would probably exclude the Tucker, a relative footnote in automotive history. However, if they want to show the breadth of the auto industry, something like the Tucker or Bricklin would be appropriate – include some failures as well as successes.
As for the Smithsonian’s short list, the curved-dash Olds runabout is the only one that stands out. In many ways, that car created the American auto industry. When reading about the early history of that industry one finds that many of the men who had major roles in the development of that industry, Roy Chapin, Benjamin Briscoe, David Buick, and Henry Leland, for example, either worked for Oldsmobile or solicited their business as suppliers.
In my mind it’s doubtful that Henry Ford would have been successful had Ransom E. Olds not paved the way with his runabout.
@Ronnie: After considering your logic, I would have to agree 100% that the Curved Dash Olds is the car to choose. However, I am somewhat puzzled by the choices shown by the Museum. Unfortunately, I’ve never visited, so I have no idea what they’re inventory looks like, either. But I do wonder about the selection process that lead them to these candidates.
The late 19th & early 20th century choices for powering automobiles were much larger than what we have today, with a near monopoly of gasoline powered automobiles. I wonder why no electrics were chosen, like the Detroit or the Studebaker, or more steam powered cars, like the Stanley or Doble. Or technological tour-de-forces (for their times) like the Duesenbergs or Pierce-Arrows.
Regardless, I vote for the Curved Dash Oldsmobile.
What? Where’s Dale Sr.’s Chevy?! And how’d an EV1 avoid the crusher?
About a dozen EV1s were saved and donated to museums. Presumably the best condition examples.
Some EV1s were also donated to colleges sans powertrain controls which GM ripped out – Western Wash Univ has one. The WWU automotive engineering department got the vehicle running again (a video of it got onto the ‘net), and surprise, surprise, GM lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to them once they found out about it.
I had the fortune to actually drive an EV1 about ten years ago and it was pretty impressive. If only GM had kept that program going then the Volt could have been on the market years ago. GM lost a lot of momentum in this area when they essentially killed their EV program off and scattered the technical team to the four winds.
It’s donated to a college with conditions, and you’re surprised that GM objected when they discovered the college was violating the conditions?
I continue to be baffled by the proprietary attitudes which surround those cars. They belonged to GM. Start middle and end. Nobody was coereced into siging the lease. Nobody was ever told (by an authorative source) that they’ve be allowed to buy the vehicle at lease end. They were a loss-leader long-term test program, and GM concluded at its end that it was not a viable product which could be sold for a profit. End of story. The idea that GM had or has some sort of moral or ethical duty to continue to make them available is offensive.
There is only one car that really changed the automobile from a novelty to a reality for essentially the entire world. The Model T.
You only need to look as far as the Nano and Figo and others of their like to see that the ideals of putting people on the road to prosperity are still alive today.
+1 on the T. I was surprised it wasn’t listed as a choice.
The Tucker pulls on my heart strings, and the EV1 appeals to the nerds. Everyone is happy. The tucker demonstrates an era of innovation, open thinking and classy design. The EV1 points at the future and at the growing uncertainty of how we will power our cars in the future.
The Oldsmobile Curved Dash is a definate in my mind. It was actually (contra to popular belief), the first car built on an Assembly Line.
In my mind it’d be a complete waste of time for a ‘common’ car like the Model T to be on display, you can see those anywhere.
Significance, smignificance. Gimme that purple and yellow Miller race car.
On the EV1 – it was built with inputs from Burt Rutan and would probably not be ready for the tender ministrations of the majority of US car owners. But what a technology demonstrator – and what an indictment of GM that their senior management couldn’t see a way forward to hybrid or or plug in EV. So it gets my other vote.
The list should be front loaded with electric cars instead of back loaded. The 1800s were the era of the electric car, and then they were swept away by the superiority of internal combustion. If we were all driving Teslas today and someone invented the Model-T, the ability to travel however far you want in a day would revolutionize the auto industry. This list feels like an effort to revise history to suit a narrative that denies the lessons of the past.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarselectrica.htm
First Smithsonian car has to be the Ford Model T because it both brought the car to the masses and the assembly line to manufacturing. The other vehicle should be a pickup truck, probably a 1967-1972 era Chevrolet with a small block Chevy V8 and Turbo Hydra-matic 350 transmission because they set the basic shape and drivetrain configuration for 40 years of America’s highest volume vehicles. The United States didn’t invent cars, it invented the assembly line and high volume manufacturing for the masses. None of the Race to the Smithsonian cars show how the US transformed the car from a toy for the rich to an essential part of daily life.
For no particular reason and with an admitted lack of pondering and based upon purely emotional reasons and an admitted admittance to being a quintessential Baby Boomer who can be sub-categorized into the Generation Jones epoch I nominate and condone any example of a “muscle” car of a style that includes add-ons and graphics that convey the visual aspect of “muscle.”
Hood scoop(s) decals, perhaps a rear wing or winglet or other sundry add-ons.
Many possibilities from a Duster 340 to The Judge (Here comes the judge, here comes the judge, as chanted by Sammy Davis Jr on the Rowan & Martin Laugh-in TV show).
Those Olds muscle cars were impressive. Oh heck… so many were groovy, boss, outtasight and represent an era within the USA when the roads were not nearly as crowded and many aspects of life were seemingly not quite as complicated as they are today.
The enemy were the Commies and it was easier to put in your 30 years, grab the proverbial gold watch and retire with at least basic economic security.
Back in the days when so many jobs/careers required a mere high school diploma (if that) before the “diploma creep” at least partially brought on by military draft exceptions that led to so many males to enter college just to obtain, at least, a temporary avoidance of being drafted.
I recall high school before the draft was stopped and the all-volunteer military commenced. The females quivered with delighted anticipation for the prom and graduation ceremonies while many males’ feelings about those events were quelled by the knowledge they were merely coming closer to possibly being drafted.
Living in an area with a large blue-collar, working-poor population and brainwashing from our local educational institutions we were nothing special and not of the proper “type” to strive for college most of my peers did not nor could conceive of us as college material.
I suppose it is something that had to be experienced.
When I substitute taught at a “rich kids\'” high school in a town with very high average incomes (highest in the entire state) the overwhelming atmosphere was that every student was college bound barring a very few exceptions for those with severe mental disabilities. And the “rich kids” were treated FAR differently than us mere “commoners” at my high school.
ANYWAY!!!!!!!! Muscle car!!!!!!!!!!
Representative of an era. Conveys social facets of an era. And they look so nifty-keen!!!!!
Perhaps a 1968 or1969 Olds Cutlass? Adored the body lines.
Or… DROOL… a 1971 Plymouth GTX? Extra points for the presence of a hemi or a 440 6-pak or whatever the official nomenclature for that engine. More points for a pop-up hood scoop!!!!!!!!!!!
OH!!!!!!!!!! So many possibilities from the muscle car era of the mid 60s to early 70s.
What a nifty-keen time to be a youngun. Cruising the town with “real” muscle cars puttering around.
Good times.
Santa, can I have a ’71 GTX for Xmas? Would gladly take a 340 equipped critter.
Heck, I’d settle for a 70-72 slant-6 Plymouth Duster though a 318 would be even better!!!!
Obbop, you and me must be pretty near the same age and our circumstances growing up are similar as well. We were a “working poor” family as my dad was somewhat physically handicapped, but we lived in pretty much a middle-class (maybe lower m/c) area. Due to the impending draft, I joined the USAF right out of high school in Sept. 1969, as I had no other options I knew of at the time, so your description of the era is right on!
I could settle for my avatar again, or a 1967-69 Camaro, or…Chevelle Malibu, Nova, etc.
Thanks obbop. that was eloquent, both on life in the blue collar at that time–something which I did not experience firsthand–and on the muscle car. I’d vote for ’64 or ’65 GTO. Here’s a song to go with that:
LITTLE G.T.O.
(John \"Bucky\" Wilkin)
Ronny & The Daytonas - 1964
Little GTO, you\'re really lookin\' fine
Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin\' up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine
C\'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa-wa (Ahhh, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa
You oughta see her on a road course or a quarter mile
This little modified Pon-Pon has got plenty of style
She beats the gassers and the rail jobs,
really drives \'em why-ee-eye-ild
C\'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GT\")
wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa-wa (Ahhh, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa
Gonna save all my money (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out)
and buy a GTO (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out)
Get a helmet and a roll bar (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out)
and I\'ll be ready to go (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out)
Take it out to Pomona (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out)
and let \'em know (turnin\' it on, blowin\' it out), yeah, yeah
That I\'m the coolest thing around
Little buddy, gonna shut you down
When I turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GTO)
Wa-wa, (Yeah, yeah, little GT)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (Yeah, yeah, little GT)
Wa-wa (Ahhh, little GT)
Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa
The Olds for sure, as the template for the American automobile as we know it, but I question the historical significance of the rest.
So, what would you rather drive – an 1894 Balzer, or a 1994 Blazer?
What a fascinating list. The Oldsmobile is easy for me. But I am surprised that there is no outcry for the 1907(?) Cadillac that won the Dewar trophy for standardized parts. This was the car where they disassembled 3 of them, scrambled the parts, then reassembled 3 cars, each of which ran like new. Unheard of at that time.
My gut says the olds and the tucker–and how about throw the ev1 in there. My intellect says how can you choose between such an interesting array? But then it goes along with my gut.
I wish GM had had an ICE version of the EV1. I bet they could have sold lots of those had they given it a decent, very economical engine. Not like the nvh special that ended up in the early saturns.
Ronnie sez: One could argue that without the development of the bicycle industry first, the automobile and aviation industries may never have happened. The Wright brothers’ bicycle shop is in Greenfield Village in Dearborn.
Absolutely correct. A lot of the auto factories began as bicycle factories. and a lot of the bicycle factories began as sewing machine factories. And if I’m remembering this correctly, a lot of sewing machine factories began as gun factories. Guns were the first products produced with truly interchangeable parts.
The movement that led to better roads started with cycling as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement
The only car that I would choose from the above is the Curved Dash Olds. In addition to those I would add:
1. 1912 Cadilac Model 30 (I believe this is correct) – first car with electric start and controls set up like a modern car.
2. Something to represent the muscle car era. I am thinking 1964 GTO.
3. A Model T should be included. Ubiquitous I know but this was a revolutionary car.
I agree. And how cool was the Olds Toronado!!! The Cutlass 442 and Olds Super Rocket 88, and plenty better picks than those chosen.
The ’69 Camaro is eye candy – perfect!
Model T and A from Ford, Cadillac an American icon, as well as the Corvette. Let’s not forget how many Mustangs sold in two years time, and continue to sell. The Chrysler Minivan is more significant than the EV-1. And then there is the Jeep.
More specifically, I would say Model T depot hack and pick-up. Hupp too. Mercer & Stutz. Auburn-Cord-Dusenberg. Peerless, Pierce and Packard. REO and Marmon…
Concerning the Jeep; Miller worked with/for Bantam after the 4WD car, and before the Jeep. So there’s always been speculation of DNA tranfer.
<sigh> I was momentarily excited til I saw their list of finalists. One of my lifetime quests is to personally see all 9 remaining 1963 Chrysler Turbines. I’m up to 4 presently. I figure that the two hardest ones are going to be the one at the Smithsonian and one that Chrysler Historical has, because these two are tucked away in storage warehouses.
It took me awhile to think of it, since nobody mentioned it, but there has to be a WWII Willys Jeep on display or the whole collection is a sham.