Over the years we have had the opportunity to see many car collections, but I have to say the tour we took at the Nethercutt was right up there with the best of them. First of all the museum itself is free to see, and the tour we took is only an additional $10. They are only open on Thurs, Friday, and Saturday so we arrived early and spent some time going through the collection on the main showroom. This collection has many Rolls Royce Phantoms along with a great exhibit of car hood ornaments and other interior amenities like radios, and other very old accessories. One thing I should mention is every car in the collection is meticulously researched and restored to its original condition and colors before hitting the showroom. Many of the cars have won awards for restoration.
Unlike many other car museums there weren’t many owned by famous people but a couple standouts were the Tool Time van from Home Improvement and Rudolph Valentino’s car, which was a beauty. Lee’s favorite was Cecil B. Demille’s car.
It only took an hour to go through the free part of the museum but then the tour gathered. We were lucky and got into a group of Elk’s Club Vice Presidents from all over California and then headed to a large building across the street. I should also mention that along with the cars the museum has a wonderful selection of rare mechanical music instruments. I enjoyed those as much as the cars. On the tour the guides played several of them so we could listen to the music which was great.
Lee liked the tour because the cars weren’t roped off and he could get very close. The first room (shown above) had some cool cars but then we went into the main show room and it was magnificent. I don’t use that word lightly. It was a gorgeous ballroom and the cars were some of the best I have seen anywhere. There were several award winners including the price of the collection a one of kind 1933 Duesenberg. (Fun fact: that’s where the word doozy, as in “That’s a doozy!” comes from.)
My favorite was an absolutely gorgeous car that had one of the coolest paint jobs I have ever seen. Remember all the paint is original and it is only one of 5 remaining in the world.
The next two floors were mechanicals including many Switzerland made that were the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Tiki Room. We listened to several as we toured this balcony area.
Lastly we walked up a beautiful spiral staircase with the notes to the song Stairway to the Stars and saw the music room. It has a gorgeous French chandelier and table along with some wonderful large mechanical orchestras.
The showpiece though was a Wurlitzer pipe organ. They played several prerecorded songs that we listened to and it was pretty impressive.
We loved the tours and the guides were terrific plus we were with a great group of people. Among the many car enthusiasts we toured with one owner had this awesome car dedicated to breast cancer research. He was kind enough to let me take a picture in front of it. It was a really fun morning and I loved that they kept the experience affordable.
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