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Blackhawk Museum
Danville California
January Social Event
30 January 2005
What a great event we had today! Twelve Corvettes and two tin lizzies left the end of Shoreline Road by Team Chevrolet at 10:10 am. We had three cars from Sonoma Corvettes join us. Skip and Carol Zeller showed up in a new C6. Our guest, Geoffrey Smith and his friend Catherine led the way with Brian and Becky in the last tin lizzie keeping us together. Everyone did a great job staying together as we transitioned from 580 to 80 and 80 to 24. We looked goooood traveling down the highway, one Corvette after another!
We arrived at the museum with enough time for a cup of coffee before our 12:00 tour. Our docent was Bob Holloway who was very knowledgeable of the cars' history and aesthetics but was a little short on the technical aspects (hp, top speed, etc.) I do not want to take away from his tour because it was very informative and I learned a lot (as I always do!)
The auto portion of the museum is divided into two parts: Pre-War Auto Gallery and Post-War Auto Gallery. Bob started us off in the pre-war section with a Long Steam Tricycle (ca 1880.) From there we moved onto the first American car, an 1893 Duryea. We moved on to Rolls Royce, Daimler, Packard, Bugatti, etc., etc., etc. We ended the Pre-War level looking at a 14-17 million dollar Bugatti Type 41 Royale.
The Post-War area was filled with Ferraris, Rolls, Aston Martins, Jaguars and the like. It was a little anticlimactic after the previous section. Of special interest was No. 39 Tucker on loan from the Smithsonian. After an hour and forty-five minutes, Bob had to leave us for his next regularly scheduled tour. He did a fantastic job!
After we went outside for lunch we returned to the museum to see the two temporary exhibits: one on the history of the wheelchair and the other on US Presidents. I spent my time with the Presidents. This was a private collection of paintings and prints of all our presidents. The placards not only identified the Presidents but also gave some insight into the people themselves.
The museum is not doing well financially and they have been selling cars in order to keep the museum open. This is sad, as this is a gem of a museum. I recommend that anyone who could not make it with us to see it on their own.
Les Brown, NBCA Treasurer and museum enthusiast.
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