Teh Car Blogz

The further along we got in our trip (which wound up being around 4800 miles round-trip - a long time to spend in a car!) the more I realized the importance of roadside attractions in the upper midwest. You see, driving through states like Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota - states that a lot of people refer to as “fly-over states,” as in lots of people fly over them but no one lives there - there is literally NOTHING on the highway. Just cornfield after cornfield, with a sprinkle of truckstops, Indian Reservations and weird stuff. So when you’ve been on the road forever and see a sign for a roadside museum or attraction, you’ll probably stop - just to alleviate the boredom of being in I-90 in the middle of a bunch of cornfields for hours on end!

Now sometimes these roadside attractions amount to little more than someone’s garage stuffed full of crap. Sometimes you strike gold. I was lucky enough on this trip to find two very good ones - the museum of military vehicles shown earlier, as well as this auto museum that is literally in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota. It’s in a town called Murdo, which is in southern central South Dakota just off of I-80.

And yes, this place has a little bit of everything for everyone. For starters, yes - that is a sixties-era AmphiCar, which was a strange little half-car-half-boat sort of contraption. I don’t know how much faith I’d have in this car’s boating abilities, but it certainly looks the part. Check out some of the boat cues: identification numbers on the sides, traditional red-and-green marker lights on the hood… oh, and the twin propellers out back. It’s not every day you get to see an AmphiCar.

The facility covers about a 30-acre lot and is made up largely of a lot of barns and buildings arranged into categories, filled up with weird old cars. In other words, heaven. For instance, to be seen in the bikes & motorcycles room (among other things) was a 1976 Harley Davidson 1200 Electraglide, with 600 miles on it… still titled to Mr. Elvis A. Presley. Oh, and this:

That’s a fully-faired Suzuki RE-5, which is powered by a wankel rotary. Again, not a vehicle you see with any frequency. Jay Leno has a feature on his website about his beautifully restored RE5, although I doubt this bike has enjoyed quite the same amount of attention - I bet it’s quite smooth on the highway!

and then there was the Oktocar, a hand-built rolling tribute to the ingenuity and general tastelessness of Americans. It’s humongous, it has eight wheels, and it’s powered by a Dodge Hemi motor. Apparently took many years for the creator to finish this “masterpiece.” Still, amusing to say the least. It also looks like there’s an air-cooled VW engine in the back, although to what purpose I’m really not sure. Maybe it’s 8-wheel drive?

the main display - where the fully restored classics and interesting cars are - had some really beautiful machines. How about this 1953 Packard Caribbean Convertible? Only 750 of these were made, and they were priced at $5,210 - in 1953! Quite a rare car.

Here is the obvious answer to the fuel economy crisis - well, circa 1980. It’s called the HM (which stands for High MIleage) and it’s a single-seater powered by a twin-cylinder rear mounted engine, capable of up to 80mpg. I’m sure it’s very comfortable to ride around in. And yes, it’s parked next to a BMW Isetta 500. “Did I do that?!?”

Of course both of these microcars pale in comparison to the real deal: The Messerschmitt. Say that three times fast! The Messerschmitt was the product of a former airplane manufacturer in Germany during WWII. Obviously, they were not allowed to make planes after WWII so they made these small cars - often called Kabinrollers. This is a KR200, which is powered by a 200cc single-cylinder two-stroke motor with chain drive and a neat gearbox arrangement that allows 4 forward and 4 reverse gears. They later made a “sport” Messerschmitt with a hot-rod 490cc twin-cylinder two stroke motor. Imagine the power! Ahhh!

on the other end of the spectrum were the muscle cars, which were displayed prominently. Here are a few of the standouts:

I apologize for the sub-par picture quality in most of these, but the lighting was poor at best and my camera doesn’t really adapt well to poor lighting. Anyway, this is a 1968 Shelby GT500 Mustang, one of 1180 original GT500’s built that year. It oozes potency and aggression in a way that I think no newer Mustang ever will - although the new GT500KR is pretty close, perhaps!

For something completely different, how about this 1969 AMC Rambler Scrambler? Best name ever, to be sure. The Scrambler had AMC’s hot 390ci V8 with a big carb, and a somewhat prominent air intake on the front. And by “somewhat,” I mean that there is a giant pro-stock style hoodscoop with an arrow decal on the hood pointing into the scoop that says “Air.” No one does this sort of shenanigans any more, and I think that’s a shame. I bet this car was quite a handful. Check out that graphic:

Here is some muscle of the two-wheeled variety. Another machine I would be somewhat wary of operating, this is a custom-built motorcycle powered by a 350ci Chevy small-block V8, affectionately named The Heap. I’d imagine this is alarming to drive. Check out the saddle bags and travel gear on it! Did someone take this thing on road trips? And if so, why?

Anyways, moving outside into the auxiliary barns you run into a lot of very interesting, unrestored vehicles from all over on display. Here are a few that caught my nerdy eyes:

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This is a 1980 Trabant. If you don’t know what a Trabant is, that’s probably because you didn’t grow up in East Germany during Soviet occupation. This beauty was produced behind the wall, almost unchanged, from 1957 to 1989, then with a four stroke engine until 1991. The Trabant was “powered” by a 600cc twin-cylinder two-stroke motor that generated 25 furious hampsters in cages (horsepower, natch.) It could thunder to 100km/h in 21 seconds and topped out shortly thereafter, at 70mph. It was the symbol of communist transportation (well, the only one for a while) and famous for it’s atrocious pollution. This is a 1980 model “601 series.” I have no idea how it found it’s way to South Dakota.

Here’s something you just simply don’t see every day! I believe this to be a van-like derivative of the old Subaru 360 microcar, and it seems to (clearly) be rear engined - Does anyone know this car? By the way, the other lilliputian wagon behind it is a 1966 Lloyd Wagon. Which I also have no earthly idea is.

More than 40 years on, the Studebaker Avanti still looks like a futuristic concept car with tiny wheels to me. This is just such an original shape. I wonder what Studebaker’s cars would look like, if they still made them today?

And a 1967 Toyota Stout 1900 pickup truck? Oh yeah, you see those all the time. Where does he get all these bizarre cars?

Anyhow, I’ll leave it off with this: a 1954 Corvette. Very valuable first-generation Corvette; it had the old-fashioned Blue Flame inline-6 engine and a two speed!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 12:21 am and is filed under Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.