{"id":2787,"date":"2008-04-09T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/04\/weird-and-wonderful\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:58","slug":"weird-and-wonderful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/04\/weird-and-wonderful\/","title":{"rendered":"Weird and Wonderful"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1932<\/a><\/p>\n

If Detroit, the Motor City<\/a>, can boast the Motown Sound<\/a>, why can’t Nashville<\/a>, Music City USA<\/a>, have a car museum? Happily it does, and has since 2002 when Susan<\/a> and Jeff Lane opened the Lane Motor Museum<\/a>. Touting “Unique Cars from A to Z,” it has marques from the British ABC<\/a> to German Zundapp<\/a> and misses only a few in between, though most of them are not exactly unique, as in one-off.<\/p>\n

Housed in a former Sunbeam bread bakery, their 40,000 square foot museum is big on eastern European marques, including some 13 Tatras<\/a>, made in the former Czechoslovakia. Other Czech makes include Skoda<\/a>, Aero<\/a> and Jawa<\/a>; Germans are represented by Auto Union<\/a>, Goliath<\/a> and Hanomag<\/a>, as well as the renowned Trabant<\/a> from east of The Wall, while the ABC’s fellow countrymen include a pair of BSA three-wheelers<\/a> and the tiny Peel P50<\/a> and Trident<\/a>, both made on the Isle of Man.<\/p>\n

French dressing appears in the form of multitudinous Citro\u00ebns<\/a>, a Panhard Dynamic<\/a> with center-drive steering<\/a>, and a Renault Dauphine<\/a> and its electric clone<\/a>, the Henney Kilowatt<\/a>. Kilowatts were converted in the US by the makers of Eureka<\/a> vacuum cleaners. Another electric was the Peugeot VLV<\/a>, a World War II alternative-power vehicle.<\/p>\n

There’s a generous contingent of Nissan products, most on loan from Nissan USA, which is headquartered nearby. The retro-looking Figaro<\/a> is actually from 1991 and sold only in Japan, though the model has since become trendy in Britain.<\/p>\n

From the USA come the three-wheel Davis<\/a>, William Hewson’s one-off streamlined<\/a> 1946 Rocket<\/a>, and a McQuay-Norris Steamliner<\/a> that Jeff and Susan drove in the 2005 Great American Race. Three of James V. Martin’s cars are present, the 1928 Aerodynamic<\/a>, said to have been built for Billy Mitchell, and the 1932 Martinette (right) and 1950 Stationette<\/a>. Stranger still is the Gasporter<\/a>, an airport tanker<\/a> built on Crosley<\/a> running gear that is driven standing up<\/a>. In 1947, designer Ben Gregory came up with a rear-engine coupe<\/a> using front-wheel drive<\/a>. This, too, is a one-off. Have you ever seen a Towne Shopper<\/a>, one of the multitudinous postwar minicars? I hadn’t until I visited this museum.<\/p>\n

Taking the term “self-propelled” to its limits are two aircraft-inspired machines, the 1932 Helicron<\/a> from France and the “Wind Wagon<\/a>,” a home-brew contraption built by the late Ted Jameson, uncle of racing driver-turned motor sports commentator Sam Posey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame<\/a>, with the Grand Ole Opry<\/a> the city’s major attraction, also has some cars: Elvis’s Gold Cadillac<\/a> and the Pontiac Bonneville<\/a> of Webb Pierce, the latter with an over-and-under trunk ornament<\/a> and six-gun door handles<\/a>. Perhaps more to the point is Hank Williams’ liquor cabinet<\/a>. Country music is fun, but I’d rather spend my quality time at the Lane Motor Museum<\/a>. The cars you see here are just the tip of the iceberg. The museum is open Thursday through Monday, from 10 to 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Detroit, the Motor City, can boast the Motown Sound, why can’t Nashville, Music City USA, have a car museum? Happily it does, and has since 2002 when Susan and Jeff Lane opened the Lane Motor Museum. Touting “Unique Cars from A to Z,” it has marques from the British ABC to German Zundapp and….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3287,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions\/3287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}