A new automotive museum has opened next to the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI. It's being touted by its creators as an "Interactive Multi-media Exhibit Experience" that "leaves the traditional artifact and plaque modes of museums in the dust of a bygone era." Automotive museums from coast to coast may be sucking tailpipe if the Automotive HofF is all that it claims.

Museum designers at Exhibit Works, Livonia, MI, led by Don Fee, Senior Vice President of Design, promise visitors to the Hall of Fame will find themselves swept along an an "Edu-active Journey" through automotive history. It includes the World's Largest Automotive Mural. But, "you'll find very few cars."

"The word museum," says Fee, honking an all too familiar horn, "is traced to the Greek word muse and refers to the divinities thought to be the source of inspiration, creativity and innovation. Unfortunately, the word museum all too often connotes dull one dimensional displays and plaques and is almost never associated with inspiration, innovation or most of all -- fun."

"This isn't another roundup of the usual industry suspects," Fee explains of his creation. "One of the first things we did was enlist several prominent historians to brainstorm. Before a single exhibit was conceived, hours were spent mulling -- stirring the smoky cauldron of the past, dredging up the infinite scraps of auto history minutia." The AHF tells the story of the people who contributed to the development of the automobile -- "the obscure and the famous -- the dreamers, tinkerers, flamboyant designers, grand promoters, financiers, labor leaders, the winners and losers..."

Yea, yea -- but no death cars, no lonely aglomeration of vehicles, no rusting collection of lemons. Right? Right. [08/16/1997]

February 10, 2012