Tacoma, Washington: LeMay: America's Car Museum

The former World's Largest Privately-Owned Car Collection has been pared to half its size, and a mere fraction of that will be shown at any one time in the swank new LeMay museum, now subtitled "America's Car Museum."

Its new building, whose curvy aluminum exterior resembles an air scoop from the hood of a colossal muscle car, was supposed to open in 2009. It finally did on June 2, 2012. Harold LeMay, who died in 2000, was a compulsive collector of cars, but only the rarest and prettiest are now displayed. There's a Tucker Torpedo, the first General Motors EV1 electric car, and the Flintstonemobile from the 1994 movie.

The LeMay car museum is out of the way, but well worth it! They have recently acquired a "Tucker" automobile, one of only 51 ever built, valued at an estimated $500,000.

They had planned to open both of their new buildings in 2009, but due to the lack of corporate sponsorships the larger building has been delayed. The city of Tacoma gave them the land next to the Tacoma Dome to build their new facility. The smaller building will open in late 2009 or early 2010 with the other one to hopefully follow two years after.

Admission to the current museum is $15 and AAA members receive a $3 discount. Tours last two hours and are only at certain times of the day so make sure to call ahead.

Also featured in their collection is the original car from the Flintstones movie and just added 11/2007, a Stiletto Shoe Car that you have to see!

Harold E. LeMay was a Tacoma garbageman who grew wealthy from trash and amassed the largest private collection of cars and car-related stuff in the world. For years it has been housed in an 80-acre former military academy named Marymount -- which was also the LeMay home. Now plans are afoot to move it to new location built specifically to display the collection of thousands of vehicles. Expect that to happen in 2009; until then, see it here.