GOTTA RANT A LITTLE IN THE BLOG- PACKARDS & FORDS

Those who know me are aware of my Packard obsession and for some strange reason there are 4 Packard museums and they all are great! Ft. Lauderdale Florida has one!

I approach the magical doors and there is no sign of activity and the door is locked!! Did I screw up, they did have odd hours, oh no!! I bang on the door and someone comes out and lets me in?? Here is my greeting " lucky you came today (Thursday) because starting Monday you are not allowed to take photos in the Museum anymore!' Rather smugly said I might add, I asked are you going to put that on the website? The answer was "it costs too much money to do that", of course coming 1500 miles does not cost me anything!! The museum has a fantastic Packard collection amongst things like a Cigarette lighter display from cars. Even has an FDR collection, the President that is! Seems photos of the collection were posted or even sold so since I am the last known survivor to take photos my life may be in danger, but I will soon post every photo I took there on the Flickr page eventually, Ha ha!

It is listed as a 501c corporation not for profit which means they are expected to encourage visitors and match contributions with donations and I am sure that equals full access and encouragement to visitors to keep that status?

The Elliot Museum in Stuart Florida is really fantastic and has a great collection devoted to Leonardo Da Vinci and his inventions! It also houses a special collection of Model A Fords!

Please do not get me wrong about this because the Elliot is a treasure, very well done and the staff is great, but sometimes ideas and concepts in the interest of art and culture go astray. There is a certain skeleton purpose to things that can not always be art or design studies. Using Freud's thoughts and my own words " sometimes a nut and bolt needs to look like a nut and bolt!" My attempt at being witty, you know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, never mind, LOL! When I heard about the rotating retrieval of each vehicle from the collection of your choice that would be brought to you on a platform from the storage areas and into a viewing area it sounded interesting? I assumed the storage would be viewable up close and in the display area a chance to take photos, wrong!! And here is one brought in for close up inspection! I believe there are some people who can not grasp that a vintage car is art, the first Concours D'Elegance in the USA was at the Museum OF Modern Art MOMA in an exhibit "The Art of the Automobile". A vintage car does not need any assistance in displaying it beauty, the lines and the ornamentation is the ultimate statement of design,function and sometimes just outright extravagance,no need for gimmicks nor added fanfare so let the car express itself in all its glory. An unrestored car with its patina and faded paint is just another expression of its heart and soul!

And a few more, yikes!

They are visible when in their spots like this!

I believe it takes 7 minutes for each car to take its trip so who is going to hog the controls, you could be there for hours and of course already broken and was on auto so every car was being brought back and forth one at a time, it takes 2 1/2 hours!! They had just opened to the public so it was crowded and I really could not find a staffer to ask, I emailed them and they offered to take me into the collection. I have no plans to be in Stuart Florida again, from what I could see it was a very nice eclectic collection with some in original unrestored condition, oh well. Maybe they will come up with a different plan one day?