Photography by William Edgar
Great Garages: The Wheels of Time
April 1, 2006
Pierce-Arrow is a name that haunts me. I was far too young then to recall,
now, the rumble of its mighty straight-eight–I can only imagine what it was like
riding from Ohio to California while my father piloted our open Model 54 touring
car over those coarse roads of the mid-1930s. My dad, John Edgar, who drove a
Mercer Raceabout and rode a Henderson Four, cherished the thrill and beauty of
transport. “There’s art in going places,” he said decades later while
campaigning sports-racing Ferraris, Maseratis, and Porsches. That art lives on
in the machines themselves, and their modern display cases are museums.
In a nondescript industrial park in Oxnard, Calif., Otis Chandler’s Vintage
Museum creates a time warp. Besides Pierce-Arrow’s LeBaron convertible, there
are dozens of classic and antique cars, plus scores of historic motorcycles,
with which your imagination may travel the past century.
It is raining the day I arrive at “The Vintage,” greeted by Otis Chandler,
the former Los Angeles Times newspaper publisher, current museum president,
and erudite father of the collection. Chandler has been in love with cars and
motorcycles all his adult life. “I’m here every day,” he says. “This is my
office.”
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Duesenberg’s LeBaron body epitomized panache in American coachwork.
LeBaron founders Richard Dietrich and Thomas Hibbard called these creations
“automotive architecture.” (Click image to enlarge)
Open to the public just three times a year, the museum
often hosts private gatherings of car and motorcycle enthusiasts and a variety
of charity fund-raisers. On the day I visit, there is no one else in its vast
gallery of nearly 50,000 square feet. I think of myself in the Pierce-Arrow
again as the world flickers by along Route 66. I walk about, imagining the sound
of engines roaring into full power on a rutted road, the smell of half-burned
gasoline, with the ground shaking when a massive “brass car” lumbers by. I
imagine the hoarse voices of men at the wheel, the high nervous laughter of
women, silk scarves holding their hats tight, the yip of dogs following, and
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The next vehicles carry me deeper into the past, and my imagination. Riding a
1.5 hp bike such as the museum’s 1903 California, I might be the intrepid George
Wyman, first to traverse the United States using a motorized vehicle. Or,
steering the bars of a three-wheel Minneapolis, I could be delivering the
holiday goose to a cheery grandmother surrounded by family. Cracking the
throttle of a 1910 Pierce, I’m a sporty chap riding one of the first 4-cylinder
motorcycles along a country road, wary of farm animals crossing my path. Then I
leap years ahead when I spy Kenny Roberts’ torrid 4-cylinder Yamaha 2-stroker,
which is far beyond my skills. Steve McQueen’s 40 cu in Cleveland Fowler Four
sizzles beneath the lights. In a 1909 Vindec Twin, I imagine taking my sweetie
to the fair in a wicker sidecar. I envision grasping the wide wooden steering
wheel of the ’26 McFarlan and then jumping into another 6-cylinder open car–the
Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster on display–as I sample the times of Fellini’s dolce
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Harley-Davidson’s 1907 Strap Tank Single featured leather belt
direct drive. This pristine paradigm once turned heads and thrilled riders,
giving rise to an American motorcycle industry that would build the Cleveland
Four and the Harley Knucklehead. (Click image to enlarge)
I picture the flame of a match bringing life to an acetylene-fueled brass
lamp on a 1904 Locomobile. “That, and a full moon,” says a museum
technician,
“might be enough to drive this car at night.” And
drive he does, all of the cars
here–but only in daylight. The
vehicles are regularly “exercised” on a road loop
around Oxnard. “When
people see these cars,” the technician says, chuckling,
“they steer
clear of them. In case something goes awry, you have to plot where
you’re going to go.”
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