Chrysler museum – Why not downtown?

[56packman]

The Walter P. Chrysler Museum started in Highland Park, before Chrysler Headquarters moved to Auburn Hills. What was once in a dark corner of an engineering building was moved then to the HP styling dome, and was open only by invitation. When the complex is Auburn Hills was under construction it was thought that it might be nice to bring these cars and historical artifacts out of HP and make them part of the campus in Auburn Hills.
The leadership at the time, Bob Eaton and Bob Lutz were in favor of this and money was allocated to build the facility in Auburn Hills. They managed to bring off a first-class facility, and tell the corporation's story in an excellent manner. We were a part of the Communications Department [[PR Department) and a very small part of their annual budget. We enjoyed some very good years, and had a number of guests come through the doors every year. More than you would expect, but no where near what a place like the Henry Ford Museum brings, so by that metric it wasn't as successful. We had an excellent educational program, which supported "no child left behind" based lesson plans for science and history, the Chrysler foundation paid for the bus transportation of school children, the biggest impediment to getting school groups in. Various changing shows were mounted from 2002-2007 in an effort of keep attendance figures up. We sponsored an extremely popular series of cruise nights, attracting hundreds of local car enthusiasts. I planned and executed the yearly "Cars, Trees and Traditions" exhibit at Christmastime, which boosted attendance at that time of year considerably.
We had an annual budget for advertising, and a promotions manager who placed many ads, radio station tie-ins and articles in local press. I had the good fortune to be there during some very good years, as the corporation went from boom to bust in 2008 things changed, I lost my job, along with our education director, then one at a time more of the paid staff was furloughed.
The fantastic volunteer corp. of retirees ran most of the day-to-day operations for the open to the public hours [[6 days a week) and their skillful administration of the public tours was something you couldn't hire done.
You can carp all you want about Auburn Hills, but a lot of people live out that way--Rochester, Rochester Hills, Bloomfield. It was built where everything else was for the corporation, and was not necessarily built to make money, rather to tell the story of Chrysler's past, show its engineering and marketing skill and to draw a short line between the successes of the past inside the museum to the new product out on the porch in front. We were a tight, cohesive unit and had a lot of pride in the company and product.
The museum was always an easy target for some young genius middle-level manager to slash out of existence, that was going on before the museum even existed. Back in the 70s some forward-thinking manager wanted to sell the small collection of significant cars that Chrysler owned, including one of the five prototypes of the very first Chrysler produced by Maxwell-Chalmers before the transition to Chrysler. Those cars were moved in a game of three-card monte, to keep them from being sold. At one point they were walled in to a corner of a plant in Cleveland behind drywall and metal studs to make them invisible. So this time the young hot-shot got his way, the miniscule budget that was left was reduced further, but the museum is still there, and very active as a rental facility and place for Chrysler to entertain guests.

[pkbroch]

Thanks 56Packman;

Finally the real story. This parallels the same story that our retired designer friends at Chrysler have told us.

We were there for a Anniversary party for our dear friends several years ago, beautiful facility.

The GM Heritage center is similar, closed to general public, but open for Car clubs, special events. One of the top 5 Automotive museums in the Country is in Hickory Corners near Kalamazoo, Called the Gilmore. It is set in a campus type setting and heavily endowed by major car clubs. Gilmore is a herculean effort by many, many people from all over Michigan, the Midwest and the rest of the USA.

The Gilmore is a destination museum. People come to the Gilmore for the experience, we meet several people at the Gilmore who also did the Air Force museum in Dayton.

[pkbroch]

^^^^^^^^^

Here is a link to the website of Gilmore. The amount of work putting this together was enormous.

http://www.gilmorecarmuseum.org/index.php

[poobert]

The Walter P. Chrysler Museum started in Highland Park, before Chrysler Headquarters moved to Auburn Hills. What was once in a dark corner of an engineering building was moved then to the HP styling dome, and was open only by invitation. When the complex is Auburn Hills was under construction it was thought that it might be nice to bring these cars and historical artifacts out of HP and make them part of the campus in Auburn Hills.
The leadership at the time, Bob Eaton and Bob Lutz were in favor of this and money was allocated to build the facility in Auburn Hills. They managed to bring off a first-class facility, and tell the corporation's story in an excellent manner. We were a part of the Communications Department [[PR Department) and a very small part of their annual budget. We enjoyed some very good years, and had a number of guests come through the doors every year. More than you would expect, but no where near what a place like the Henry Ford Museum brings, so by that metric it wasn't as successful. We had an excellent educational program, which supported "no child left behind" based lesson plans for science and history, the Chrysler foundation paid for the bus transportation of school children, the biggest impediment to getting school groups in. Various changing shows were mounted from 2002-2007 in an effort of keep attendance figures up. We sponsored an extremely popular series of cruise nights, attracting hundreds of local car enthusiasts. I planned and executed the yearly "Cars, Trees and Traditions" exhibit at Christmastime, which boosted attendance at that time of year considerably.
We had an annual budget for advertising, and a promotions manager who placed many ads, radio station tie-ins and articles in local press. I had the good fortune to be there during some very good years, as the corporation went from boom to bust in 2008 things changed, I lost my job, along with our education director, then one at a time more of the paid staff was furloughed.
The fantastic volunteer corp. of retirees ran most of the day-to-day operations for the open to the public hours [[6 days a week) and their skillful administration of the public tours was something you couldn't hire done.
You can carp all you want about Auburn Hills, but a lot of people live out that way--Rochester, Rochester Hills, Bloomfield. It was built where everything else was for the corporation, and was not necessarily built to make money, rather to tell the story of Chrysler's past, show its engineering and marketing skill and to draw a short line between the successes of the past inside the museum to the new product out on the porch in front. We were a tight, cohesive unit and had a lot of pride in the company and product.
The museum was always an easy target for some young genius middle-level manager to slash out of existence, that was going on before the museum even existed. Back in the 70s some forward-thinking manager wanted to sell the small collection of significant cars that Chrysler owned, including one of the five prototypes of the very first Chrysler produced by Maxwell-Chalmers before the transition to Chrysler. Those cars were moved in a game of three-card monte, to keep them from being sold. At one point they were walled in to a corner of a plant in Cleveland behind drywall and metal studs to make them invisible. So this time the young hot-shot got his way, the miniscule budget that was left was reduced further, but the museum is still there, and very active as a rental facility and place for Chrysler to entertain guests.

What was your average annual attendance?

[stasu1213]

Maybe Chrysler House could start putting a classic Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge car in it's front lobby. Change cars every two months. That would be a start.

[Roq]

[snipped for space]

Anecdotally, I'm a self-proclaimed Museum aficionado, and love the Henry Ford, DIA, etc., but never considered going to the Chrysler museum. The thought of driving an hour to Auburn Hills and being in Auburn Hills makes me die inside.

*slow clap* Bravo Sir!

[CrashDummy]

Maybe the auto companies could quit being so damn territorial and open up one museum together. I, like many people, don't really care enough about Walter P and his company to go to a museum specifically dedicated to Chrysler. I enjoy looking at the cars at the Henry Ford, and the exhibits at the Historical Museum, but I wouldn't go just to see them, because the exhibits are not comprehensive enough. Believe it or not, there are tourists in Detroit an they are dumbfounded when they learn that there is very little for the public to see here that is auto related. Somebody needs to take ownership of the automotive heritage of this town and give the residents and visitors what they want. Not only for our Detroit companies, but as the world's automotive capital I'm sure a lot of other companies with local presences like Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan would participate as well.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Before successfully repurposing Cobo Arena, I thought it would be a great location for a museum dedicated to our auto heritage.

[canuck]

Maybe the auto companies could quit being so damn territorial and open up one museum together. I, like many people, don't really care enough about Walter P and his company to go to a museum specifically dedicated to Chrysler. I enjoy looking at the cars at the Henry Ford, and the exhibits at the Historical Museum, but I wouldn't go just to see them, because the exhibits are not comprehensive enough. Believe it or not, there are tourists in Detroit an they are dumbfounded when they learn that there is very little for the public to see here that is auto related. Somebody needs to take ownership of the automotive heritage of this town and give the residents and visitors what they want. Not only for our Detroit companies, but as the world's automotive capital I'm sure a lot of other companies with local presences like Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan would participate as well.

I looked very hard to find even one comma to change in your text, but I am happy to say I find it perfect. Detroit does have a history of making products that people salivate over worldwide. There are plenty of American muscle snobs in France and England and everywhere else that you can count on for tourist bucks. Your idea of getting the 3 majors in on this is spot on, CrashDummy. I hope you are not too bruised from repeated collisions.

[Hermod]

A truly world-class automotive museum might be a real draw, but would be quite an endeavor and I'm not sure anyone is both up to the task and has the time to do it. But if you were going to do that, I agree with the main idea of the thread, it should be in downtown or midtown or somewhere accessible to where likely travelers are going to be. No sense starting with bad cards in your hand.

Define "likely travelers". Do you mean business or tourists? I traveled to Detroit on business for 25 years without going downtown or midtown. Most of the trips were to the TACOM complex on Mound Road though sometimes the meetings were at the old Michigan Army Missile Plant up on Van Dyke by 16 Mile, the Chrysler/General Dynamics Defense Plant on 16 Mile [[or was it 17 Mile?), the Chrysler Training Facility on Van Dyke near 9 Mile, the office building at the south end of Universal Mall, or Milford Proving Ground. I would think that most of the travelers visiting GM would go to the Tech Center and not to the bean counter paradise in the RenCen.

[rooms222]

In thinking about a way to be able to see both the Chrysler collection and the GM collections, it struck me that these are both venues that the Detroit Bus Company might want to try to organize an outing to each one. This would allow for the visit to be a limited event, rather than being considered open to the public. If successful, it could be done periodically.

[canuck]

Define "likely travelers". Do you mean business or tourists? I traveled to Detroit on business for 25 years without going downtown or midtown. Most of the trips were to the TACOM complex on Mound Road though sometimes the meetings were at the old Michigan Army Missile Plant up on Van Dyke by 16 Mile, the Chrysler/General Dynamics Defense Plant on 16 Mile [[or was it 17 Mile?), the Chrysler Training Facility on Van Dyke near 9 Mile, the office building at the south end of Universal Mall, or Milford Proving Ground. I would think that most of the travelers visiting GM would go to the Tech Center and not to the bean counter paradise in the RenCen.

Then again, you might be wrong about that. All the GM Mexicans tend to do business at the bean counter.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I think a fantastic auto museum in or near downtown could be a very large draw. It would generate a moderate amount of people independently making trips to see it. But it could also draw in a lot of people visiting the city for business or pleasure anyway. To be a worthwhile exhibit, I think it would need to combine good story telling [[the history of the car, the history of the Big 3, the history of industrialization & assembly line) with awesome exhibits of vintage cars. Certainly there are enough colorful characters in the history of the Motor City to pepper the museum.

The museum would, I think, draw quite a few school groups by day, as well. I would also think that the Henry Ford and DHM would compliment it nicely; maybe you could purchase a joint ticket to all 3.

I don't think there is too much "pride" at the automakers to support a central auto history museum. Surely they would love to display a lot of unseen museum quality cars they have; and it could not hurt domestic brand loyalty. I think it will take someone putting together a workable plan, including location and funding.

I nominate Roger Penske to lead the planning committee.

[56packman]

My former employer, Richard Kughn had this idea in 1982 as a way to preserve the Michigan Central Train Station, a building that he has long admired and repeatedly tried to either save or improve. His vision was to have the main concourse of MC be a museum featuring the past glorious product from the Detroit "big 3" and some cars from the Detroit "little 5", I think he was hoping on cooperation from the big 3 companies. I know he hoped to develop the upper floors into renovated office space. He got a lot of resistance from the Young administration.

[downtownguy]

He got a lot of resistance from the Young administration.

Do you know why?