Collecting: Bringing Life to Museums’ Collections

But instead of being relegated to dark corners as curious relics, autos — surely one of the most life-changing inventions of the last 150 years — are being celebrated around the world. In recent years, new museums dedicated to the automobile have opened, others have spent millions on renovations that present vehicles in novel ways, and institutions once limited to displays of fine art have discovered the popular appeal of metal, glass, rubber and chrome.

A prime example is the four-year, $40 million restoration and expansion of the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile in Turin, Italy, completed in 2011. Founded in 1932 in the northern city that is the capital of Italian automaking and home of Fiat, the museum moved into a midcentury modern building in the city, not far from Fiat’s Lingotto factory, in 1960.

That building, while striking outside, was a traditional exhibition space inside, with a collection of largely Italian cars parked in rows in dimly lit rooms. The rebuilt structure, now covering more than 200,000 square feet, could well be the archetype for the modern automotive museum. It features galleries created by the Swiss stage designer François Confino, intended for both casual and enthusiast audiences.

“We looked to make the museum speak through the settings and the use of a great deal of interactivity,” Rodolfo Gaffino Rossi, director of the museum, said. “We have a duty to create an easy educational path that will bring the visitor closer to history and to give a message to people who were never interested in cars and are not specialists or fans.”

The Museo Nazionale depicts a historical survey of rolling personal transport starting from a full-scale model of the “car” designed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1478 to the latest alternative fuel vehicles. Diorama settings alternate with interactive touch-screen displays, kiosks, an entire home interior made of auto components, film and sound projection, an amusement park-type ride through an auto assembly line and more, all adding up to a lively visitor experience.

Recent news of major changes and developments at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles highlights the challenges and opportunities that institutions face as they prepare to ride a wave of new activity in vehicle exhibition spaces. A shift in leadership and some pruning of the Petersen collection have already begun, while an overhaul of the building’s exterior is in the works as the museum defines its identity as it nears its 20th anniversary.

One of the earliest collections to be established in the United States, now called the Larz Anderson Auto Museum, in Brookline, Mass., opened for public tours in 1927. What visitors in the ’20s saw was much like what people see today: a collection of Victorian and Edwardian automobiles parked beside horse-drawn carriages in their original home, a grand brick 1880s “motor house” on the parklike grounds of an estate.

Changing viewpoints on the display of historically significant cars is readily apparent in the more than 400 cars assembled in Mulhouse, France, by the textile industrialists Hans and Fritz Schlumpf.

The brothers’ collection of rare Bugattis and other exotic cars, once parked on gravel in dusty rows in vast former warehouse rooms, are today displayed on highly polished floors or veneered plinths with bold graphics behind them. The Cité de l’Automobile, National Museum Collection Schlumpf, as it is called, was comprehensively reimagined in 2006, when the operation was taken over by Culturespaces, a private company that manages 10 historic properties in France and Belgium, including art museums in Paris and the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium. A restaurant and a small private racetrack complete the complex.

The trend for the display of vehicles in traditional fine art museums — a relatively recent phenomenon, but an important influence — has to be considered as one of the factors driving this change in approach. That such institutions have opened their galleries to impressive numbers of visitors is not lost on those running auto museums.

Collecting: At Auction, Masterpieces of the Drivable Kind

The sale, billed as the first high-end car auction in New York City in more than a decade, aims to raise the aesthetic regard for automotive design. The concept is not new — museum shows of automobiles presented as rolling artworks have proved immensely popular — but this auction, conceived to attract buyers of fine art, is set in the midst of the fevered art auction season.

The sale’s 32 cars and two motorcycles will be displayed in the same gallery space where a wealthy patron might otherwise inspect works by Warhol and Koons. 

The auction is set for Thursday at 2 p.m. at Sotheby’s on York Avenue at 72nd Street. The vehicles will be on view to the public in the 10th floor Manhattan galleries of Sotheby’s from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday.

The three-day presale preview will serve as an impromptu brief automotive art show of star cars.

“We applied the same criteria and principles that we use to evaluate works of art — line, proportion, design, originality and provenance — to these cars,” said Leslie Keno, Sotheby’s senior international specialist and a familiar face to fans of the “Antiques Roadshow” program on PBS. “That is why they belong in the space with the Picassos and Brancusis.”

Ian Kelleher, a car specialist at RM, said that the intention was to draw a wider set of art and design collectors. “We are looking at customers who appreciate the art of the automobile,” he said. The emphasis is on art more than automobile; the sale may test, as Mr. Kelleher said, “how much credibility is given to the car as an art form.”

The cars, while not in the same price class as the three-panel painting by Francis Bacon that brought $142 million this month at Christie’s, form a select group, topped by a red 1964 Ferrari 250 LM with an estimated sale price of $12 million to $15 million. Sotheby’s has displayed the Ferrari in its lobby to promote the sale.

“We see these cars as the perfect intersection between art and technology,” Mr. Keno said.

Most major auctions of automobiles are timed to coincide with important concours events, from Amelia Island in Florida to the Monterey Peninsula of California. But this sale comes during the main New York and London season of auctions for art, furniture and jewelry.

New York is one of the world’s centers for collector auctions of every category, but not automobiles.

“Sotheby’s once regularly held sales, many years ago,” Mr. Keno said. But RM cited a sale it held in 2000 at the Waldorf-Astoria as the last major auto auction in the city. The Louis Vuitton Classic, a concours at Rockefeller Center that sometimes coincided with auctions, was last scheduled for Sept. 21, 2001, but was canceled after 9/11.

Mr. Kelleher said each car was chosen for specific reasons — a landmark design that was emblematic of its period or a notably high-quality preservation or restoration. He said that he was able to obtain cars from owners willing to consign to an art sale, but not to a humble car sale.

The choice of vehicles offers what could serve as the teaching collection for a class on the history of auto design, a tasting menu or Whitman’s Sampler of the field. Together, they make a case for the value of the automobile as design and art.

“There is a great deal of interest critically among collectors of modernist art and design here,” said Benjamin Genocchio, editor in chief of Art + Auction magazine, which follows the art markets. He said he believed that many collectors were ready to add cars to their interests.

“This is the next step for those collectors,” he said. “There is a groundswell of interest in modern design. Many modern art collectors also collect modern design, especially midcentury modern furniture. All that started with cars. The shapes come from streamline and streamline comes from cars and trains.”

The historical span of the cars includes a 1912 Stutz Model A Bear Cat (estimated to bring $800,00 to $1.2 million) and a 1933 Murphy-bodied Duesenberg ($2 million to $2.5 million).

Italian coachwork from the 1950s is exemplified by a 1955 Maserati A6G/2000 Spyder from Zagato ($3.5 million to $4.5 million). A very different expression of automotive art is seen in the so-called Dick Flint roadster, a 1929 Ford Model A hot rod that graced the cover of Hot Rod magazine in 1952 ($700,000 to $900,000). Many of the cars are one of a kind, like the 1956 Aston Martin DB 2/4 MK II Supersonic ($1.8 million to $2.4 million).

Also unique is a wonderfully oddball design study from the mid-1950s, the 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis Exclusive Study ($2 million to $2.5 million). The little-seen Lincoln was created by Boano, an Italian coachbuilder, in an attempt to impress the Ford Motor Company for future commissions. Like the Supersonic, it incorporates jet imagery.

“That car exemplifies the era,” Mr. Kelleher said. “It is the keynote of the sale, a real showstopper.”

Others are highlights of their category, like the 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C by Figoni & Falaschi, a prototype of a star model of the romantic French streamline era ($8 million to $10 million).

More surprising lessons come from the inclusion of the 1964 Chevrolet CERV II, a testament to the beauty of innovative engineering. Created by Zora Arkus-Duntov, the pioneering Corvette engineer, as a Chevrolet Engineering research vehicle, the CERV II inspired future models. ($1.4 million to $1.8 million)

A 1967 Toyota 2000GT, which RM says is one of only 54 delivered in the United States, makes the point that Japanese autos have been more than just mass-production successes ($700,000 to $1 million).

The Jaguar E-Type, BMW 507 and Mercedes 300SL seem usual suspects from a Top 10 list, but Mr. Kelleher said he looked for superb examples and a New York connection of some sort: the 300SL, for instance, was sold at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Manhattan dealership of Max Hoffman. And a custom 1941 Cadillac limousine built for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor reflects how much time the former king spent in New York ($500,00 to $800,000). Its radio presets are tuned to local AM stations of the era.

The fate of the cars, some 18 of which have estimated selling prices of a million dollars or more, may be uncertain.

“Some of buyers will take up vintage racing,” Mr. Keno said. “Some will simply park the car.”

Collecting: A Revered Nameplate Makes an Encore

Mr. Mitchell, who died in 1988, was a showman, a flamboyant ringmaster given to wearing silver riding leathers when piloting his motorcycles. As vice president for styling at General Motors for 19 years, he influenced the designs of millions of automobiles.

Mr. Welburn’s personality is quite the opposite, the sort of executive often called classy and no more likely to wear a silver leather outfit than a Carmen Miranda stack-of-bananas hat. Mr. Welburn has been the head of global design at G.M. since 2003, influencing cars built all over the world.

Mr. Mitchell oversaw the design of the best-known Sting Ray, the much admired Corvette redesign that was introduced for 1963, as well as an earlier racecar called the Stingray. Mr. Welburn is the man who resurrected the name for 2014, the seventh-generation Corvette arriving this fall.

That first Sting Ray almost never happened. As the ’50s progressed, Chevy executives considered dumping their sports car in favor of a personal coupe like Ford’s successful Thunderbird. Happily, that never happened, and the second-generation Corvette — now nicknamed the C2 — was a giant step forward from the original car.

Zora Arkus-Duntov, the engineer whose impassioned appeal had saved the Corvette from the chopping block, and his boss, Ed Cole, compromised with the financial executives to give the C2 modern features like an independent rear suspension. They had wanted still more, but at least Corvettes could now go head-to-head with Ferraris on a racetrack and win.

What really stole hearts, though, was the singular design of the ’63 models.

In 1957, Peter Brock was a 20-year-old designer at G.M.’s Research B studio in the bowels of the corporation’s design center in Warren, Mich. Mr. Mitchell strode into the studio with photos from the Turin Motor Show of aero-slick speed-record-style cars, many of them smooth, almost liquid, forms that drew from Alfa Romeo’s Disco Volante — or flying saucer — design. Mr. Mitchell challenged the studio’s young designers to work from that reference point, and Brock’s shape was the winner.

One little problem arose. Development of the Corvette was hampered by a ban on racing, instigated by the Automobile Manufacturers Association, which took its toll on performance programs.

The Corvette program had to go sub rosa, but Mr. Mitchell had a plan. Before the A.M.A. ban, G.M. had developed the Corvette SS, a racecar with world-beating potential. Now the SS was redundant, but there was a spare chassis. Mr. Mitchell bought it and had an open sports car body built that was essentially the Brock design with the top lopped off.

The car was built in what Mr. Brock calls “a secret studio, hidden behind a tool armory called the Hammer Room.” Dr. Dick Thompson, a dentist, would drive it to the Sports Car Club of America’s C/Modified championship in 1960. Mr. Mitchell didn’t dare put the names Chevrolet or Corvette on the car; a deep-sea fisherman, he named it Stingray.

Or Sting Ray. (Today it is known as the Mitchell Racer or by its G.M. designation, XP-87.) Both spellings have been used on the production cars, and Mr. Welburn brought it back for 2014 as one word to honor Mr. Mitchell.

The Chevrolet and Corvette names finally appeared on the racecar in 1961, at Riverside Raceway in Southern California, after the C2 ’Vette had been approved for production and its designers, Larry Shinoda and Tony Lapine, put finishing touches on the 1963 Sting Ray.

“At long last America has a formidable weapon to challenge Europe’s fastest grand touring cars on their home ground,” Car and Driver magazine said when it tested the Sting Ray. Chevrolet offered the car in two body styles, a convertible and a coupe with a spine dividing the back window. Duntov’s developments included a modern suspension at both ends, and it was offered with as much as 360 V-8 horsepower and a 4-speed transmission.

Collecting: A Furor Over Sales by the Petersen Museum

A July 16 Los Angeles Times article exposing the Petersen’s “quiet” liquidation of 119 cars from its collection of around 400 vehicles has produced a furor in the local classic car scene and claims that the Petersen’s board of wealthy collectors are steering the museum toward exhibiting highbrow classics and motorcycles and away from its mission of being home to Southern California’s automotive history.

“There’s no denying the visual beauty of prewar French motor cars,” a Times opinion writer, Paul Whitefield, wrote in a blog post. “But to many SoCal car buffs, a Voisin might as well be a violin.”

The article provoked a strong rebuke from the museum’s directors, who say that “deaccessioning” pieces in a collection is normal and, in the case of the Petersen, a necessary part of a master plan expected to be unveiled on Aug. 18 to upgrade the facility and keep it a star attraction in a city crowded with tourist draws.

“We’re being accused of devastating our collection,” said Terry Karges, the museum’s executive director. “We’re collectors, not liquidators. We’re not going to stop telling the story of the car culture in Southern California.”

Situated on Wilshire Boulevard west of downtown in a museum-heavy stretch known as the Miracle Mile, the Petersen museum opened in 1994 under the patronage of the publishing magnate Robert E. Petersen, a founder of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines, who died in 2007. The midcentury-modern building, a former department store erected in 1962, includes two floors of exhibits totaling about 150 cars, plus an underground vault of some 300 stored cars that only recently opened to public tours.

Mr. Karges says the museum’s exhibits as well as its building need renovation, while the vault, which is as long as a city block, has become overstuffed with cars unworthy of display. “They were given as donations,” he said, “but were never intended to be museum pieces.”

Among them are relatively common vintage models like a 1967 Camaro, unrestored oddballs like a 1976 A.M.C. Pacer and a wrecked 1968 Dodge Charger “General Lee” used in the 2005 film “The Dukes of Hazzard,” based on the 1980s TV show. Critics have cited such popular exotics as a Ferrari F40 and F50, as well as a famous pavement-hugging 1939 Lincoln Zephyr custom car called Scrape, as evidence that the museum is selling off some of its best attractions. The museum is even selling its Lamborghini Espada, which Mr. Petersen once described as his favorite car design.

“This is the first time in 20 years that we’ve culled the collection,” Mr. Karges said. “It’s part of the museum business. It’s the same at art museums.”

Mr. Karges said the museum spent a year developing its list of sale vehicles. The decisions often came down to museum relevance and whether a car could be reacquired if needed through a loan. One car already sold, a 2006 Bugatti Veyron that was auctioned for $924,000 in March, cost the museum $30,000 a year to maintain, he said. And, since one of the museum’s board members owns two Veyrons, “we know where to find one if we need it.”

Jackie Frady, president and executive director of the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nev., which has about 200 cars, described such sales as “a very traditional way of updating and modernizing your collection.” When the museum negotiates with a donor, she said, “we make it clear that the car is being accepted without any restrictions.”

But recent tax law changes have reduced donations of cars and complicated an already difficult financial picture for car museums, said Laura Brinkman, executive director and chief executive of the 130-car Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum in Auburn, Ind. Her museum has 50,000 visitors a year, but the entry fee, at $12.50 for adults, amounts to only 5 percent of revenue. Events, memberships and gift shop sales bring in more, but she depends on donated cars to help fill a $500,000 annual gap in the museum’s $1 million budget.

Whereas donors were once able to write off the car’s appraised value, they can now write off only the sale price assuming the car is being donated expressly to be sold. It can take a museum more than a year to auction a car, and many donors don’t want to wait that long for a write-off, Ms. Brinkman said, adding: “We saw donations drop off in that category. That was a good source of revenue for us.”

Ken Gross, an auto writer who was the Petersen’s director in 1997-2000, thinks the sale and the museum’s plan to broaden its exhibits upholds Robert Petersen’s original vision. “If you look at his empire, he had car magazines, he had bike magazines, he had hot rod magazines,” Mr. Gross said. “Pete was always a promoter; he was always challenging you to come up with new things.”

Collecting: Driven on Sundays, but Never in Competition

It was a polished head-turner, and the Nascar driver Denny Hamlin, in town that early March weekend for a Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway, could not help noticing. He took a picture and posted it on Twitter.

“I knew it was the car that was the same body type and everything of the car in ‘Entourage,’ ” Hamlin said, referring to the suicide-door Continental used in the HBO television series. “I always liked that car.”

A few days — and about $50,000 — later, he owned it, having wrapped up a quick negotiation with the owner. Hamlin then piled in some friends for an impromptu 300-mile road trip to Las Vegas for the next race in the Sprint Cup series. Top-down all the way.

All of which suggests that Nascar drivers aren’t driven by speed alone. They’re car people, too. With his spur-of-the-moment purchase, Hamlin joined a select group of current drivers who also own classic cars.

Among the stalwart members of that group are Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. It’s not only the veteran drivers who own vintage models, though — even 23-year-old Joey Logano has caught the bug.

Newman might be the leader among this pack of current Cup drivers.

He said that his collection was around 17 or 18 cars, including a ’31 Ford woody, a ’39 Hudson and breakthrough models like a 1949 Jaguar XK 120. He also has a 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible that was a gift from his wife on his 30th birthday in 2007.

A standout among his holdings is a 1957 Dodge Super D 500, powered by a 325-cubic-inch Hemi V-8 with dual four-barrel carburetors, “which is pretty rare, because it’s a stick shift,” Newman said. “They were all push-button automatics back then.”

Unlike some of the other drivers who own classic cars, Newman likes to restore them, too.

“There are cars that I have that are 100 percent restored that I bought like that,” he said. “There are cars that I’ve bought that needed to be restored, and there’s cars that I have that need to be restored, and there’s cars that I have that never will be and they’re just originals.

“I just like ‘em because they’re cool and I can work on them,” Newman said.

Johnson, on the other hand, laughed when asked if he got under the hood of the 1949 Chevrolet pickup that he drives around Charlotte, N.C., where most of the drivers live during the season.

“It’s a ’49, still-original cab — it has the five windows,” Johnson said of the truck he uses most days.“I love that truck.

“Work on it? Come on, are you crazy? I put gas in it, put air in the tires.”

Logano said he didn’t do much work on his vehicles, either. He owns a 1972 Chevrolet Suburban, but he especially prizes his 1959 Cadillac convertible, white with a red interior.

“I just love ‘em, I love ‘em,” Logano said. “Huge wings on them. I feel like it’s an icon-type car.

“Everyone kind of recognizes that car,” he continued. “Late ’50s — it’s a boat. It’s heavy, it’s huge. You drive the thing, it’s rolling all over the place. It’s so much fun to drive.”

Logano said he learned to appreciate classic cars growing up in Connecticut. His father, Tom Logano, owned a 1962 Corvette that he let Joey drive when he was only 9 years old.

That turned out to be a mistake when Joey asked to move the car to the front of the house before they went out for ice cream one day.

“I’d driven it a million times — which was funny, I was 9 — but around the neighborhood,” Logano recalled. “And so I just parked it in front of the house, went and started shooting hoops. Came back like a half an hour later, the car’s gone. Where’s the car?”

The car had rolled off the side of the driveway, into a tree. “Totally destroyed, killed it,” Logano said, before reconsidering. “Well, I didn’t kill it, but it was pretty bad.

“I thought I had it in gear. But it wasn’t, like, actually in the gear. To this day, every time I park, the brake’s coming on, that thing’s definitely in gear. I learned my lesson that day.”

Logano’s collection is limited compared with some others. Stewart owns numerous cars, including several that were posted on Facebook as part of a promotion with Mobil 1 oil, one of his sponsors. Among them is a bright orange 1955 Chevrolet Nomad station wagon.

Earnhardt Jr. recently added a 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 to an extensive collection dominated by Chevrolets from as far back as 1948. It’s not just history that draws Earnhardt to classic cars; it’s personal history, too.

“I think I’m just really nostalgic about certain times,” Earnhardt said. “Certain cars remind me about a time in the sport or a time in my life. I thought it was unique to me that the first stock car that I drove was a street stock that was a ’79 Monte Carlo. That car meant a lot to me, because I remember when I lived with my mother, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, riding in the back seat of her ’79 Monte Carlo.

“You just sort of take a car,” he said, “and it puts you back in a place in time or reminds you of something.”

Collecting: Timeless, but Not Frozen in Time

The 911, on the other hand, still carries the distinctive profile of the model that made its debut at the 1963 Frankfurt motor show. Its engine is still an opposed 6-cylinder, and it is still placed at the rear.

One thing that’s not the same is the model name: initially, the new Porsche was labeled the 901, but the road car was renamed the 911 because a French automaker, Peugeot, held the rights to three-digit model names with a zero in the middle. 

At the time, Porsche’s visionary designers could hardly have imagined that their sports car would still be thriving and evolving a half-century later. Although the 911 has added weight and girth over the years, it has also been transformed, continuing as a benchmark for all-around performance.

Porsche did not start out as an automaker, but as an engineering firm doing design work for other companies. It began making its own sports car, the 356 model, in the late 1940s, amid the rubble of postwar Germany. Based heavily on the design of the humble Volkswagen Beetle, the Porsche 356 established the company as a producer of well-engineered, high-quality cars, its reputation bolstered by racing successes.

Ferdinand Porsche, the genius who founded the company, died in 1951, but his son, known as Ferry, was firmly at the helm. As competition increased, Ferry and his talented staff felt the need for a new-generation car to replace the aging but still-popular 356, so in the mid-1950s they set out to develop a slimmer shape with a stronger engine.

Some of their early efforts involved dusting off partly developed plans from earlier years. An awkward notchback prototype was considered, but Ferry’s son, F. A., known as Butzi, responded with a sleeker, more contemporary version of the Porsche coupe sketched by the company’s original stylist, Erwin Komenda, in the 1940s.

The family business also included Ferry Porsche’s nephew, Ferdinand K. Piëch, a promising young engineer who conceived the seven-bearing crankshaft and overhead-cam layout that endowed the 6-cylinder 911 engine with its rapid-revving sports-car personality.

The 911 also benefited from a racing-derived lubricating system that prevented engine damage.

With improvements in tires, brakes and suspension systems, cars were now able to corner and stop so hard that the engine would starve for lubrication as oil sloshed away from the supply tube of the circulating pump. To prevent this, the 911 engine was given two oil pumps, one to keep a reservoir tank full of oil and a second pump to feed oil from the tank to the moving parts, regardless of cornering, acceleration or braking forces. This so-called dry-sump system also eliminates the deep oil pan that normally hangs below the engine, making it possible to lower the mounting point and improve handling.

The Porsche 911 was not perfect, although many considered it bulletproof. Early on, the tensioners for its cam chains were prone to failure, often with near-catastrophic results. And the car had a disconcerting habit of oversteering, especially when a novice driver would suddenly let off the gas pedal in the middle of an exuberant turn.

While expert drivers used this quirk effectively, steering through curves with the throttle, less experienced pilots spun out in short order. In recent years, modifications by Porsche engineers, including electronic stability control systems, have made the 911 more forgiving.

As the road-going 911 evolved, it became more powerful and luxurious, but also heavier. For this reason, many enthusiasts feel that some of the earlier models — 1969-73 cars in particular — are the most fun to drive and more desirable to collect.