The Mercedes-Benz Museum as it was, 1962. Photo copyright Mercedes-Benz Classic and used with permission.

Text by Charley Seavey
Photos by Charley Seavey unless otherwise noted

This article would not have been written without the cooperation, and no small amount of work, on the part of Christian Biederstaedt, Archivist at Mercedes-Benz Classic. He provided all the technical information about the engines, and identified some of the cars that I could not.

Long ago, two young Army guys with three days off loaded up a car with cameras and set forth from Rothwesten, in what was then West Germany, and headed down the Autobahn to visit the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

Every instinct says “It’s backwards”! No, it’s the front wheel drive 1936 Cord engine, although the car in the picture is a 1937.

Story and photos by Charley Seavey

A recent trip to the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, IN, produced 403 pictures of some of the greatest American cars ever. I imagine that the vast majority of VT readers know what the cars look like, but the museum has a lot of picture worthy items that are not complete cars.

1907 Renault radiator cap ornament, but not up front, as the radiator was back on the firewall between the engine and the driver’s cockpit.

Story and photos by Charley Seavey

Time was when almost all cars had some representational statuary of some kind on the hood (bonnet) of the car. Some were famous: the Rolls Royce “Spirit of Ecstasy,” and the Jaguar “Leaper” Spirit…is now a tiny vestigial remnant of its former self. The Leaper is no more. Bentley’s Winged B is now a flat representation. The three-pointed star of Mercedes Benz is mostly flat, although there may be a pop-up version. Ornaments on lesser cars rarely attracted attention, although many were quite lovely, and some (Pontiac’s illuminated Chief) were quite clever. While seemingly superfluous I remember using them as a nice way of keeping track of where the off side of the car was in any tight situation.