On Sunday, November 3, I finally made it to the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, spurred by a pamphlet that I had picked up somewhere a couple years ago. I never went but decided it was time. I wish I would have gone sooner. For an old car enthusiast (read "nut"), this was a truly exciting place and was much better than watching football. Just up the road a ways on Rt. 34 and then turning into the Gateway Centre, nestled in some industrial buildings rests the nicely designed site. When I walked in (there were only 3 or 4 in there at the time), I was met by John who took my $6 and gave a brief explanation of the cars. This is what he said: All of the cars are owned by a private family (Cerf) headed up by the guy who invented shrink-wrap. He is from France so most of the cars are European. All of the cars are fully licensed, have their keys in them, and are driven by family members, or taken to car shows, or just around the block to keep them in great working order. Some of the cars are the only ones left. Now if that doesn't get you revved up, call your hospital and order an EKG.
I took 232 pictures and doing one or two installments on the blog would be overkill. Therefore I'll do as many as necessary but only focusing on 3 or 4 cars at a time. That way you won't get overwhelmed.
John, by the way, was able to walk around a bit and point certain things out of interest with these cars and even gave me his email address in case I had questions when I got back home. Nice guy.
And now, let's start the tour.
1950 SALMSON S4E
This was the first car in the door so I didn't do it justice picture-wise. I looked around and saw all they had and kind of flipped out; trying to rush and get to all of them. As it was once I slowed down I was still in a sweat and lather. It took me two hours to get through it and still, now that I look back, could have taken another hour to check out all the little things I probably missed. I had used the brochure pictures for introducing the cars because they give great outside full-on perspective, something not able to do inside.
This 1948 Salmson was only one of 338 built that year and was basically the end of the line. Restrictive French taxes on large engines and a dull economy doomed the Salmson nameplate and they declared bankruptcy in 1953.
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1939 DARL'MAT
There were only 103 of these babies made between the years 1934-1939. It has an obvious art-deco styling that we'll see later on probably the prettiest car in the collection, the Panhead Dynamic. These Darl'mat's won several races in Europe and gained quite a reputation, but these were made by a Peugeot dealer and after the war he concentrated on his original business and the Darl'mat ceased production.
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1952 DELEHAYE 235
The Delahaye name in automobile lore goes back to 1894, but this, the 235 model would be the last. I really liked this car, for its styling, neat interior and history. This was only one of 85 Delahaye's manufactured by the famous Chapron coach building company. As you can see it has a subtle two-tone paint job. Notice the long spindle coming out of the right side of the dash? Guess what that is? Answer is below, and you'll be wrong whatever you surmised. Notice also in all of he cars, the keys are in the ignition and they are run periodically, sometimes taken out and run around the block. These are no namby-pamby trailer queens - they are operating and running cars. I think that's so neat. By the way, I always liked the banjo style steering wheel design.
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1953 Talbot Lago T 15
The Talbot-Lago was another French luxury car that died after the war due to the economy, high French taxation (France taxed based on size of engines). It couldn't find a necessary market for the times and ceased operations in the late '60's, only to have the name bought out by Simca.
As you can already tell, I really like the European logos on the front as well as the ornate and stylish hood ornaments. The Talbot is no exception. Classy and beautiful.
Another quiz. Can you guess what that small chrome piece is that is just above the rain rail on the top of the car? Answer below.
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Answer to Delahaye question:
It is the horn. It can be flicked by a finger while you have your hands on the steering wheel.
Answer to Talbot question:
As you can see above the chrome piece this car had what we call now a moonroof. They built a channel inside the car, just under the roof to move water from the edge of the moonroof to the rain rail. Wow.
MORE FROM THE TAMPA BAY AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM IN THE DAYS AHEAD.
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