Volo Auto Museum: A Cabinet of Curiosities

The Volo Auto Museum is tucked away in the northeastern corner of Illinois in the city of Volo. There is a good chance you haven’t ever been to Volo before. Heck, there’s a good chance you’ve never even heard of Volo before. It’s understandable, with a big, bustling city like Chicago dominating the area, some of the more distant suburbs fall to the wayside.

 Sometimes this can be because they don’t have all that much to offer in the way of tourist attractions. That, however, is not the case with Volo, thanks to the aforementioned Volo Auto Museum.

Now, I know what you are thinking, when you first picture an auto museum, the image that pops into your head is probably that of a bunch of middle-aged men walking around and talking about blowers, piston rods, and dip sticks. And, sure, you’ll see some of that at Volo, it is a car museum busting at the seams with American muscle and cars of a bygone era, after all (Also, it should be noted, just about all of those beautiful cars of yesteryear are for sale. Think of it as a museum and a dealership).

But you probably wouldn’t expect to walk into an auto museum in Volo, Illinois and see a giant, drivable roller skate, a cartoon-like Charlie Chaplin car crafted entirely of steel, a large Disney and Looney Tunes exhibit, and an armed forces exhibit. Oh yeah, you are also going to find a Duesenberg exhibit … in Volo. Strange but true.

But these oddities are sort of the charm of the Volo Auto Museum. If you love cars, you are going to have fun prowling through the five showrooms of vehicles muttering about blowers and piston rods to your heart’s desire. If you are looking for a nice little family outing, the Volo Auto Museum fits that bill as well. Or, if you are just looking to be creeped out by a life-sized wax figure of Nic Cage, well, you’re in luck, because you can find that too (just don’t stare directly into his eyes for too long).

We sat down with Brian Grams, the museum director, and talked about the history of the museum and how it grew into the five-showroom cabinet of curiosities it has become today.

Tell us a little bit about the history of the museum and how it came to be.

Well, the museum as you see it today was never intended to be. My grandfather bought this property back in 1960. It was an old dairy farm. So they had the farmhouse, the barn, and there was a couple other maintenance buildings that were built in the mid-1800s. The family was living out of the house and they were selling resale items out of the barn. That eventually spawned into the antique malls.

The way the cars came to be is my dad and his brother were both teenagers, and, teenagers like cars. They didn’t have a lot of money but they would go to the farmers in the area and look out back and see if there was an old junk car sitting out back. Usually five bucks, ten bucks, or sometimes here take it free, you know, just get it out of here. They would bring it back to one of the storage sheds here and after their job at the resale shop they would tinker on their cars. That eventually led to fixing one up, selling it, and making a little bit of money. Then they’d take that money, and reinvest it in another car, fix it up, and sell it.

It got to the point where my grandfather asked them, “Are we in the resale business or the car business?” My dad and his brother looked at each other and were like, ‘We’re in the car business. We made more money on that one car than in a whole month over there.” Eventually they kept buying and selling cars, and they got a reputation for having these old cars and people wanted to come and see them with no interest in buying them. So eventually the buying and selling grew into the dealership, which has come a long way since then.

Now, we have about 400 cars on hand and they are all restored in five different show rooms. But it also spawned the museum. We did start charging admission. Back then in the late 60s I think it was a dollar a person and it was only open on weekends, but people would come and look at these old cars. But that eventually grew too.

The only cars that were in the museum were the old cars that were for sale. That is how it was for numerous years until around the late 90s, we started getting into some of the Hollywood cars for display. That is kind of what I brought to the table. I grew up with these old cars for my entire life. So a ‘57 Chevy, a Model A, they did nothing for me. I was just so bored with cars. So I needed to get my interest back into the business. And that is where my interest came in. The first cars that we got were the General Lee, we had that here on display for a while on loan and we ended up buying a Knight Rider car and one of the TV series Batmobiles.

So those were the three first cars that we had for our Hollywood collection. And they proved to be a draw for the general public, so we started expanding on that. From the Hollywood cars we expanded on a whole variety of different things. Cars of the rich and famous and bizarre cars, like a 14-foot roller skate that actually runs and drives. Just all kinds of weird stuff. We have a snowmobile collection, motorcycles, a vintage arcade, boat memorabilia; we just started in on all this different stuff from a museum aspect. That has drawn in a whole different crowd of people for us. It used to be just a guy and his buddy, just strictly men. And today we see so many moms coming pushing strollers and bringing their kids out here. What it spawned onto we never would have predicted.

It’s a little unusual for so many cars to be on sale at an auto museum. Is that just something that has stuck since it did start with that buying and selling?

Right. The buying and selling is our main business. The auto museum part is just because people do love to come and look at the cars. Car sales are what makes us money and allows us to have the museum collection.

Are the main cars that you have for sale 70s muscle and stuff like that?

Right. It is production cars, mainly domestic. We do dabble in a little bit of foreign, but mainly domestic production cars. ‘57 Chevys and Camaros, Chevelles… There are a lot of museums that will have ‘57 Chevys and all these production cars on display, but our museum is more for entertainment. The movie cars, cars that were owned by the rich and famous. Just a little bit more on the entertainment side for that.

Speaking of TV cars, and the General Lee, specifically, what are your thoughts on Bubba Watson saying he is going to paint over the Confederate flag on the top of the General Lee that he has? Do you think that is something that should be preserved at the time or do you understand where he is coming from?

We actually got quite a bit involved with that. Because we have a General Lee here and we were not covering up the flag, our stance is it’s a part of history and it is to be preserved. It is television history. The show didn’t represent anything bad. When we heard Bubba Watson was going to paint the flag over we actually made a public offer to purchase that car from him. We never heard from him and I think he just kind of disappeared and ignored that subject and hoped it went away. He got a lot of backlash when he said he was going to do that.

Is there any specific car or exhibit here that you see as being a big draw or is your particular favorite?

There are cars where you can just walk up and say, “Hey, that’s from Mad Max. Hey, that’s the General Lee. That’s the Batmobile.” All those cars draw people. They are famous.

What is upkeep like for some of the real old cars as far as preserving them and keeping them running?

Well, the older cars, like pre-1950 or so, all those are for sale so they aren’t here long enough to have a scheduled maintenance. They are here for like two, three months. If they were on display we’d drain the fuel and disconnect the batteries. We sell about 1,200 cars every year, so the stuff that’s for sale, 60-90 is kind of the lifespan. Which is nice for the museum, too. Every 30 days you are going to get something new to show.

Is there anything you want people to know about the museum that they might miss on first glance?

A lot of people walk in the door and think there is one small showroom with a handful of stuff. But you can spend the whole day here. A family can come and spend the entire day here. Everything outside is groomed and there are playgrounds for the kids. People just don’t really understand what truly is here.

David.M@mychinews.com