My Reference: Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum - Crawford Aviation Museum

The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is a collection in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Part of the Western Reserve Historical Society and housed at the Cleveland History Center, it was founded by industrialist Frederick C. Crawford of TRW, and opened in 1965. The collection began as the Thompson Products Auto Album, which was also founded by Crawford.

Its eclectic collection of classic vehicles includes a replica of 1890s Cleveland main street (currently under restoration), antique carriages, early Harley Davidson motorcycles, a Willys Custom Sedan, and a P-51 Mustang racing plane used in the National Air Races. The oldest car in the collection is an 1895 Panhard et Levassor, while the most modern is the robotic car named "DEXTER", which was team Team Case's entry in 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge 2007, in which it placed in the top 20 entries. As of 2011, the museum has 37 cars that are more than 100 years old, the largest such collection in the world. One of the rarest cars in the collection is an aluminum bodied 1932 prototype Peerless, designed by Frank Hershey, which was never put into production and was the last passenger vehicle made in Cleveland.

Crawford explained that when he started collecting the cars, it was simply because it seemed a shame to let them be scrapped, which was the typical fate of almost all antique machinery at the time. He saw value in saving a few historically significant examples.