By John Engstrom: I recently visited Philadelphia to see my new grandson. While I was there I took a half day to go and visit the Simeone Automotive Museum. The museum is located near the airport in Philadelphia and is easy to get to.
As luck would have it, when I got home I was watching Motor Trend ( Auto Biography) and they had a program dealing with two of the cars in the collection. A Shelby Daytona Coupe that won at Le Mans, Daytona and set a number of speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats as well as a Bugatti 57G “Tank”. There were only three of them built and this is the only one left. It won LeMans in 1937 setting speed records which were not broken until 1965 by the Shelby Daytona Coupe mentioned above.
Dr. Simeone has been collecting cars from the 1960’s and has basically concentrated on cars that have a racing history. Some are restored but most of them are in original condition with their bumps and bruises showing. Most weekends, there is a show of some sort going on at the Museum. However the time I had was during the week so I missed the weekend show. The museum has a permanent display of 82 former sporty and race cars. Most of the cars have a racing history, are kept in running condition, and are “exercised” out in back of the museum in a paved three acre lot.
The Bugatti was so revered by the French that when the Nazi’s invaded in 1940, the car was entombed in a specially made container, moved from the factory at Molsheim and buried in Bordeaux until after the war. The show valued these two cars alone at 40 Million each. It’s great Museum and if your ever in Philly, it’s worth a trip to see.
This year I’m going to try to visit more auto museums. I am planning on trying to get out to the Cord-Dusenbureg sometime this year also. – John