You might say it was a hot day, or at the least an extremely warm day. As a result, even though 42 members of the club went to Salem to tour the Brothers Muscle Car Collection, only 3 drove their Classic Thunderbird. We were joined by several other clubs (Early Ford V8, Corvair, Portland Street Rods, Vintage Thunderbirds) very, very few of those drove their club cars. The temperature in Salem got up to 99 or 100 based upon who you want to believe.
Regardless we had a good time, and saw some absolutely beautiful cars.
It was noted by several that there were no Thunderbirds in the collection. My response was that the Thunderbirds were never known to be "muscle" cars. Beautiful yes, Classic yes, but muscle no. However we have heard that they do own a Black 1957 that just isn't on display.
I picked the GTO above for the header of this page mainly because Oleta owned a 1964 GTO convertible that she bought new in 1964. After having our second child we decided to keep the T'Bird and sell the GTO and got a family station wagon. She is still upset over that.
Anyway, I'm going to put photos below in small batches with comments about each as I go. I hope those that went think this is a worthy display, and I hope those that didn't go get a taste of what they missed. We were there three hours and really felt a bit rushed to see it all. It was well worth the time.
The first is a 1957 Ghia, and a 1957 Ghia built Plymouth Explorer.
Photos by Jim Sweet and John Sailors
And many thanks to Gary Coe and Jeff Gretz for setting this up for us.

The blue Giha was in the Brothers Collection we viewed Sunday. The green car we saw in 2011 when a traveling show called The Allure of the Automobile made a stop in Portland. It was also built by Ghia for Chrysler and is called a Plymouth Explorer. You can see some some tremendous similarities between the two. For decades Ghia built some very beautiful cars.
If you double click on the photos you will get a larger image and will be able to read the description about the 1957 Dual Ghia Convertible in the Brothers Collection.

                It was also noted that not all of the cars on display were muscle cars. The Maserati boat shown below certainly bares that out.

Then came a 2015 Porsche

Did I mention there were Cobras there? And not just a few, there were lots of Cobras.
The sign on the front of this Cobra is it's serial number. On the walls surrounding them there were large placards for each one. Just by finding the placard for the car you were interested in you could read a brief, but well done, history for that car. It would list the ownership of the car, what features it had, and its race history.

At left is a 1969 De Tomaso Mangusta, it is 1 of only 401 built from 1967 to 1971.
According to the sign on it De Tomaso named it the Mangusta because of his falling-out with Carrol Shelby. Apparently Mangusta is Italian for Mongoose.

Remember that the Mongoose will out-stare, and kill a Cobra. Further below you will see a couple of De Tomaso Pantera's. De Tomaso used Ford engines in both the Mangusta and the Pantera.

Our hostess from The Brothers Collection (Maria) told us there were more than cars in the museum, and that we should "look up". Well, Jim Sweet looked up more than I did and captured this photo of an all-white motor cycle.
I've enlarged the original photo and it appears that the word "Transam" is embossed on the alternator. Not knowing anything about motorcycles (except the sound of a Harley) I looked up Transam Motorcycles - and they do exist, so I guess that is what this is.

This is a pretty wild 1955 Chevy powered by a V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. This particular engine was used to power the famous Miss Budweiser Unlimited hydroplane and was rated at 3,000 HP. Even though the engine wasn't in a P-51 Mustang the builder & painters carried the aircraft style by hand painting all of the rivets. If you enlarge the sign (above, right) you can read all of the details. Also this particular car was originally owned by actress Ava Gardner.

As stated above not all of the cars on display are muscle cars. The example below is one of those. It is a 1935 Bentley Derby 3.5 Liter 4 door Open Touring car. It is a 1 of 1. So pretty danged rare. You can enlarge the display plaque and read all of the details. Sorry I cut off the far right edge taking the photo but I think you can make it all out.

A pair of Ford GTs

Well, here are more of the Cobras that were on display. Again by finding the serial number on the wall displays you could learn the history of every car there.

Remember the Ford saying about the Model T: You can get it in any color you like, as long as it's black?
Well apparently Chevy felt the same about the first Corvettes. You could get them in any color you wanted as long as it was white. All 300 1953 Corvettes were white with red interior. Of those 300 this museum has three. Honestly they have a pretty good collection of Corvettes. You will see a 1973 below with only 67 original miles on it.

Inside a glass display case is a cut-away engine that shows how the valves operate, how the pistons travel up and down and how the crankshaft converts straight-line motion into rotary motion. You can become mesmerized standing there watching it as everything moves. This really intrigues me because a friend in college made one of these in the auto shop there. He included one feature I didn't see on this one - he had small lights on the tip of each spark plug so you could see the plug fire. Regardless of that, this is an excellent display.

1973 Corvette with only 76 miles on it. I can't say the color does anything for me, but nevertheless a 49 year old car with only 76 miles is pretty impressive. But, you will see an even older car with fewer miles on it near the end of these photos.

Firebirds and TransAms

More GTOs with a Supercharged '58 Pontiac all the way in the back

An iconic 1957 Chevy Bel Air

There were six stacks of 3 each Barracudas and other Mopar muscle. 

Even before the GTO Pontiac was building some serious muscle. This is an example of a 1963 Pontiac Tempest with plenty of horsepower.

Not to be left out of the HP race, Ford produced the 1964 Fairlane Thunderbolt. I almost bought one of these in late summer of 2000, but then I realized it was a standard Fairlane made to look like the Thunderbolt. I'm very glad I realized it in time. I still think the '64 Fairlane Sports Coupe is one of the finest looking Fords of the era.

In 1973 a friend of mine was working on his PHd in Aeronautical Engineering at Stanford University. On a whim one day we went to a Plymouth dealer and he measured the high wing on a Plymouth SuperBee. A few days later he let me know that at about 150 mph that wing was producing several thousand pounds of down-force. So it really did keep the rear tires glued to the NASCAR tracks.

A Super Charged 1957 Ranchero. However, Frank Stubbs of Seattle says it can't be factory. Even though Ford did put Super Chargers in full sized cars the VIN number on this one is too low to have been factory. The full sized cars didn't get the blowers until late in the model year. The VIN would have to been in the high 200,000 or 300,000 range, this VIN is in the 100,000s. Nevertheless it is a beautiful car/truck.

I had one of these 1970 Ranchero GT's in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Believe me though it didn't look anything like this one. It had been treated pretty darn rough before I got it. Many of the GT parts were missing such as the "Laser Stripe" on the side. I found where I could get a set; however, even then it cost about $300 so I didn't buy it. I ended up selling it for $500 with the transmission unable to go into reverse. Had to be very careful where you parked it. I did like it though, a very fun vehicle to drive.
I was asked if I could pick any car here to be mine I replied it would probably be this one.

A pair of De Tomaso Panteras.

Racks of Mustangs

More racks of Mustangs. And a 1 of a kind color (Iris) on a 1967 Mustang with only 3.5 miles on the odometer. If you click on the plaque below you will see the story as to why only 3.5 miles.

Any one want a GT350? There were plenty to choose from.

And last but not least a 1969 GT500 in Grabber Green and a 1956 F100 Police Interceptor from Texarkana.