Anaheim Hills Auto Body

Car Fans Love the Larz Anderson Auto Museum

The home of “America’s Oldest Car Collection” the Larz Anderson Auto Museum contains more American cars built from 1899 to 1926 than anywhere else in the world. For more than 85 years, the Larz Anderson Auto Museum has been supporting the community and educating people about these amazing vehicles through a wide range of educational programs, lectures and exhibits.

At Anaheim Hills Auto Body, we like old American cars, so if we ever get a chance to travel from here in Anaheim, CA to the Larz Anderson Auto Museum and see their incredible collection, we will.

Today the Larz Anderson Auto Museum’s main mission is to perform educational outreach while  preserving permanent collection of early automobiles. The Larz Anderson Auto Museum serves as a resource for automotive experts and historians.

The original concept for the Larz Anderson Auto Museum emerged from a Sunday tradition started by affluent socialites Larz and Isabel Anderson at their Brookline, Massachusetts mansion. The Andersons would open the doors to their extravagant Carriage House on Sunday afternoons and share their burgeoning collection of spectacular American and European vehicles with the general public.

The Andersons’ collection kicked off with the purchase of their first car--an 1899 Winton 4-horse power Runabout. Today, this vehicle  is still on permanent display in the facility's lower gallery. As their curiosity in automobiles grew, the Andersons began buying more and more cars to drive and then retire them to their Carriage House.  

The Andersons acquired a highly-collectible automobile nearly every year until 1948, buying a total of 32 vehicles during the course of their lives. 14 of these vehicles and many of the Andersons’ original horse-drawn carriages still remain in the museum’s permanent collection.

As their cars became more and more obsolete, the Andersons retired the majority of them to the Carriage House of their 64-acre estate in the Greater Boston area. In 1927, the Andersons opened the Carriage House for tours.

When Isabel Anderson passed away in 1948, she left her entire estate to the Town of Brookline. She did stipulate in her will that the car collection would be known forever as the "Larz Anderson Collection," and that a non-profit organization would be given stewardship of the car collection.

The Carriage House where the museum resides, was designed by the Boston architect Edmund M. Wheelwright and was finished in 1888. Its design was influenced by the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire in France.  the building holds all of the family's carriages, horses and ponies and serves as home to the stable staff who live on the upper floor. Right after the Andersons began collecting automobiles, they added a garage on the basement level for vehicle repair.

Of the original 32 vehicles, these 14 still remain in the collection:

·         1899 Winton Phaeton

·         1907 Fiat

·         1908 Bailey

·         1910 Panhard et Levassor

·         1912 Renault

·         1916 Packard Twin Six

·         1900 Rochet-Schneider

·         1901 Winton Bullet

·         1903 Gardner-Serpollet

·         1905 Electromobile

·         1906 Charron-Girodot et Voigt

·         1924 Renault Torpedo

·         1925 Luxor Taxi

·         1926 Lincoln Limousine

So, for the next time you're in the Boston area to have some chowder and watch the Red Sox, why not drop by and see “America’s Oldest Car Collection” at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum?

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Sources: Wikipedia, AOL and Forbes