Harold Lemay’s Car Collection

A gallery collection has has been posted on my website for the enjoyment of all you auto buffs out there.  There are 5 galleries of photos from the August ’07 open house at the LeMay Museum Collection at Marymount Academy and at his home, both near Tacoma, Washington. 
 

The 2009 open house was August 29th and the turn out was huge, despite the rain.  There were few changes to the collection since my last visit in ’07.  The biggest diffeences were the addition of a building to house the cars on auction and the clean up of much of the (normal unviewed) parts of the grounds.  Along with the clean up, that area and one huge shed were off limits this year and those were the areas I specifically wanted to see!  The cars below are an example of what I’d seen there in ’07  but I was running out of time and light that visit and didn’t get many pictures.

To me, the highlights were a car club showing up with 20 some Chrysler and DeSoto Air Flows and another view of a 789 Chev (an ’05 Corvette with a ’57 Chev nose, ’58 doors and ’59 tail).  I’ll be updating my galleries with shots of these and others soon.

The Lemay collection is huge, the biggest I’ve seen since the old Harrah’s collection in Reno was closed.  Most of the collection is at the former Marymount Military Academy and is open to the public.  Much more is at the Lemay home and viewable during the annual open house and auction in August.  I understand there is even more stored at other locations but I haven’t had the privilege of seeing them to confirm this.

I won’t go into Mr. Lemay’s history here, I suggest you check out the museum’s website for more information.  This is about being there, not about where it came from.

The Lemay collection has cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, tools — all kinds of vintage and interesting things.  Some special, some mundane. Many are worn and original, most are restored and others are junk in the bushes, destined for sale or to be used for parts.  The size and scope of the Lemay collection is really overwhelming.

The emphasis is vehicles, especially cars.  Picture a long aisle with a Pontiacs per year for 20+ years parked tightly side-by-side down the left side and a matching collection of Chevy’s on the right.   Then multiply that by 10 and you start to get the feel of the size just at the Museum location.

As a visitor, the main problem is that there are so many things on display, there is not enough space to let you walk around most of the cars to get a real good look.  But there is so much to look at, this is almost a benefit, too.  I don’t think there is time to really appreciate the collection in just one day.

As a photographer, the problem is bigger.  Lighting is good for viewing and adds great sparkles to chrome and glass but it’s frequently hard to step back far enough for a good undistorted picture and may be even harder to control reflections of people and other cars and odd colors.  Do you really want a picture of a 1918 something mobile with a red corvette reflected in the bumper and a group of people staring back from the headlight while lavender sparkles line the hood?  (I exaggerate, but only a little). 

Like old stuff?  Like classic cars?  Wear good shoes for walking, bring a tripod and at least one flash, lenses covering from close focus to short telephoto, and lots of memory for the digital camera!  But definitely visit if you can.

 Also remember that in the (hopefully) near future, there will be a new museum of the motorcar in Tacoma which will showcase a small percentage of the Lemay collection.  At this time, it is unclear whether or not the new museum will impact the current collection at the Marymount Academy campus (over 300 cars) or what will happen to the annual open house and the additional 700 cars or so that it brings to view (plus doll collection, anitques, models and more).

If you’re interested, the next open house for the collection will be August 29, 2009.