November 25 -- Towe

Blackhawk was a tough act to follow, and my appreciation of the Towe Museum was unfairly diminished as a consequence. In Sacramento right near the Old Town, Towe is a good museum with a nice range of cars, particularly 1900 – 1955 Fords and other American cars of approximately the same vintage.

Very few of the vehicles are restored to concours winning condition and, as with the LeMay museum, the cars were frequently parked too close to see properly or to photograph.

Still, the museum felt like a place that people really use. Sure enough, there was a holiday gathering while I was there for the are Sacramento Thunderbird, Mustang and Porsche clubs. As a result, the parking lot was pretty exciting, with different generations of the same model car sharing space:






Thunderbirds in the parking lot.









Mustangs in the parking lot.





Porsches in the parking lot.


Once I was in the museum, I had some favorites, too:


19th Century New York omnibus!


1930 Marquette Coupe. General Motors poured millions into this nameplate to give Buick dealers “the most complete car in America priced under $1000.” It was a flop. Kinda like when GM gave Chevrolet dealers the Geo brand to compete with imports in the 1980’s.


1934 Pierce Arrow.

1942 Lincoln Zephyr, with pushbutton door handles.


A woodie from the last year Dodge manufactured them, 1950.


The wonderful Cadillac Coupe DeVille, 1954.

On the way out of the museum, there was the most wonderful sunset, here reflected in the roof of my Mini:


I wandered over to old town Sacramento, where I had a very good dinner salad at the Fat City Bar & Café. Old Town is very pretty at night:



Afterwards, I got in a little trouble. The photos below tell the story . . .