Volo Museum
Cool cars and more.
My brother visited recently, and we decided to go to a quirky attraction called the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois. I like cars, but I was skeptical. The small amount of information that I had heard about the place was that there were lots of old cars and a flea market. We went on a cold day during the week, and the parking lot was just about empty. “This is going to be a waste of time,” I thought. It was anything but. We had a blast.
It turns out that the museum was started by the Grams family, who had 75 acres that they were living on, and two teenage sons who liked cars. They started going to neighboring farms and collecting old junkers that had been abandoned. As their collection grew, people became interested in seeing it, and the family began to charge an entry fee, initially $1.00.
Over 60 years later, the Volo Museum is an amazing place to see beautiful and famous cars. Some have been used in movies, others were owned by celebrities, and all have been restored to a high-gloss shine. The museum has also grown, with newer exhibits on the Titanic, the Armed Forces, agriculture (think old tractors), a Disney gallery, and an old carousel surrounded by working music machines. We also went through some RVs, and although we decided not to visit the Flea Markets, there are four of them if that is your thing.
The museum is partially supported by auto sales. Many of the cars are for sale, and we saw prices from around $50,000 to almost $1 million. It is really interesting to see how much cars that my parents drove would now sell for. One of the best moments for me while we were there was seeing a 1958 Chevy much like the one my Dad drove. It brought me down memory lane.
All in all, we had a really nice day, ate macaroni and cheese in their cafeteria, and saw some amazing automobiles. I would go again.
