The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is a transportation museum in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, United States. It is part of the

Western Reserve Historical Society The Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) is a historical society in Cleveland, Ohio. The society operates the Cleveland History Center, a collection of museums in University Circle. The society was founded in 1867, making it the oldest ...

's Cleveland History Center in

University Circle University Circle is a district in the neighborhood of University on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. It is home to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall (home to the Cleveland Orchestra), the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Cleveland ...

, and its collection includes about 170 cars. It was founded by Frederick C. Crawford of TRW, and opened in 1965.

Collections

As of 2019 there were more than 170 automobiles, 12 aircraft, 3 antique

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

s, and 21 non-car artifacts (motorcycles, boats and bicycles). The facility includes more than of archival collections. The aviation collection includes a

P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in 1940 by a team headed ...

racing plane used in Thompson Trophy Races. The oldest car in the collection is an 1897

Panhard Panhard was a French motor vehicle manufacturer that began as one of the first makers of automobiles. It was a manufacturer of light tactical and military vehicles. Its final incarnation, now owned by Renault Trucks#Military vehicles, Re ...

et Levassor, while later acquisitions include the first production DeLorean from 1981 and a

self-driving car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no human input. They are sometimes called robotaxis, though this term refers specifica ...

named DEXTER which was team Team Case's entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge 2007, in which it placed in the top 20. Other vehicles in the collection include '' Tinkerbelle'', a small sailboat in which Robert Manry solo sailed across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

in 1965. Manry donated it to the Historical Society in 1967. In 2016, the museum's 1913

ALCO The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer that operated from 1901 to 1969, initially specializing in the production of locomotives but later diversifying and fabricating at various time ...

Model Six Berline Limousine won the

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...

Award at the

Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is an annual automotive event held on the Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California. It is widely considered the most prestigious car show in the world and it is the pinnacle ''Concours d'Elegance'' c ...

in California.

History

The collection began as the Thompson Products Auto Album, which was also founded by Crawford. Crawford explained that when he started collecting the cars, it was simply because it seemed a shame to let them be

scrap Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have monetary value, especially recover ...

ped, which was the typical fate of almost all antique machinery at the time. He saw value in saving a few historically significant examples. In 1990, the museum sold off almost 70 automobiles by putting them up for auction with

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

. To pay down debt, the museum sold or auctioned 44 cars in 2009, 24 of them through

RM Auctions RM Sotheby's is a collector car auction company headquartered in Blenheim, Ontario, Canada, with offices across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. The company specializes in the sale of classic, vintage, sports, and exotic cars, and ...

in October. The deaccessions proceeded over public protest and the objections of Kay Crawford, the widow of founder Frederick C. Crawford. The museum also sold a Goodyear F2G Corsair it had purchased from Walter Soplata and a

Airco DH.4 The Airco DH.4 is a British two-seat biplane day bomber of the First World War. It was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland (hence "DH") for Airco, and was the first British two-seat light day-bomber capable of defending itself. It was desig ...

originally acquired by Crawford. As of 2018, the museum featured two major exhibits: ''Setting the World in Motion,'' featuring cars and airplanes made in Northeast Ohio'','' and ''REVolution: The Automobile in America,'' telling the story of the automobile in America. The museum dismissed its director, Brad Brownell, in 2023 due to disagreements over object use philosophies.

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Aerospace museums in Ohio Automobile museums in Ohio Museums in Cleveland University Circle Museums established in 1965 1965 establishments in Ohio

Collections

History

See also

References

External links