One Rainy Day in Tupelo

One of the last days we were in Tupelo, it was cool & rainy so we decided to go to a museum we had seen in town.  The Tupelo Automobile Museum is quite unique!  It is a collection of 150 automobiles, most of which I had never seen before.  The oldest was an 1888 Benz - it didn't really even look like an auto, but more like a motorized 3 wheeled bicycle.

They were collected by Frank Spain, who was a pioneer in TV.  He designed & had built the antenna, transmitter, cameras and all ancillary equipment for the Tupelo TV station and started broadcasting in 1957.  Later, he became one of the partners in MCI.

Frank Spain's curator was Max Berryhill, who assisted him in locating & purchasing the autos.   He also designed and oversaw the building of the museum.

Most of the cars had little speaker boxes (on top of the red post) that you pushed a button on and it told you about the car.

All of the autos are beautifully restored.

I loved the color!

I remember hearing about "Woodys"

Some of the cars were very rare.  This is a 1948 Tucker - only 51 Tuckers were made.

My favorite - the 1957 Corvette!

This is called a Barrister Corvette & was owned by Liberace.

Back to the Future anyone?

And, of course, this being Tupelo, there had to be an Elvis connection!  This is a 1976 Lincoln that Elvis bought and presented to his friend, who was a police Captain in charge of Elvis's security when he was in Denver.  We had seen the check Elvis wrote to the dealership for $13, 386.89 at the museum.