California Automobile Museum in Sacramento, California is really a neat and unique car museum. Although the museum is located in a unassuming warehouse that can get chilly, it’s called a hidden treasure for good reason.
The museum houses 150 classic cars in 72000 sq ft of space. Docents share information about the cars as you walk around. The docents and the car labels give a perspective on why certain features of the cars were important.
The museum was founded in 1983 as the California Vehicle Foundation and opened to the public as Towe Ford Museum in 1987. It displayed the largest collection of Fords in the world, courtesy of Montana banker, Edward Towe. In the mid-90’s, the IRS put a lien on the cars because of a tax dispute with Edward Towe. A 1997 auction broke up the Ford Collection and the museum became the Towe Auto Museum displaying vehicles of all makes and models. And in 2009, the Board of Directors officially changed the name of the museum to the California Auto Museum since it didn’t house the Towe collection anymore.
25% of the vehicles are currently owned by the California Vehicle Foundation. The rest are displayed by private exhibitors.
The extra information about the cars really make the museum interesting. They also have an ice cream parlor inside the building and some of the cars on display are for sale.
