Friday, October 23, 2015

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the annual 500, has more than just the track. Nestled within is a marvelous museum that not only boasts all of the winning cars (more on those at the end of next week) but also a number of other interesting and significant automobiles such as this 1922 Davis Four Door Touring Series 71.
There's also this 1920 Stutz H Bulldog Touring. Stutz, if you didn't already know, was one of the many auto makers who worked out of Indiana. The Davis was assembled in Richmond, IN.
Another Indianapolis car is this 1914 Marmon Model 48 Roadster. Below is a Stoddard Dayton which was the pace car for not only the very first 500 in 1911 but also served the same duty in 1913 and 1914.
  Also on display is an example of a Novi, the first front wheel drive car to run the race which they did from 1946 through 1954.
There is also a famous 1965 Ferrari LM which was driven to victory at that year's 24 hour race at LeMans by two American drivers.
This is a fabulous 1907 Italia Grand Prix racer that performed well throughout Europe and especially in England. One of these cars recorded a lap of 101.8 miles per hour in 1910. For the time that was unheard of speed.
Another European Grand Prix car is this 1908 Mercedes whose four cylinder engine has a displacement of 805.8 cubic inches.
The Buick racing team, driving cars similar to this 1909 Buick, won four of the events at the inaugural racing event at the IMS. One of the team members that year was a man named Louis Chevrolet.
This 1912 Fiat finished second in that year's 500. Driver Teddy Tetzlaff averaged 76.6 miles per hour for the 500 miles.
This is an original three wheel car built by Frenchman Leon Bollee who raced it from Paris to Marseille on Sept. 14, 1896.
This is just a small sampling of the cars that are on display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum (http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/at-the-track/museum).








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