The Collector

The average car collector has one or two special interest cars at home besides his daily drivers.

John Dudley has well over 100 scattered around in the main building, workshops, sheds and corrals of his Roaring Twenties Antique Car Museum in Hood.

Unlike some car collectors, Dudley is not a rich guy trying to recapture his youth through a hobby. Dudley came by his cars the old fashioned way.

The same goes for the 150-or-so stationary engines, garden tractors, horse-drawn wagons, gas and lubrication pumps, gas station signs, outboard motors, antique phonographs, department store dummies and the odd player piano and old juke box that make up one of the most eclectic collections this side of the Smithsonian.

“Some people only collect cars. I collect the related things too,” said Dudley, who is a walking encyclopedia on almost any American automobile built before 1970.

Dudley started his first car collection when he was discharged from the Army after World War II. “I was still living at home, in Glen Olden, Pennsylvania, and pretty soon there was no place for my father to park his car,” Dudley said.

“I had a bunch of Fords and Willys. For $15 you could buy almost any car around,” Dudley said, explaining that many retired people put their cars up during wartime rationing and decided they were too old to drive after the war ended.

“A guy in his 70s had a 1928 or 1929 Marmon that was like new. He said, I can no longer drive it. I like you to have it for $50.”

“I had to tell him I didn’t have the room to keep it,” Dudley said.

Like hunters and fishermen, anyone who likes cars has stories about the one that got away. But passing up that Marmon in the late 1940s seems to have had a profound effect on John Dudley.

Although he sold off his first collection of six or seven cars in the early 1950s, Dudley hasn’t let a lot of irresistible deals pass him by since then.

“The basic antique car buyer is your average working guy who has his bills paid and is looking for something different,” Dudley said. “I don't deal with many big people.”

When Dudley and his wife Clarissa lived in Northern Virginia, his second collection got up to five cars.

Things accelerated in the mid-1960s, however, when the Dudleys moved to a farm near Hood that had been in Clarissa’s family for several generations.

In 1967, the Dudleys opened their museum with 18 cars and it has been growing ever since. There are now 33 cars in the main museum, 13 cars in Dudley’s personal collection, and another 78 restorable or parts cars in the sheds and corrals out back. Need parts for your 1947 Hudson or 1950 Packard? Dudley’s got two of each model.

There are no Bentleys or Bugattis in the Roaring 20s inventory. Dudley remains loyal to American cars, although he drives to the landfill and runs errands in an aging Toyota pickup.

There are no high-dollar Duesenbergs or Pierce Arrows, either. “I don’t buy cars to impress people. I buy them because I like them. I don't give a damn if they impress people,” Dudley said.

And it's hard to not to be impressed, even if cars are not your thing. There are Cadillacs and Packards, and rare models from higher-volume manufacturers that you can see nowhere else.

Take, for instance, the crimson 1948 Playboy retractable hardtop that greets visitors near the entrance. The Playboy company made as many as 80 convertibles, but only mere handful with retractable metal hardtops, an idea Ford revived a decade after the Playboy bit the dust.

Engineer Don Surles designed the aerodynamic car which made maximum use of space in 1937. It looks like an ancestor of the modern mini van.

The side doors are electronically operated and split to slide into the roof and under the body.

Surles was caught up in the W.W.II draft and did not build his sleek car until 1945. Stationed in Japan, he commissioned the Tokyo Bus Works to build it from surplus Jeep parts.

Dudley notes that the bus builders didn't speak much English and Surles didn't know Japanese, so a few design details were lost in the translation. But it is still a remarkably modern vehicle with seating for eight and electrically operated sliding side doors..

When he returned stateside, Surles took his revolutionary car to all of the major manufacturers, who turned thumbs down. Although the big three didn't buy Surles concept, one of its features later turned up on a Chevy station wagon, Dudley notes.

Dispirited, Surles moved to Northern Virginia and stuck his concept car in the family garage. Dudley looked Surles up in 1966 after reading a newspaper article about the car.

I told him about my museum and he gave it to me, Dudley said. He'd had offers from politicians who wanted to campaign in it, but he said they'd make something grotesque out of it.

The Playboy, Surlesmobile and a 1947 Crosley are the newest cars in the main museum building. Most of the collection is of 1920-1939 vintage.

“Every one in here is either a rare car or a rare body style,” Dudley said proudly.

He points to a 1924 Cadillac V-8 seven-passenger phaeton that was used as a parade car by the City of Flushing, New York. Unrestored, it still sparkles in black lacquer, brass and chrome.

The big open car rode on 22-inch wheels stretched out on a 134-inch wheelbase. “It would cruise comfortably with seven passengers at 55 miles per hour and give you 12-14 miles per gallon,” said Dudley, who contends modern cars are only about 20 percent more efficient than the automobiles in his museum.

A 1925 Star 4 still carries the livery of the Miller Taxi Company of Westminister, Md. “Star outsold Ford and Chevy in rugged parts of the country, where it was reliable and good in the mud,” Dudley said.

“There were two in Culpeper, two in Madison and one in Greene County.”

“The farmer in Greene County drove his Star into a garage one cold

morning and complained that he barely made it in -- it was running so terrible.”

“They opened the hood and a chicken popped out. It had roosted on the warm engine the night before and when the farmer started the car the next morning the chicken jumped back and forth on the spark plug wires, causing the engine to stumble,” Dudley said.

The 1929 Model 96-A Whippet is a rumble seat sports coupe with an elegant dog mascot on the radiator cap.

“They used to say, for a short trip, take a Whippet. For a long trip, take the Greyhound,” Dudley quipped.

Another unusual car is the 1925 Studebaker Speed 6 Duplex. Although called a roadster, the top is actually a predecessor of the 1950s hardtops. The car has two clutches, one for starting and a ton-and-a-half truck clutch for shifting gears. You can also change the oil without getting under the car, Dudley noted.

Powerful and rugged, the Speed 6 was favored by bootleggers and lawmen.

Dudley’s bright blue model with double hung spares and window shades was once owned by the Sheriff of Marion County, W.Va.

A new addition to the collection is a 1914 “Brass-Rad” Model T Ford roadster. It is distinguished from run-of-the-mill Model Ts by its factory-original polished brass radiator.

One of the sportiest-looking cars in the collection is the red 1922 Buick 6-cylinder, Chummy Roadster. A two-seater, this car was designed to appeal to the younger driver with some cash to spend on transportation.

“There's an old ad in the New Yorker showing a dashing young couple going down the road in a cloud of dust. The girl is driving and the guy has a bottle in one hand and is waving a flag with another. It gave you a pedigree when you had a car like this,” Dudley said.

Dudley admits a fondness for Buicks... and Packards... and Cadillacs... and Studebakers.

“In West Virginia, gas stations and garages were few and far between. My uncle said if your car broke down and a Buick came by, it had the power to pull you in,” said Dudley, who found many of his treasures in West Virginia, where he has family. They were gas thirsty, but never drank oil. Buick always was a good car,

The mannequins in the Roaring Twenties Museum are older than the automobiles they adorn. “They came from the Golden Rule Store in Billington, W.Va.,” Dudley noted. “That young girl there is over 100 years old.”

Mannequins, Victrolas, gas-powered washing machines, ancient weed eaters, and other paraphernalia are scattered around the museum and its annexes in what may seem like some a haphazard fashion.

Yet they somehow blend together in a delightful collage of nostalgia. And Dudley knows at least something about every item.

Many of the autos and assorted machines are unrestored or spiffied up by Dudley’s own hand. None are in the sort of “better than new” restored condition that some collectors favor.

“Basically, I like unrestored cars,” Dudley said. “Some car museums are like a mausoleum.”

Most of Dudley collectibles are in excellent, but original condition. They show a little wear around the edges.

Some of his favorite cars are in a separate building. If Dudley senses that a visitor is sufficiently interested, he will give him a bonus tour. This side collection changes every year. Deletions and additions occur when Dudley swaps one car for another one, or sells one to finance the purchase of another.

His personal collection now includes a spiffy coffee and cream (black and yellow) 1952 Packard Deluxe Sedan. It has only 49,000 miles and its big straight eight is clean enough to eat off of.

Another new acquisition is an all-original 1940 Cadillac Fleetwood Town Sedan that Dudley believes was the staff car of Admiral Ernest Joseph King, the Chief of U.S. Naval Operations during World War II.

Dudley believes it was an army staff car that was repainted in Navy Blue for the Admiral's use. When he tried to get the car started, he discovered a special switch that cuts off all electricity to the vehicle. It's a great antitheft device, Dudley noted.

Tough, exacting and publicity shy, King earned the enmity of many of his more flamboyant subordinates by carrying out President Roosevelt's orders to make winning the European War his first priority, Dudley said.

In one way, the King Cadillac makes up for a car Dudley missed out on as a young man. After the war, a dealer in Washington advertised a bunch of ex-Navy vehicles for sale, including a Chevrolet for $200. I went down there and they didn't have a $200 Chevy on the lot, he said.

Admiral King's car cost him a lot more than $200, but Dudley can now say he owns a former Navy vehicle.

Each of his cars has a story to it and all of those stories are filed away in their owner's remarkable memory.

At 72 years of age, Dudley still works on his cars and museum grounds until sundown.

In the last couple of years, Dudley has plunged into the restoration of gasoline and lubrication pumps. He has also restored soft drink vending machines, including the one at Roaring Twenties Antiques, the store his daughter Martha runs on Route 29, just south of Madison at Oak Hill.

Despite his vow that he'd like to get his collection down to two or three cars some day, there's plenty to look at now and in the foreseeable future at The Roaring Twenties Antique Car Museum.

The Roaring Twenties Automobile Museum is located on Route 230, just South of Hood, between Madison and Stanardsville. It is open, by appointment, seven days a week. Admission is $5. (540) 948-6290.

Roaring Twenties Antiques, which also has a lot of automotive memorabilia, as well as toys, dolls, books and other collectibles, is located on U.S. 29 at Oak Hill, south of the Town of Madison. It is open Thursday-Sunday, Mondays- May thru December, Closed January, (540) 948-3744.