Motoring Memories

The road sign advertising John and Clarissa Dudley's Roaring Twenties Antique Car Museum on Va. 230 north of Stanardsville is rather an understatement.

Sure, it boasts 32 vintage care on display, but it doesn't mention a thing about the thousands of other relics that also can be found inside the warehouse-sized complex.

These aren't your everyday museum pieces either. Take for instance the 1947 Westinghouse color television set - the first one off the assembly line. Or the 1890 wooden garden hose reel that Dudley said, "someone just failed to bust up."

No, these are antiques that most people wouldn't have thought to save. That is, not until modern times, when you visit the museum and Dudley begins showing you around.

"This is the original color set, the first one Westinghouse produced for sale," Dudley said, pointing at the set with a screen about the size of a book. "It has 42 tubes in it - it

The cars are the main attraction though, and they are quite a sight. Inside the main

showroom, these automobiles of yesteryear stand, row upon row, bumper to bumper, not gleaming and flawless, but much the way they had looked when they were transporting

"The wife and I have tried not to make this a sterile car museum like most of them," Dudley said.

"You know the type of car museum I'm talking about, where people come to pray in front of

"Our cars are like they were in the '20s when they were being used," Dudley said. "Take this one for instance," he said, pointing out a 1923 Stephens Salent Six. "This is one of only 16 surviving. Or this 1920 Dodge, a real beauty, isn't it?"

There are unusual ones too, like a small red car that looks somewhat like a little Nash Rambler.

"This is a 1948 Playboy, I bought from Bill Harrah who had the car museum in Reno, Nevada. Most of the care are from the '20s but I have some unusual ones like the Playboy which is one of only two in existence," Dudley said.

"It was made in Buffalo, New York, all handmade," he said. "Its advertising slogan was, 'Hey boy, is that a Playboy?' I thought that was pretty cute."

For every car, Dudley has a story. A 1927 Essex pickup is the same model used in the movie, "The Grapes of Wrath." A 1928 Chrysler Model 72 has armrests in the rear rumble seat, the only car made with such a feature. Then there is the 1936 Hupp, which only has 14,000 miles on it.

"I bought the Hupp from an old woman who had been a nurse," Dudley said. "She told me she only bad it so she didn't have to depend on people to get around, but she rarely drove it. She told me to bring a battery and I could drive it away. It still runs great."

Among these plush and regal machines, there's a car that looks a lot like the futuristic draft board conceptions of the manufacturers.

With a dome-shaped top and futuristic styling, one example looks incongruous among the large black sedans and touring cars that were the "cat's meow" more than a half century ago.

"It's a 1936 Surlesmobile, and the car manufacturers of today haven't caught up to it yet," Dudley said. There were two schools of thought back then when building a car. Build a car and then improve on it each year, or as Don Surles, who built this car, thought, build it as well as you can right now.

"The doors open electronically. If it was in an accident, it had a 90 percent chance of rolling back up on its wheels, and it has a disappearing tailgate that Chevrolet put into their station wagons many years later - matter of fact, according to Surles, about 30 days after his patent for it lapsed," Dudley said.

The oldest car in Dudley's collection is a 1904 Carter Electric Motorette, which is the only one known to exist. It had a 20 mile range and could reach speeds of 18 mph.

"It was perfect for women because you didn't have to crank it like other cars of the trine," Dudley said. "Women couldn't crank over the cars back then - heck, a lot of men couldn't either."

Beaming with pride, Dudley goes from car to car, pointing out features like the coffin-door handles on a 1924 Cleveland, or the cut glass rear windows in a vintage Dodge and the 1925 Hupp that he and his wife pieced back together during a two-year period.

"Now here's a real beauty for you," Dudley said, pointing out a graceful, huge black sedan that sported several small American flags in a holder attached to the radiator cap. "This is a 1922 Hudson. When you drive something like this, you feel like the captain of a ship"'

One of Dudley's favorites is a 1925 Studebaker that was dubbed the Whiskey Six, because it was a favorite with bootleggers of the era for hauling illegal booze.

The Dudleys first opened their museum in 1967 and they estimate that they have owned more than 700 cars. The museum is open by appointment, but that's a plus because Dudley conducts the tours and his knowledge of the cars and artifacts is as fascinating as the items he loves to show to guests.

A little car stands in a corner and Dudley gives it an affectionate pat. A sign next to it reads, "The little car that tried and tried."

"It was made in 1947, and people would make fun of it," Dudley said. "But I'll tell you it's a good little car. It has an overhead cam, disc brakes and developed 27 horsepower. The engine weighs only 57 pounds."

If the cars are the main attraction, the endless array of everything from old lawnmowers to turn of the century advertising signs could keep a visitor browsing for days.

There are signs like Rock Creek Ginger Ale, which called their 16-ounce bottle "Sweet Sixteen." And Cash Value chewing tobacco which claims that "The longer you chew it, the better it tastes."

"Here you go, you got a cavity in a tooth, fill it yourself," Dudley chuckled, pointing out a small box with the name Dent-Zel-Ite. "Why give your money to a dentist when for 15 cents you can fill that hole yourself?

"I don't say that a lot of this stuff has any great value, but you can't find it anywhere else," Dudley said, as he pointed out item after item. "What do you think of my cap gun collection" These go way back.

"Now look here," Dudley said, placing a hand on a 1930 Maytag washing machine. "Do you know why Maytag was a woman's best friend? I'll tell you, these people were smart. If men had to work as hard on the farm as women did, they would have all left.

"Well sir, the Maytag people knew this and they also knew that a woman only used the clothes washer maybe once or twice a week," Dudley said. "So look here, they made a meat grinder attachment, a butter churn, apple peeler, and a sausage stuffer. Ten different attachments in all."

One could spend days just going through the collection of old jukeboxes, radios, games from the 1800s, glassware, magazines, thick phonograph records, and odds and ends that defy categorization.

It's like Fibber McGee's closet," Dudley chuckled, "I don't drink and I don't smoke, so what else is there to do? When I first started to collect this stuff, people were laughing at me. They're not laughing anymore."

Appointments to me the museum can be made by calling Dudley at (703) 9486290.

In Foreground, 1925 Star Taxi which John Dudley says are very hard to find.