During your visit to the Tupelo Automobile Museum, enjoy a self-guided tour of over 100 of the 150 cars in the Museum’s collection featured in the 120,000 sq. ft. facility’s displays and open viewing restoration bays. In the Tupelo Automobile Museum Gift Shop, you can enjoy a unique shopping experience.
Tupelo Automobile Museum Collection
As you explore displays and viewing restoration bays, antique, classic and collectible automobiles, valued at over $6 million, chronicle the progress of over 100 years of automobile design and engineering from an 1886 Benz that represents the birth of the automobile, to the 1994 Dodge Viper that has never been driven. Highlights within the Tupelo car museum’s collection include a rare Tucker, a 1916 Owen Magnetic, a 1929 Dusenberg Model J, a Lincoln purchased by Elvis Presley and other movie and celebrity vehicles such as Hispano Suizas.
1948 Tucker
The 1948 Tucker was created by Preston Tucker, who surprised everyone with “The most completely new car in 50 years,” a torpedo-shaped fastback 4 door sedan. Learn about the features of the “Car of the Future,” including its all independent suspension, a rear mounted flat 6 derived from a wartime helicopter engine and the first fully sealed water cooling system. While lack of time and money made the a curved windshield, disc brakes, torsilastic rubber springs and other innovations proposed by Tucker impossible, the car still featured many novelties such as the central Cyclops-eye headlight that turned with the front wheels and doors cut into the roof to ease entry and exit.
1916 Owen Magnetic
Learn about the mechanics of one of the most unusual cars of all time, the 1916 Owen Magnetic. Selling for $6,000 during a time you could buy a Ford for $350, the 1916 Owen Magnetic was one of the most expensive cars in America when it first came out. Unfortunately, Owen Magnetic did not survive past the 1920s although celebrities such as Enrico Caruso and John McCormack were owners.
1929 Duesenberg “J”
See one of the finest automobiles ever created, the 1929 Duesenberg Model J. Built by Fred and August Duesenbeg, the exotic car was known for its straight-eight engine that was four feet long with dual overhead cams and 4 valves per cylinder, propelling the car to well over 100 miles per hour. Duesenberg lasted from 1929 to 1936 producing 470 chasses and 480 engines in its time. Today Duesenbergs sell for over a million dollars.
Elvis Presley 1976 Lincoln
The King of Rock and Roll purchased the 1976 Lincoln Mark IV from the Kumpf Lincoln Mercury Dealership in Denver, Colorado for the price of $13,386.69 in 1976. That same year, Elvis generously gifted the car that now sits in the Tupelo Automobile Museum to close friend Jerry Kennedy.
Hispano Suiza 1922 H6B
Originated in Spain, but also manufactured in France, Hispano Suiza was known for the quality of their H6 model, first introduced at the 1919 Paris Motor Show. This luxury automobile’s engine, the outcome of the firm’s experience of aircraft engine manufacture during World War I, provided 135 brake horsepower at 3,000 RPM. The engine developed such excellent low speed torque that 6 to 50 MPH in top gear only took 21 seconds.
- Be sure to stop by the Tupelo Automobile Museum Gift Store featuring all kinds of speciality items from die-cast toy cars to vintage memorabilia.
- Special interest automotive exhibits support the Museum’s permanent displays throughout the year.