When my middle daughter read about the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Secret Boston, a book by Kiernan Schmitt, she said we must go there at once, so we did.
The museum is in a lovely park setting in Brookline, Massachusetts, a few miles west of Boston. We found America’s Oldest Car Collection displayed in a carriage house that was built in 1888 for Lars and Isabel Anderson in the style of a French chateau.
The current special exhibit features “Cars of Japan.” Parked in the Main Hall were an NSX, a 240Z, an RX-7, and various other combinations of letters and numbers. However I did not linger in the hall for more than a minute, because I’d spied through a brick archway something that made my pulse quicken.
Yes, it was a Curbside Classic favorite – a Subaru 360! This one was a 1970 model, a thousand pounds of steel and fiberglass with an air-cooled 356cc, two-stroke, two-cylinder engine that produced all of 25 horsepower. The car had rear-hinged doors of the type that you do not want to open accidentally while racing down the highway at top speed. (Top speed is described as 60 MPH, a number which seems optimistic.)
But wait! There’s more! Parked next to the 360 was a 1971 Honda Z600, whose 598cc two-cylinder engine churned out 36 mighty horsepower. Can you believe that this four-wheeled motorcycle was the immediate predecessor of the amazing 1973 Civic, the subcompact that established Honda as a serious carmaker?
Both the 360 and the Z600 brought back memories of the International Auto Show in the New York Coliseum, which I visited more than once when these little cars first arrived in America.
I do not remember ever seeing a Sambar before. It’s a Subaru 360 with a mini-minivan body, the same engine as the 360, and the same length: 118 inches. And, as you can see, it’s less than one daughter tall. All three of these kei-cars were on loan courtesy of Charles Gould, who deserves special mention as he has excellent taste in automobiles.
I believe that the cars in the downstairs garage are kept on trickle-chargers at all times so they’re always ready to roll. (There must be a Rolls-Royce joke I could make, but I can’t think of it at the moment. That’s a 1959 Silver Cloud in the corner.)
There it is, up close. On a tough to shoot corner.
This was my favorite artifact on display: a 1909 Jones Live-Map, one of the earliest navigational devices, which you’d connect to your car’s odometer cable. Do you want to go to Albany? Place the appropriate celluloid disk on the machine’s turntable, which rotates slowly as you tootle down the road. The pointer will tell you whether to “Turn left” in Stuyvesant Falls or “Pass through crossroads.”
The Jones Live-Map cost $75 in 1909; the equivalent of $3,000 today. Despite its eye-watering price tag, it did not give you up-to-date traffic reports.
A 1906 Charron-Girodot et Voight must be a French car, n’est-ce pas? The rear seat converted into a bed for long-distance journeys, and there were available to the passengers a wash basin and toilet, too. (I wished we had these amenities in our Toyota when we drove home from the museum in heavy traffic on Routes 9 and 128.)
The museum signs were most informative. The sign for the CGV says that the crank appears to have been sawed off by a disgruntled chauffeur weary of hand-cranking the engine at a time when other cars had electric starters. I read elsewhere that Isabel Anderson liked her battery-operated electric cars because she could start and drive them herself.
There was no sign for this car, which had the most amazing whitewall tires.
This 1912 Renault 40CV Victoria Phaeton had a six-cylinder 9.1-litre engine. That’s 557 cubic inches, a displacement equivalent to twenty-five Subaru 360s.
The sign for the Renault informed me that “during the late 1920s, the Andersons had many of their cars ‘toned down,’ presumably to hide their opulence. The brass was painted over and fancy paintwork was covered in black or grey.”
The admission price for the non-profit Larz Anderson Car Museum has gone up a little since it first opened. You may want to time your visit to coincide with a “Lawn Event” in warmer weather, between May and October. Swedish Car Day in the summer of 2024 was one such special event, ably described by Curbside Classic contributor Jeff Sun.
P.S. My wife liked the museum, too.
Nice to finally see inside the Larz Anderson collection
Do they still have in the ground level the original electric car charging apparatus? I remember seeing that when visiting a number of decades ago. It was a tall contraption that could have been in a Frankenstein movie set laboratory. It seemed Isabel preferred the electric as no cranking was required. Presumably there was staff to handle the dangerous looking recharging equipment for her.
Visiting in nice weather when lawn events occur is definitely a good plan.
Yes they do. See my article on Swedish Car Day linked in THISWAS’s for a photo of that device. It definitely looks like something that should be attached to lightning rods on the roof of the Coach House.
Did this museum exist in the early 2000s?
I was out Boston way a couple of times on business back then and was always on the lookout for places to visit. This would have made my list. Not sure when I’ll get out there in future although I could work it in with a trip to the Smithsonian.
The museum website refers to a “Grand Opening over sixty years ago”; Wikipedia says they returned to the current location in the 1980s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larz_Anderson_Auto_Museum
Great article and I’m glad you enjoyed your visit!
I’ve always thought that the Larz Anderson is a pretty enigmatic car museum. It has some things in its permanent collection that would be difficult to find all in the same place together anywhere else, but there’s also a general lack of information provided on quite a few of those automotive artifacts. The special exhibits shown on the main floor (e.g., the Cars of Japan exhibit) often have some pretty outstanding vehicles, but I nearly always find myself wishing that there was more to learn about the cars than just being able to look at a few pretty cars from my side of the rope line. And those cars in the basement “work area” have always been a mystery to me. They are never the same from one visit to the next, which makes me think that they’re not actually part of the museum collection and yet there’s no explanation as to what they are or why they’re there. It’s a kind of fascinating mystery.
I think that the main problem is that there are likely very few people working at the museum period and perhaps those who are there are more oriented to organizing events than interpreting the historical significance of the artifacts. Granted, I’ve mostly visited on weekends, but I’ve never seen any museum interpretive staff…just the person behind the desk who takes your admission. That said, it’s a really nice extra thing to do when you visit for one of the terrific car shows they host throughout the summer. If you get a chance to go for one of their “Lawn Event” shows from the spring through early fall each year, you should do it.
Yes, I wanted to be able to walk all around the cars, for example to look inside the Subaru 360.
And we did have a question that the lady on duty could not answer. We saw that at least two of the early 1900s cars had circular plain glass windows in their dashboards, two each set side-by-side like binoculars looking into the engine compartment. We wondered if they were intended to let the driver see if the engine was on fire? But why would they need two? I regret I didn’t take pictures or make notes of which cars had this feature.
I had gone many years back in october on a Swedish car day. Driving my 240 volvo up three hours each way from Poughkeepsie NY. First time I had met Irv Gordon the 3 million mile man with his very cool 1800 sport volvo.. Explained to him that the first volvo I had ever driven was my cousins 1800 sport convertble which was converted at volvovillle dealership on long island.. Same one he had bought his red beauty at.. He said he had wanted the vert but couldn’t afford it on his teacher salary.. He did okay with his little coupe. The museum at that time only featured about 5 very early cars.. Nice to see they now feature some great displays.. That chilly October day was a great experience, actually had early snow flurries on my way home.. .. Will have to make it a point to return there, now my son and his family live west of Boston.. Sounds like a road trip is due..
I stumbled upon this Museum during one of my visits to Boston when I worked for Computervision. I got to see a Selden, and an impressive view of Boston.
Nice to see this museum is still going .
I visited in 1965 or so, I was well pleased .
-Nate
I visited for a few years ago. the had a sale on lovely car designers books, Real cheap. Bought a few. I really enjoyed the visit! nice to see it mentioned here.
I am forced to admit that I haven’t been there recently, but I visited several times in the 1990’s. Two (2) friends held their wedding and wedding reception there. Another friend started making out with his girlfriend (now wife) in the 1959 Cadillac El Dorado Convertible that used to be in the basement during the reception, allegedly because his girlfriend said she had never made out in the back seat of a car, so he took pains to change that, LOL! The Caddy was part of the Anderson’s personal collection, red, with a two-tone red and white interior. IIRC, the Anderson’s were related to Bill Weld, a former Governor of Massachusetts! I think that Mrs. Anderson’s maiden name was Weld, so she was Bill Weld’s aunt!
During one (1) visit, Ford previewed the then brand-new 1994 Mustang on Mustang Day, the successor to the Fox-Body Mustangs.
The collection changes regularly, with items on-loan rotating with cars that the Andersons owned over the years. A definite must for any car enthusiast. I’ll go back again this summer, maybe during Miata Day.
That building was a horse barn and a carriage house. There is a tack room still there and evidence of horse stalls. Yes they parked the carriages in there as well.
The original manse burned down many many years ago.
Actually, the associated estate didn’t burn down, it was torn down by the Town of Brookline (MA). Isabel left the property to the town (not having any heirs who wanted it…a common thing with Guilded Age properties at it turns out) upon her death in 1948 and the property fell into disrepair. The town tore it down about 10 years later as it was just too hazardous to leave standing. I’m not sure exactly how the Carriage House managed to be saved (perhaps because it was full of the Anderson’s cars?), but it was and the museum was founded not that much later.
There are some photos and a bit of text (the rest can be found elsewhere online) on the Brookline Historical Society’s page about the estate: https://brooklinehistoricalsociety.org/archives/listPhotos.asp?mainList=archives&subList=Larz
And yes, Isabel Anderson was originally Isabel Weld Perkins. Her family wealth was from the Welds…who are indeed the same Welds as Bill Weld. I think I have links to all of that story in my post (of all things) on Swedish Car day.
yes Jeff, it’s quite a setting on the hill. I was aware of the Weld connection. I lived close to Boston in the 90s and went to the museum almost every year. I grew up on a farm and saw the evidence of horse stalls right away, as you walk in the door they were at the far end.
The bookstore was great as someone mentioned. I picked up a few car brochures from the 50s for very short money among other things.
I never knew about this museum. I will visit it when I can.
I regret never visiting this museum on several trips to Boston to visit family. My mother actually lived in Brookline for a while and our relatives were in Newton. As a child I recall having a brochure from one of the shows, and we did see one of Arthur Fiedler’s fire engines and rode the PCC trolley cars.
Well, I’m not sure what happened to Arthur Fiedler’s fire engines (although that ought to be a CC post…hummmmmm…..), but you can come back to Boston and still ride a PCC trolley car. The Mattapan Line (Orange Line) still runs them!
I haven’t been there in years, I need to go back sometime.