Impressions of the Nethercutt Collection.

My buddy had 6 passes to the Nethercutt Collection so he invited my wife and i to go along on the guided tour. I must say that Mr. Nethercutt had extremely discriminating taste in automobiles.

The guided tour started in the basement which housed a sampling of items from the collection. mainly cars though. a number of pierce arrows, auburns, an early 1900's fire wagon, a 56 porsche, 23 chevy, [ackard, lincoln, stutz, etc.

we were then taken upstairs to the Grand Salon which housed more wonderful autos. a number of deusenbergs including a gorgeous dual cowl phaeton and the $20,000 car. built at the height of the depression (25% unemployment) for the World's Fair in 1933, this 1933 deusenberg had a sticker price of $20k in an era when an average car sold for approximately $500. today its worth roughly $8M. also included were franklins, hispano suizas, packard, etc... you get the idea.

the next floor contained some automobilia (just a portion of an extensive collection of hood ornaments) and a table FULL of Concours honors, but mostly antique furnishings. the top floor contained a variety of reproducing musical instruments including a nickelodeon, a number of grand orchestrians, a $500,000 Bosendorfer grand imperial piano and the third largest pipe organ in the world (roughly 5100 pipes) the entire organ requires approx 10,000 square feet to house it.

across the street is the museum. TONS of neat stuff. bugatti, daimler, cord, cadillac, lincoln, ford, oldsmobile, maybach, talbot logo, simplex, voisin, knox, and on and on. there was a wonderful cross section of automotive history. each FULLY restored and in PRISTINE condition.

I think the thing that struck me the most was the sheer size of the early autos. now granted they were basically building them around wagon wheels (30" plus diameter in some instances). i mean we're talking 8' tall cars here folks.

all in all, it is a TERRIFIC day trip. the museum is open to the public and free. the guided tour does require reservations which can be had online.

here are some pics....









I Think this was winfield's first paint job....
seriously though, this '30 ruxton front drive sedan is painted in FACTORY CORRECT color and scheme. pretty wild huh?

 

Bailon Built Merc with crazy cracking lacquer paint.... Bruce Meyer owned


Meyer 3W


Scritchfield '32 ... another Meyer


this one had a neat drilled '32 heavy axle

 

Incredible! Thanks for posting! I'd love to see as many pics as you have if you have them uploaded to an album?

Alex

 

It's a great place and I never get bored going.

 

Thank you for posting this, very impressive.

 

This isn't by chance the same Mr. Nethercutt that had Barris build him a chopped custom Oldsmobile in the 50's is it? I believe his name was Jack. With inclusion of some rods & customs in there, It got me thinking it may be the same guy.......

 

I highly recommend the museum, it's one of Los Angeles hidden treasures.
My wife and I spent nearly an entire day there, and didn't take in everything. It's free! Check it out.

 

Wow....I'd LOVE to go there!

 

I believe Jack was his son

 

i could have spent all day, but alas i had to take 3 kids to disneyland...

next time i'll go by myself and soak it all in.

oh yeah...

there's also a restored locomotive out back with a restored passenger car which was commissioned by a rich man's daughter for personal use.

This Mr. Nethercutt is J.B. Nethercutt. he was the owner of Merle Norman Cosmetics until he passed away. he started collecting in the 50's. LOTS of money in makeup apparently.

 

Wow - cool stuff

and as a bonus, I get rid of the "You haven't posted in a while message...."

 

Love these beautiful old cars.

 

Some of those French cars are just crazy!! I'd like to hot rod a Talbot one day....

 

actually the current owner is jack nethercutt , j.b 's son who did have a barris built car , the 'goldsmobile " , in the mid fifties . finders fee for anyone who can find the real car .

 

Those Talbot's WERE hot rods of the day! There engines used hemispherical combustion chambers long before Chrysler came up with the marketing name 'Hemi'.

 

oh, and i forgot to mention...
EVERY car in the collection is FULLY functional down to the clocks. they are each started and driven at least once a year and the collection is rotated regularly.

 

If you write a really nice letter before you go next time Mitch, you MAY get to see the workshop out back where they do all the restoration in-house....

They are regulars at Pebble Beach, the Ruxton needs to be seen in the sunshine to really appreciate the paint.

 

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Great pictures . . . I've been once and spent several hours there and still didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.

 

Hey,I had the privilege of seeing a couple of the Nethercutts cars at Hershey a couple of years back.Not sure if they brought a couple from California every year or not.IMHO they were the most unique and finest restorations on the showfield.diz

 

Seen several of the cars from the collection over the past few years at Hershey. I remember the Ruxton, pretty wild paint. If I remember correctly it was built for a Male "Interior Designer" when it was new....... I also remember seeing the '32 Maybach. Very impressive car! It has this neat thing on the headlight bar, it says Zeppelin, its pretty cool. Absolutely stunning car. even smells expensive! I remember my dad and I looking at it and thinking how drasticly different it was from a '32 Ford, the common mans car. Beautiful machinry.

 

Fantastic collection.........................one more for the bucket list.

Frank

 

What is this car? A friend of mine hired me to make a drawing several years ago of a similar car that her father owned before she was born. She's in her late 60's. She was told it was a 28 Graham-Paige. Always wanted to know for sure. I've never seen very many cars with the front fenders like that.
Thanks!

 

the grey car is a 1914 knox built in springfield massachusetts , wikipedia has good info . the ruxton is one of my favorite cars in the collection , it was reputedly built for jean harlow , the paint was designed by a new york theatre set decorator , the beutiful interior is silk corduroy by schumacher fabrics of new york . they were built at the old moon factory from pressings by budd body , arguably the first front drive american car , with a prototype running in 1928 , a year before cord's L-29.

 

a different view of the ruxton

 

A couple of year ago a friend and I took our wives on a mystery trip there on Valentines day. We never told them where we were going. I don't think they were too impressed when they realized we were at a car museum but it didn't take long before they were impressed and we all had a fantastic day. Don't forget about the train out back. I highly recommend a visit if you ever cat a chance! You have to book ahead, it is free.

This car was HUGE





We told them this is the one for short people....









I love the way this looks chopped.





So much cool stuff to see, and not just car stuff.

 

Thanks for the info on the Knox!
I saw a Ruxton at Auburn last year. Beautiful car!

 

Never been but it's on my list as its not far from me.
Is the Meyer 32 3/w the old Doyle Gammel car?