Volo Museum – Virtual Tour!

Jim Wojdyla - Marketing Director for Volo Museum

Established in 1960 by the Grams family, the Volo Auto Museum is an automobile museum and collector car dealer in the Chicago suburb of Volo, Illinois, USA. The museum contains an exhibit of collectors' autos from vintage to modern classics, with the main focus being American cars of the 1950–1980 period, TV and movie cars, bizarre cars, cars previously owned by the rich and famous, and a large, one-of-a-kind, Disney and Looney Tunes characters display.

Contact: Jim Wojdyla at jim@volofun.com | N/A | Visit Online!

            

• The history/backstory/founding of the Museum
• Different sections of the museum to include sales and Jurassic gardens. What are some of your favorite exhibits?
• Duesenbergs – let’s talk about classics
• TV & Movie cars (Batmobile, Herbie, etc) – how does one go about acquiring a former “movie star”
• Costs/Details, etc about visiting the museum. What are your plans for expansion? 
• Buying/Selling cars – Are all the cars in the museum for sale? What types of cars do you sell? 

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related.

The following episode is brought to us in cooperation with the Volo Museum. This episode is a virtual tour of the museum. Its facilities, all the different features that it has to offer. If you’d like to get the behind the scenes video version of this virtual tour, be sure to log on to www.patreon.comslashgtmotorsportsorcheckoutvolocars.com today and reserve your tickets to visit the museum in person.

Do you ever find yourself flipping through the channels and stumble across something that keeps you glued to a show that you’ve never considered watching before? That’s exactly what happened to me. I landed on an episode of American Pickers on History Channel, and much to my surprise, they were visiting something known as the Volo Museum.

And for those that don’t know, the Volo [00:01:00] Museum was established in 1960 by the Grams family in the Chicago suburb of Volo, Illinois. It houses 45 exhibits, over 15,000 historical items, and over 400 rotating classic and collector cars, ranging from the 1920s to modern mossel. And joining us to talk about the museum is Jim Wade, marketing director for the Volo Museum.

That’s right folks, and with me co-hosting tonight is Mountain Man Ban and so wanna welcome him as well. So Jim, thank you for taking the time to take us on this virtual tour and discuss the origin and the evolution of the Volvo Museum. So welcome to Break Fix. I appreciate that. Thank you for having me guys.

I’m excited for this. So let’s kick it off like we always do with break fix and talk about the origin of the Volo Museum. So walk us through how it all got started back in the sixties and why. Volo Illinois has, I think one stoplight. It’s super tiny. It’s right on the border of Illinois in Wisconsin, and it’s just kind of a farmland.

So this family bought this farm, kind of turned it into an antique thing, so they were flipping antiques. The sons of this couple helped with the antique [00:02:00] farm, then started tinkering with cars, mostly like Model Ts. They were kind of junky, but. They’d fix ’em up, flip ’em and make a thousand bucks on ’em or 500 bucks on ’em and realize that there could be some money.

This, especially for, you know, a college kid. So they just kept doing it and doing it and flipping them and flipping ’em. And eventually they started really getting into some really cool stuff. The more and more that they were seeing this and more and more, their reputation started to expand. A lot of people wanted to come by and just check out the cars and not even buying ’em, cuz they were just getting such cool stuff in.

So then they started to charge $1 for admission to come in, and it was a Volo Auto Museum. So basically they were fixing cars up and flipping ’em, and at the same time selling ’em. They were having people come in and kind of check out the cars. So that just kept growing and growing. So for the next 30 years, it just expanded into this machine and then.

Their sons took over. So the one son, Jay Grahams took over the auto sale side and then Brian Grahams took over the museum side. He was a car guy, but he was in the Hollywood and the show and the cool stuff. And he, he was just, that’s really where he found his passion. So he started to add bats and cars from Miami Vice and Duke’s a hazard and just really started to find these Hollywood [00:03:00] cars.

And then that drew a whole different audience that they didn’t have. Cause if you weren’t a car person, you weren’t interested in coming here. Well now, even if you’re not a car person, most people like movies. So now it’s drawing in this new realm of people. And then eventually they. Got into boats and planes and trains and then carousels and dinosaurs and campers, and it just started morphing into this a d d Paradise.

So there’s literally something for everyone here. Now, so you’re mentioned like TV and movie cars, like Batmobile and everything. So how did they go about acquiring a former movie star car to bring on to the premise and show, and is it loaned out to them or how does that go and what’s, what’s your favorite one of all the ones that have been there?

I’d say about half to 60% of the cars are what they call hero cars. So that’s the car that they actually, the actors use in the movie. Sometimes some of the movies have four or five versions of the car. So we have both Fast and Furious and Ford versus Ferrari exhibits that we’re building right now. So you can see behind, so this is the ice charger that Vin Diesel used.

It shoots flames out of the pipes here. So you can see this pipe here. And then there’s one over on this side. I’ll walk over really quick as I’m [00:04:00] talking about this and then I’ll explain a little bit more. So these are the actual hero cars. That are used. So this is the Ferrari that was used in Port versus Ferrari when they did the, the Moning with Matt Damon and Christian Bale.

So basically he would find ’em on eBay motors or whatever and he would just find a couple of these cars. And as they started to become established, they always purchased ’em. They never borrowed ’em or leased them. So once they started getting a reputation, Eventually Warner Brothers Universal and these other studios when they were getting rid of cars, started to build a relationship.

So Brian Grahams purchases all the stuff over the last 20, 30 years. He’s now basically just a go-to. There’s a short list of people in the country that he’s got right of first refusal. Basically, Peterson is like the biggest. Car museum and that’s in la and then there’s a handful of other ones. What’s crazy in this little tiny town where one of like the short list of people that these studios, you know, will give us kind of the first dibs on some of these cars.

So we get some amazing deals on some of these cars and some really cool ones like the Son of Mask and Cat in the Hat. When I walk over there I’ll show you, it’s like the kind of crappy movies. But these cars are like some of the coolest cars that were actually used in the movie. And so they’re really fun to see.

So even if you’re not a car person, [00:05:00] we kind of have that. So we have about 60% are the hero cars. And then the other 40 are replicas. So a lot of these replicas still used for the studio, maybe just for like movie premieres and purchases in the theater. So there’s still some sort of a significance to ’em, but they’re not the actual movie hero movie cars.

So as you pace around this room now, where are you in the museum? Are you in the main entrance? So this was our main dusenberg room. So if you don’t know about Dusenberg, they’re basically these incredible cartoon looking machines. They’re originally built right around the Great Depression. Basically, you had a choice.

You could either buy a hundred Fords, 20 houses, or one dusenberg. Um, they were just insanely ridiculous, and they came out right during the Great Depression, so they kind of collapsed. These are called Dusenberg twos. They were. Kind of replicas that were built in the seventies, but there’s still like 500 grand a piece or whatever.

So this was the Dusenberg room, but we turned this into an ice cream parlor. So just about a month ago, we added locally sourced ice cream and gourmet coffees and homemade treats and stuff like that. So we wanted to make it more of an adventure. This is a full day now. To walk through this. So we wanted to add [00:06:00] more pit stops in areas where people can actually hang out and make a day of it.

Right now we have the Ford versus Ferrari, cause that’s our exhibit that’s coming up. In a couple months, we’re gonna have a Newberg room, which is coming up in a couple months. We’re gonna have a Titanic display. So this is a 1912 Gral. This was the car that went down. And the Titanic. It’s not the actual one because it couldn’t fit a car on a lifeboat.

That’s actually very similar to the vehicle that they used on Do Abbey. Except that one was, yeah, dark blue, I believe it was. Yeah. Yeah. And this is one of like one or two, maybe two in the world. This is extremely, extremely rare, and it’s the exact two a t. If you look at the interior. It’s so cool. That’s all the original, you know, 1912 pieces.

So this is kind of like the preview where I’m at right now. I’ll show you the carousel room with these street orchestras or these 1913 to maybe 1930s. And they’re all fully operational, 40 piece street orchestras, which are just killer and they all work. So you can put in token and listen to ’em. All right, so where do we go?

Where do we go from here? We’re kind of gonna do a circle. I mean the property is, is two city blocks of just buildings. There’s 20 plus buildings that have all the stuff. We’re gonna walk to the carousel room, but [00:07:00] these are, it’s called BOLO Station. This is gonna be our new exhibit. We just crane these trains in.

These are all Hollywood trains. This red one here that you see is from Westworld, from hbo Wild, wild West with Will Smith. So inside they have the bar that flips and has guns and all kinds of stuff on it. So we’re restoring these. So these probably won’t be done for a while still. And then this train right here is pretty cool.

This is from Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio. The cool thing about this one is it’s all bs. It’s just a truck. With an extended bed, with an extended chassis, basically. So that’s all plywood here, and then fiberglass. It’s just all, pretend this is all fiberglass pieces and if you stand and look up in there, it’s basically like a, a truck I could show you.

But there’s, there’s a ton of seats. Plane right here. This is a Harriet Jumper jet. Is that from lies? So this is from True Lies. And it was also used in Avengers. This side is painted like true lies. And then if you flip on the other side, this is the one where Hulk was thrown into the shield plane. So the other side is painted like shield.

And I’m gonna walk up this the carousel room. So this is actually debuting this weekend. We’ve had it on display. It took about three years to refurbish, but [00:08:00] this big building was literally built just for this carousel. It’s a 1928. Alan Herschel carousels back in the twenties, it was like a huge boom.

There was like 6,000 carousel spinning, and Alan Herschel was one of the biggest companies. So we finally got it able for people to ride. So this weekend is like our debut to ride it. It’s gonna be a little bit louder, but this room is so dope. This is the carousel here. 20,000 lights. It’s the 1928. It’s all hand painted hand.

Carved all the original pieces. The only thing that we had to mod was in the center. So back in the twenties, people, they were a little smaller than they were a hundred years later. There was just two tires that would kind of turn and rub against each other, and the friction would turn the carousel. Well, now as big fat Americans are jumping on it and it totally rubbed out, it just smelled like burnt rubber.

So we had to come up with a new gear system to keep it going consistently, and then not stink the whole time, like burnt rubber. As I’m walking around, you’ll see all of these are hand carved. Street organs. So most of these are 19, 20, 1930s. They’re all fully functional and they’re just, they’re so cool. We have like the [00:09:00] Coney Island Penny arcades in here and most of these games you’re able to play ’em.

I think the punching game, again, people from the twenties punching versus today it’s a little bit different, so they. Hold that off. But all self playing pianos, just amazing stuff came from California, but it’s been kind of pieced together from all over the country. So that’s kind of what our carousel room is.

So you go from something like this and then if you’re like me, your a d d, and you get bored pretty quick, I’m gonna walk over to the next room. So this has, it’s just so much stuff. It’s ridiculous and every single day, what I love about this museum is that. It’s a breathing almost on a weekly basis.

There’s a new exhibit. We’re tearing something out, we’re adding something. We bought a monster truck. We’re building this snowcat. And you can see this thing is, oh, that’s cool. A two story shopping cart I’ll show you. It’s a hot rod, so it’s just this giant two story shopping cart. You sit way up on this perch drive stick shift, and it’s got pipes and it’s a full-blown hot rod with these fat tires.

It’s awesome. So this right here is the uh, captain Phillips lifeboat. The one that Tom Hanks used in the movie. You got the steam engine here. And then I’ll tell you this stuff. This stuff is cool in [00:10:00] here. So how big is the entire campus that the bowl museum sits on? How many acres is that? I mean, we sit on 35 acres, like train tours.

That’ll go around the whole property. The buildings itself is probably about two city blocks, I wanna say. This is a desert storm hum. We just got in, we raked this up to kind of spin, but it’s all the original pieces. Most of the equipment, weapons, whatever was in it. So is that military issue or is that from a movie?

Yeah, that’s military issue. This was a desert used in Desert Storm. Then you turn around, there’s a 1924 Model T. It’s almost like an Inspector Gadget camper, like everything folded out. So this whole thing collapsed into the compartment, but then it could be a camper. So this is like one of the first actual campers that were created?

No, we have stuff for kids down here. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Which Herbie was that over there? This is the Lindsay Lohan. Herby. So, ah, the one in 2005, I want to say. Say this is the one that was in the junkyard. This was actually used in the movie. It’s triggered here. You can see the controls. So they used it in the movie and then they would take it on display.

So when kids walked by, it would talk, or they would do different things where the eyes would blink and the bumper would move. It’s on a timer now, [00:11:00] so just randomly goes on and off now. Cause obviously, If you don’t have someone just sitting here and what’s been fascinating, I’ve only been here about six months.

My biggest question was, I’m like, we have all of these movies and Disney displays. How do we not get copyright infringement for advertising this stuff? And they said basically, if we claim we have Disney displays and just leave it at that, they’re good with it. Cause you’re kind of promoting it. But if we say we have Lightning McQueen, they’re like, uh, nope.

You have to change that. They’re good with us having a. Full Disney parade. We have Disney displays, Disney, everything. But this is Thunder McQueen. So that was like the one thing that they called out, but they watch us pretty closely, which is kind of funny. Again, we’re in bolo, so you, you don’t think that they would care.

But this is everyone from Oprah, princess Diana, Britney Spears. It’s kind of like the SAR car we just sold Michael Jordan’s Bentley, and when he first brought it in, he left his cell phone in the glove compartment or like in the. Center column, and he left his phone in there with all of his contacts. So there had mechanics like, oh, you left your phone here he is like, ah, it’s just a Bentley phone.

It syncs up. And that’s just my Bentley phone. I have my other phone so you can just get rid of it. How am I [00:12:00] get rid of? But then I look at every single contact that Michael Jordan has. So we have star cars here. Then all of these are Disney displays. So these were displayed all across the world, Australia, all over countries.

So when Disney stores were at their height before the internet really hit, they had all of these displays. They were told to dis demolish them once the stores were closed, and somehow a few of these got out. Each one of these displays is probably, depending on the size, 50 to a hundred thousand dollars for collectors to try and get some of these Disney displays.

This is a Donald Trump prototype Cadillac. They only made two of ’em. So they had gold plate, they had the Trump logo here. They had a. Thing for his facts and they actually put a bump for his hair in the back of the limousine. I dunno if you can see it. Um, that his hair was fit and that’s, that was actually a custom thing that they had.

So you go from that. And then we have, Jay Berg is a car designer, so these are hot rods are just awesome. So this is a full roller skate. Hot rods. So you climb up the back here, the steering wheel right up here. You sit up in between the laces. Yeah, we take these out all the time. You know, more iconic ones like the Red Baron, the Rat [00:13:00] Fink stuff.

All of the Ed Roth, big Daddy Ross. Nice. A lot of nice hot rod. Literally had a Disney parade on our property. They had like 4,000 people. So these are all the cars that were actually used in Disney World. So like the goofy car will have, you know, wobble in the thing. So the whole thing wobble while it’s going.

And there’s speakers built into the boxes, ands a full parade car. So they’re pretty cool. Now we have this guy, I have big, oh, that’s the T, that’s the Tumblr for Batman. They made six for the movie. So this wasn’t a hero car they had. Stunt car is another one. They’re all fully operational. The cool thing about this one, this is the only one on display that’s not under licensed under Warner Brothers, and the loophole was, so they have the main ones for the movie that they used for him to drive for the closeups.

Then they had ones that would crash the walls. They had a couple jumpers that were kind of built a little bit heavier on suspension to jump. They would use those for the movies? Well, this one was one of the stunt ones that crashed and just got completely totaled. So they ditched it and they just threw it away.

But one of the crew members took it. So this one is about 80% movie screen used parts. Another 20% used to like actually rebuild it and create it. But this is pretty much all movie parts. [00:14:00] But the cool thing about this one is that he mo it so that the top would slide over. Before it would just kind of flip it.

You’d have to crawl in this one. Actually like the eighties Batmobile. This actually slides forward and you can use it. It’s so wide that we had just to get it in the building, we had to take it apart. Cause the garage doors, I mean with back tires, it’s just massive. Then some more hot rods, like this is a fully operational piano, so you can play the piano.

It’s the uh, Liberace mobile there. Yeah, exactly. Well, I didn’t grow up a car guy, but I guess this is a super iconic one too. It’s a dual engine. They have a couple of these dual engine cars, but I guess there was a ton of toys. In like sixties, early seventies of this car that you could get. Kinda like the red bear.

This is uh, the outlaw 2000 horsepower. Just a beast. Look at these tire. Absolutely. So I think I’ve actually seen that polar in person years ago, if I recall correctly, like ladies early nineties. That was a big pull on the scene and I remember going to a couple pools and I really, if I recall correctly, I think that’s one of ’em I saw in person.

Yeah, most of these, we’ll take ’em out once in a while. They all still run. We have a team of two mechanics, basically. There’s a electronics mechanic and a [00:15:00] head mechanic. But these two guys and one’s like in the seventies and encounter chars like Jimmy Stewart, who’s a very, Gary, walks around and just fixes.

So this is the cat hat. I wanted to show this one. That is Wild, wild Mike costume, but they spent 1.4 million making this vehicle. Everything works, every gear works when you drive it. The front spins. All of this is fully functional pieces. It’s a beautiful piece of just art in general, but what’s kind of cool is, so when you go in here, I was kind of looking at how you drive it and how you’d see this rear view mirror is actually a front facing camera, and the stunt driver sits back here, so he drives and looks at the camera while Mike Myers.

Sits here, it’s got a 360 rotating tire back here, and then these two are forward facing. So you can drive this, you can literally do 360 s in this car. And we’ve taken it out. It’s totally operational and drivable and they’ve spent like 1.4 million on this car. And then they use it for less than a minute in the movie, which is just crazy.

It’s a nice Hollywood budget. Right. I, I think we need a Hollywood. Car, like shootout, drag race, like you know, nobody’s done that yet. I mean totally. They’ve done a [00:16:00] couple in the past racing replica Acto one, and then we had the one from the newer movie and we raced those. The new one blew it away, but I was like, that doesn’t matter cuz that one sucks.

It’s the old ACTO one, that’s the cool one. So we have a jet powered Harley Davidson. So this is a legit, fully built, tested out. I wanted to get a video, so we’re gonna probably take it out this spring. And show it again. The only thing cooler is a jet power snowmobile. It’s a 3000 horsepower rocket engine.

It burns about three gallons of 90% hydrogen peroxide in about 45 seconds. For about 45 seconds of fun, it costs about $450 to Wow. To run this thing. It just moves. And we have a vintage snowmobile collection too, with some really cool stuff. This is technically the first motorcycle that was created. This one was first, but it’s steam.

So they said that doesn’t technically count as a motorcycle because it’s. Steam powered. So then 15 years later this came out and it’s actually fully motorized. So this is technically the first motorcycle. So I see there it says Daimler, which means that Mercedes pioneered the first car as well as the [00:17:00] first motorcycle.

How about that, the forefront about that technology? That’s a good point. Now you mentioned a little earlier that you guys will take a certain amount of time, like refurbing or building stuff. Do you guys have a dedicated team other than the two mechanics you mentioned that do a lot of the restoration?

Refurbished stuff? Not really. They kind of do ’em as side project. It kind of comes in waves. Like anything. Sometimes there’s 20 things that are broken. Other times it’ll be downtime. So we have a monster truck right now that we’re gonna be giving monster truck rides. I wanna do during Halloween now and do monster truck, uh, zombie hunts for like we dress.

You know, kind of like a haunted hayride, but you get to shoot nerve guns at zombies in a monster truck. I just think that would be awesome. We have a lot of those projects that we’re kind of building on the side for Most of the stuff is restored. We have the 2012 version of total recall with Colin Ferrell.

They built this car and they actually legit built this car that has a driver sitting this way with a steering wheel and then a driver sitting the opposite way with the steering wheel so it can drive. Back and forth. Then they have a fiberglass top that sits on top that can pivot, so the actors can sit up there and pivot.

The guys took it out. I’ll [00:18:00] have to send it after a video of the, of these guys driving it back and forth and driving it around. But you can drive it back and forth while the top spins and alternates. So it’s just it, some of the stuff is amazing. So they’ve got the car working again, but the fiberglass connections they’re working on, so that’s another project that they have in the warehouse.

So they’re constantly working on stuff, but it’s amazing for such a small team what they’re able to do. So this is the showroom. We have four showrooms. Three of them are cars that are 1985 and earlier, and then one showroom that’s 1985 and newer. So all the modern muscle. We sell about 50 to 70 cars per month.

They’re constantly going to auctions and getting new, especially every month, but at least every week there’s 10, 15 new cars in here. So there’ll be waves from like cool old Broncos. We just got a bunch of 1950s cars, 56, 57 Chevys. There’s everything. The three most popular are probably the 69 Camaro. 70.

71 Chevelle, and the 57 Chevy. So we get a lot of those, but you just get some really cool rare things. Yeah, I’m seeing lots of Corvette’s. Camaros of bearing ages, Mustangs, Lincoln’s, I mean, wow. Just what an assortment of [00:19:00] cars. Yeah. As I go to the next showroom most, oh, wait, wait, wait. There’s a square body Chevy there.

Dan. Dan just got excited. Turn around. Yeah. Square the blue square body Chevy pick up. He wants to know how much it costs. So it’s 30,000. We have a couple in the front room too. What was nice is some of these cars are 20, 30,000, but then you’ll get some of these like true Hemi Cudas that are like $370,000 cars.

So what’s along the back wall there? I see the uh, Futura based Batmobile from the sixties. Batman, I think I see one of the vehicles from Greece. So what we have and all three showrooms we have, the cars in the middle are all for sale. So these four rows and these are constantly rotating. Then on the walls of both sides, we have the Hollywood cars.

Jay Berg that made the piano hot rod and the rollers skate. Hot Rod made this Johnny Cash tribute. That’s super cool. So it’s a full-blown hot rod. All six of these wheels steer everything is fully operational that thinks amazing. About 28 foot long guitar dragster basically. And then you got the Ferrari Daytona from Miami Vice.

This is the, uh, actual hero card. This is the one they used in the movie. This is the actual [00:20:00] Corvette from Animal House. They lended out for like 400 bucks, and once they used it, it just sat in the barn for like 40 years. The owner would sell it, but only for cash if no auctions wanted to take it. So eventually we got it and we just started it up for the first time two weeks ago.

So this is all the original. Stuff. This is the 66 Batmobile. So George Baris designed these cars. There’s a slew of these that he designed. This isn’t the actual one from the show, but this is the one you can see. George Barris and Adam West signed this one. So this is one that actually came from his shop.

So they’ve used these for promotional tours and things like that. So there’s one of these in the vault at the Peterson. Is that one used on the show or is it also another replica? That was a replica as well? These are one of the most popular. Replicated cars. If you YouTube this thing, they have a company that cranks out like 30 a year.

This was built on a Lincoln, it was like a prototype car. It wasn’t actually a, it was called the Lincoln Future. Yeah, that’s right. And it was like a concept car. They didn’t actually release a lot of ’em and he got it super cheap. So he had like two or four weeks or something crazy like that to come up with this car.

There’s a couple different cars that they use the bodies for [00:21:00] when they build these replicas, but there’s like a huge nation that like builds these. It’s really funny if you look at ’em. Mm-hmm. I think George Baris designed this one as well. This is a replica that came out that’s certified from George Baris, but Glee, the TV show, glee used this in their episode, so they reach out to us a lot and re-rent these for different things.

So this was used in the show, Christine, that you see back there. Stephen King reached out to us to use that for, it’s a movie with James Franco, the JFK movie, 11 22 63, I think it’s called. Yeah. So they used that car. So he reached out to us personally and asked to use this car, which is kind of cool. And the other cool part is they got it back.

And as a thank you, he came back here, he autographed the dashboard of this car and when he was done, the ink started to run down the dashboard. It’s like never happened before. And he’s like, oh, she remembers me. Like that messed up. Steven King. These are the The monsters? Yeah, the Dracula and the family coach.

These are George Bar designs as well. And on the other side, I thought I saw a glimpse of like, of Kit and some other things. So on the other side here, we [00:22:00] have a converted Cadillac that Elvis had. This was actually another barn. Fine. This was actually Elvis’s car. We have his deed and everything. So going to the airport back and forth, you need something to have his luggage.

So Cadillac didn’t make wagons like this, but they bumped up the top and extended it so that they could carry his luggage. But this is Elvis’s actual deed to the car. It’s pretty cool. That’s awesome. This one is the son of Mascar, which is still like one of my favorites of all the cool cars here. This thing is just the detail again for this crappy bee movie.

Like how much money in detail? It’s fully operational, fully run. What is that based on a Camaro or something? What is it underneath? I don’t know. That’s a good question. I mean, the whole thing is just, is moted out, so I can’t even tell. I’ll have to find that out. That’s a good question. I’m not sure what it is.

It’ll be some. Great trivia questions like, do you know what this is built on top of? Totally. Yeah. Kit George Baris, this is from his studio as well. This wasn’t the one that was used in the TV show, but this was used for all the promotional stuff that they did for the show. So it was tied in. So it’s got the full TV screen over there.[00:23:00]

That’s awesome. Bumped out a little bit. It’s pretty sweet. And the same with the, uh, DeLorean. Is that the family Truckster back there? Yep. That it is. So you know what’s missing from this equation, Dan? You know what? I don’t see unless Jim’s hiding it somewhere. I don’t see the Viper known as the defender from the N B NBC show.

Viper. Where? Where’s that hiding? Ooh, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. It’s one of my favorite Hollywood cars of all time. Totally. That’s funny that you said that cause I just did an interview and the two people that were interviewing, one of ’em said their favorite was a mystery machine and the other one that you said was the one that you just said.

I was like, that’s random. That another person just mentioned that they gotta look into that. The irony that is probably walk past the mystery machine a little while ago and I was gonna have you stop. I was like, well, it’s not as famous of a car, so I’ll let you walk by. But I, I was a Voodoo fan myself, so.

These were both screen used. This was from Alien, the original alien. This was from the 2008 Indiana Jones. That’s like the Wisconsin duck, like the amphibious things that go in water that, that’s the Indiana Jones [00:24:00] movie we don’t talk about. It’s all good. Yeah. Right. But you know, I gotta, I gotta say, while you’re walking through here, the detail in each one of the booths, in each one of the sections for the cars is.

Absolutely just incredible. Just like those Disney displays. There’s just so much to look at. And it’s not just a car and a parking spot like any other museum, right. That you would see. So this is, I mean, the detail is just amazing. You guys should really proud of what you’ve done. Really. Even this Barbie car, we fabricated like a whole box, so it looks like it’s sitting in a toy box.

It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s amazing what they put into, how it started and just for how small of a town this is and how big of an attraction that now. It’s like pretty much any movie, car. You Google, our Volo will come up in it. It’s just How many people do you think you get through the museum on average in a year?

I would say in the slow months, probably around 20,000 a month. And then the busy season probably tripled that, quadruple that. So we have a crime and punishment area, so this was not Bonnie and Clyde’s car, but in the thirties they made this car, they did an exact replica, and then this tour, the country in the thirties and forties [00:25:00] as their actual car, and they charged admission.

Well, eventually the police caught up to ’em and busted ’em and like half of America was pissed off that they got. Ripped off by these guys, but then it became almost as famous as the original one. So then Warner Brothers bought this car and used it in the Bonnie and Clyde movie with Warren Beatty. So this was the car that was actually used.

And then once they did it, they moved around a couple museums. They went out of business and we acquired it. Johnny Depp, this is his car from public enemies. And then we have a whole crime and punishment area that’s like medieval torture. So this is all authentic stuff. So this was a 1911 electric chair.

This reminds me of that episode of Black Mirror, where there’s that museum in the middle of the desert with all the torture equipment in it. This is fun stuff. So I’m, I like taking, especially if you’ve never been here before, it’s fun to just kind of show you all the cool stuff that we’re doing. I really like the fact that you say that you’re basically a living museum where it’s constantly changing.

You could go there and you know, and a couple months later go back and it’d beat different stuff on display, which I find, I mean, if you’re a classic, we have a couple hundred classic cars that are always rotating. So even if you come every week, [00:26:00] You’re gonna see cool stuff if you have a membership and you come here, I mean, these exhibits are changing.

We have seven new ones debuting this year. So if that tells you anything, and it’s everything from movie cars like Fast and Furious to a Titanic display where it immerses you in the experience of the Titanic and then, you know, ice cream parlors and dinosaurs. There’s just, we’re trying to do more and more to have.

The whole family come and actually not be miserable. You know what I mean? So I got, these are fiberglass, both from the fifties. They were only around for a couple years. They’re super small, but they were modeled after cars from this era. So you can see like the backs of cattle. Yeah. I think this one over here has a Corvette windshield.

Like a lot of these. Headlights Taillights. Windshields are all actual car parts. They’re really pretty. I, I do like the pink one, the, the Cadillac version one. That one’s really detailed. That’s really cool. Press yourself. Well, it’s that outboard with all the chrome on it too, and the big fins. It just looks appropriate for the water, you know?

Yeah. The Cadillac fins just go well with water. A hundred percent. That’s really neat. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I mean, these are super rare. Most of these only, there’s only a handful of them that are around because in the fifties they were [00:27:00] fiberglass. They were small, so they got beat up in smaller lakes or whatever.

You’re taking ’em out. Both just eventually beat up and most of ’em just trashed ’em cuz they were fiberglass. So they’re really rare now. So we’ll go through. This is showroom two. So again, this is kind of the same idea. It’s just a bunch of classic cars, muscle cars. They have this process, so they’ll go through, there’s a shop they just finished building that’s over on the other side.

They has all the detailing and mechanics there. So if they give a shipment of cars, they’ll go over there, they’ll clean ’em up, fix ’em, make sure they’re safe and everything is good. Then they bring ’em over here. Once they’re here, they sit until they’re ready to photograph. As soon as they photograph, they go in this turntable area where they have different fluorescent lights.

They do a full YouTube video. So on some of the older cars, like this one over here, older, I mean, been here for a couple weeks. Then most of the customers that we have are nationwide. Only about 10, 20% buy in this area. So they do these QR codes that you can scan, and it’s a full 13 minute YouTube video talking about everything about this car.

Oh, there’s a. A little bubble here or whatever, and they took it up, the air conditioning’s broken or whatever, and then they show you all the good parts and they take about 80 pictures. So any of [00:28:00] these cars that you’re interested in, they’re fully updated online and you can go on and check ’em out. They have a thing called auto locator.

So you type in the exact car, I want a 71 Chevelle green. You know, automatic. I don’t want a stick. I don’t, I can’t drive stick or whatever. You put in all your specifications. And then it goes out to like this nationwide network. So anytime one comes up, you get an email notification. So that’s where I put in the Viper Defender.

Right, exactly. So that said, is there an archive of vehicles that have been at the Volo before that you can just go back and, you know, enjoy looking at them even though they’re not there anymore? Yeah, absolutely. And even on YouTube. So Volo Museum has our own YouTube page, and then BOLO Cars, Volo Auto Sales has their YouTube page and all of the cars that they have, and they get some really, really cool stuff.

All of those videos. Up there so you can go back to the archives and just, you know, they have everything listed so you can search by certain years or you can just flip through and they’ll have some Cadillacs that are just unbelievable. And some of these sports cars that are just are muscle cars that are $400,000 that are just super rare.

They’re in here for like two days and then they’re gone. And we’re like, ah, I like that one. Ec turtle, van, blues brothers, Dukes hazard. This is the. [00:29:00] Pretty much almost the Holy Grail of General East about as much as the 66 Batmobile. There’s replicas of this everywhere, but this is one of the first generation they’re from, I think they’re built in Georgia, like the early Georgia production they’re called.

And this is like one of the only ones left for the Georgia production. So this is a super, uh, a replica. That’s not even close to this. Just sold for like $200,000 or something like that. Yeah, and I’ve seen pictures of car haulers from back when they were shooting the show that would be packed full of General Lees because they would just destroy them Car after car after car, yeah.

Shooting the show. Yeah. It was hundreds of ’em that they destroyed during the filming of that show. I mean, it was good for Mopar, right? I mean, they were making money hand over fist solid chargers. That’s the C2 Corvette from Fast and the Furious. They, they drove off a cliff or whatever. Yep. So the ice charger that you saw in front, so these are the other three.

This is the Poey Grail of those cars too. This is from the first original one. This was Vin Diesel’s car. So this is the hero car from the original Fast, the Furious. This one here, you called it from Fast five, and they [00:30:00] ran off the cliff. So they made about. 12 of these, most of them, kinda like the Batmobile were used for jumps or stunts.

This was the only one that was used for green screen. So of all those 12 Corvette’s, this is really the only surviving one, but this is the one that Vin Diesel and Paul Walker used for the closeups. So it’s in, I’m gonna guess like a lot of other replicas, it’s probably a C4 Corvette underneath. It’s not really a c2.

Right, exactly. Yeah, that’s something that like Mark Talley’s famous for, like, he built the Mach five and a bunch of other cars and he loved using c4, Corvette’s cuz there were so many of ’em. And, and nobody really wanted ’em. They didn’t have a great resale value. So it’s still a Corvette, but not the one we’re looking at.

Right. This is the last car Paul Walker drove. This is from Furious seven, and this was one of the ones that were actually parachuted out of a plane. None of that was cgi. You can see the hooks on here. And this was almost a barn fine. We bought it with a bunch of other stuff and this just happened to be sitting there.

Yeah, but where’s J? Where’s Jesse’s? You know, mark Three Jetta. I mean, come on now. This is. The 1977 land speeder from Star Wars, the original Star Wars. [00:31:00] Oh wow. It’s basically like a golf cart chassis, and they kind of pulled the wheels in, almost made it like a three wheeler because they didn’t have the cgi.

So when you see it driving on the sand, it kind of bounces a little bit while it’s hovering or whatever. But this is the actual run from the movie. The Mark five, the original one used in the movie is at the Peterson in the vault right now. I saw a couple weeks ago. Yep. It’s, I think that one’s probably larger from the looks of it, because I was shocked how small, really.

Um, yeah. Mark Talley’s, mark five is because again, it’s a c4, so it’s not a super huge car, but it’s, it’s very, very tiny. You have Eleanor, is that the Eleanor? No, it’s, this one’s a replica. I think the original one just sold for like 3 million or something crazy. Oh, the Mad Max Falcon xv g t. Even with the dinky D dog food in it.

See? So he has some foreign cars in there. That’s Australian. What was that formula car there to the right? Uh, this was actually used by Michael Andretti. This was a formula car we kind of carved in so that kids considering [00:32:00] it. Yeah. We have this one here. This is from Terminator three. This was the movie used one.

What’s cool about this is that they kind of show you how they rigged up these holes. So they put explosives in each one of these and then painted over it. And then during the movie they had a A program, so these things would pop off one at a time. They have some of the blueprints and stuff from Hollywood on how they plan the sequence of shots, so they’re all numbered.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Pretty cool. Unbelievable. The amount of detail that you have to put into a movie car is just incredible. Totally. Well, I noticed you got the dog, the Lord Express. Which they only made those for a long minute period of time. For trucks. That’s not a very common one to find, and that one looks in pristine condition.

It’s for sale, Dan. It could be yours. So the low, low price of Don’t ask Be not a Mopar guy, though. I can appreciate ’em, but I’m not a Mopar guy. It’s just a 300 easy payments. So as you walk throughout the campus, are you actually walking in and out of the museum as well as the Volvo auto sales and they kind of just bleed together?

Or is that They kind of bleed together. Okay. Yeah, so like this is the original room. When we first started that I almost hit my head on everything. So this is [00:33:00] just straight auto sales. Cause this was the first showroom. So then as they built on, that’s where they added the Hollywood. But it’s all kind of mixed together.

So even they have. You gotta check this out. This is, uh, looks like a normal ordinary port potty, but it’s actually jet powered. Looks like something off the top gear. It’s just, I dunno if you can see, I can kinda pop in here, but you can see all of the, the gears and everything. So it’s fully jet powered.

The guy that drove it initially. It went so fast that it tipped over and all the jet fuel oh leaked out on him. So he had to put like an escape hatch on the top cause he would’ve basically exploded a couple here. But there seems to be a lot of American cars here, a lot of domestics muscles, you know, old classics and things like that.

What do you have in terms of, you know, foreign cars coming through? Anything that really stands out for classic cars? Not a ton for modern muscle stuff. Newer than 85. We have a bunch that. Go over on the other side, man, this place is huge. Look, another square body, Dan. Yep. Another square body. Yeah, we got two.

We got sisters here. Is that a 21 window, t2, or, yep. [00:34:00] 23 window van, I think. Yeah. Yeah, man, those are gorgeous. That’s so cool. See you got some foreign cars. Look at that. And that looks like an MGA right there to your right. So you got a British car, so you’re good. Yeah. So there we go. See where he is. Exotic.

Good. Zar. So while you’re walking to the next building, let’s talk about what it costs to check out all these different exhibits. Is there one cost for the entire campus? Do you pay something for the Jurassic side versus the cars? Like how does the ticketing and things like that work if somebody wanted?

So it’s what’s crazy is that. It’s 1995 for the whole thing. The dinosaur park just debuted last year, so that’s a separate $12 fee. But you can do combo passes where you save four bucks on both tickets, and then you come back the next day for free. So it’s still extremely reasonably priced for how, and that’s per person per visit, right?

Yeah, per person. It sounded like you have an annual membership as well. Yeah, there’s annual membership. It’s like 50 bucks or 60 bucks. Is that an all you can eat when you do the annual food is separate? No, no. I meant terms of metaphorically speaking. Yes. Metaphorically [00:35:00] speaking. Yes. Like you can come as much as you’d like during the course of the season.

Exactly. Every single day. Yeah, every single day. There’s special events and special things we’ll do for members too that are also included, so it’s. If you come here more than once, I mean, it’s totally worth it because we’re changing stuff all the time. I’ll show you. This is the photo studio. I think we’re shooting some right now, but I’m gonna whisper so I can show you the photo studio.

But they’re shooting a video right now. Just a second. That’s the first Gen Firebird sitting in there. Good. You guys are good. Yeah. That’s like a full rotating turntable and they have l e D lights that’ll change different colors for whatever, but that’s when they make those YouTube videos. That’s all here.

So he goes through and just talks about every angle of the car. They have videos underneath basically everything. It was like 80 photos of each car that they take. So Jim, if you were flying in for the weekend, how far outside of Chicago is the Volvo Museum? Ah, great question. Uh, it’s about 40 miles. It’s about 40 miles from Milwaukee, from Chicago, and then even from Rockford, which is out, but more west.

So we’re kind of right in the central hub. I mean up here there’s also, there’s hotels and we have a Six Flags. Great America. You have a lot of other ton of lakes and boating and campgrounds and all kinds of stuff. So outside of hotels, you can also go through a [00:36:00] full weekend trip as well. All right, so this is the military old wills.

Now, these are all military issue vehicles. You guys have picked up? Yeah. Everything here is authentic. It’s all military issued. We have a helicopter as well that’s out on the front of the property. That was gifted to us by the government. Actually every, all these weapons here are, but all this is all authentic outside of the mannequin mannequins obviously, but everything else is authentic.

This was used in Banda Brothers absolutely incredible stuff. Most of someone we gotta came with the, like the desert storm hum that you saw earlier. You know what’s fun about this? I mean, here in the dmv, you know, we have the Smithsonians all in our backyard and they’re highly manicured and you know, very purposefully put together.

But I hate to say they’re not nearly as fun. Totally. Like this is just totally. Fantastic. The way this is laid out. Yeah, and it, and it flows really well. You move from one exhibit to the next and to your point, it’s good for us as adults, but it’s great for the kids too, and they can learn something along the way.

You know, trying to capture the attention span now of adults too. But even of kids, I’m, I’m adding a lot more interactive and in informational stuff through here because there’s just stories on, on [00:37:00] each one of these things that are just amazing. This is from Indiana Jones. Last said, I wanna say, I think when him and Sean Connery were driving and that’s a bmw.

So yet another form and yet another one. So Ha. So I have to ask, are any of the tanks and stuff for sale? I mean, everything’s for sale, you know what I mean? Most of the stuff is for sale. We keep it here, but we’re rotating exhibits and right now, We don’t really have room for this stuff just because we’ve moved and added a couple buildings and now these guys are kind of just sitting in the corner over here.

So yeah, most of the stuff is for sale because we’re bringing new stuff in all the time. So going back to the intro, when we were talking, you know, I saw some of this when it was on American Pickers, and obviously they’re always looking for stuff, especially with respect to petroleum and collectibles and things of certain time periods, et cetera.

So, you know, you say everything’s got a price, everything’s. For sale. I, I’m sure maybe some of the memorabilia is too, but do you guys also take donations from people that say, Hey, I’ve got this Disney piece that you’re missing, or I’ve got this other thing that would look good in the display case, or is it both ways with respect to Yeah, absolutely.[00:38:00]

We accept a ton of donations and it’s pretty cool because especially military, a lot of the people that come through the military that either their siblings died or they’re alone, or whatever it may be, they have all this amazing. Stuff. We just had someone that was a P O W in Vietnam, but they had all the currency that they used and it was a special currency that they used just for the time that they were POWs and she had like all this different currency and all this stuff and she’s like, I loved your museum, loved what you had, and just gave it all to us.

So it’s really cool. Some of the, uh, the impact that we had, I didn’t show you as we were going through the Disney stuff. There’s a hot Rod Cinderella stage coach that was made from a old school, 1800 stage coach, and so we have a picture of. The original stage coach that it was modified after, I think it was George Bar or j o Boberg, one of those guys.

So he mod the whole thing out. So this lady just happens to walk through one day and looks at the picture and she’s like, that’s me. I’m the little kid in the backseat. She’s from like Minnesota or something. And this was her family car that was changed into a Cinderella hot rod, which is so neat. And, uh, working on getting a liquor license.

We’re village approved state’s almost there. So hopefully you’ll be able to grab a couple beers and, [00:39:00] and walk through here as well. Kinda enhance. Its first one more showroom I’ll show you, which is modern cars, right? Yeah. So the 85 and newer, this area right here is set it up. It’s a massive dinosaur playground, kind of what why we call the Jurassic Gardens.

Kind of set it up here so you can have a picnic out here and just kind of hang out. Eventually I’d love to have like Beer Fest and other cool events in this area too. So you mentioned the room you’re, uh, leading us to now is 85 and newer. What brought the decision of 85 being the key year for the distinction?

It’s a fourth generation family, and I think the younger guys just like, yeah, it’s cool. It’s a six day Camaro, but modern muscle is awesome, you know, and they just, there was a market for it. So yeah. Caleb Grahams just kind of runs this side, so he’s kind of off on the other end. So let me ask you this, as you’re moving us to the next.

Showroom here. Jim, did you grow up in this area? Did you grow up around the Volo Museum? Is that what brought you here eventually? No, I, I’ve never been here until I started working here. I grew up in the area within like an hour radius. I sing in a band. We’ve been around like 20 years, so I’ve, I’ve known them really well just through different events.

It was more or less by association, social Media [00:40:00] Association, and that’s just kind of how it came about. It was just kind of a, was that a Cadillac XLR to your left? Is that what you saw? We Oh, right here? Yeah. No, no, no. That’s a Mercedes to, to your, to your right. I guess that caddy in the corner looked like an xlr, but I could be wrong.

It is. How do you do that? I’m a nerd. What can I say? Let’s see. Galo. Kuta. You have a C6 vet. A C7 vet. This one only has 980 miles on it. Wow. So this window normally shut when you shut the door to pay for this option. And it only goes down this far. So even for a half window, it only goes down halfway. And it was like a $12,000 upgrade to basically get like a cheeseburger slip through.

Is that a, that’s a Stda Baker. Avanti. Yeah. I haven’t seen one of those in forever. Yeah. Way more modern. I mean, you have C eight Corvette’s in there. All sorts of students. Yeah, a lot of That’s a CORs, a Shelby, that’s the Shelby, um, the one I think you called it, right? Yeah. Series one. Good eye. You don’t see too many of those.

Viper GTS Coop, gen two mostly Mustangs and vets are probably the most in [00:41:00] demand cars that we go through. So you mentioned, uh, cars that are in demand. Do you guys have a list of buyers that buy from you regularly that are like, Hey, I’m looking for this and you guys go try to find sub vehicle? Yeah. You got some guys that are just have stupid money that’ll buy like 10 cars in a month.

And it’s not the cheap ones either. So there are certain ones that they develop relationships over the years. You got a Gen one viper target there for sale. What, what? What’s the going rate on that? I need to know with the hard top option 57. That’s reasonable. That’s good. So these, you know, rotate at about the same rate as the classic cars do.

So if you come back here next week, there’s probably 10 new cars in here that they’re going through. Are there any that will just never sell or is everything have a price tag? Honestly, everything has. Price tag and most of it sells, even some of the bigger cars. We had this purple Hemi Cuda that was just gorgeous and that was around 380,000 and that sat for two months and that was probably the longest I’ve seen a car sit.

And then so is there another building that’s just the personal collection of the Graham’s family that is not for sale or is just [00:42:00] So his house is on the property, so he lives on the property. He built a house in the basement. They used to kind of store stuff. But he doesn’t have, I thought he’d be like this, you know, after hours he like puts on a robe and pipe and he’s like, come with me.

I wanna show you my collection. You know, for all the cool stuff that he has. And he is just turn and burn and all of the profits every year go back into the museum. So all the money they make, if they make an extra million or $50 million, they just reinvested and just buy more cool stuffs. They were very smart businessmen didn’t get attached to any of the belongings, unlike some of us.

It’s a curse. It’s a curse. I wanted to show you the shop really quick cause that’s new. That’s kind of cool to look at, especially if you guys are nerds, you’ll nerd out on that kinda stuff. Well, I’ll say for only being there six months, I’m impressed with how much of like the layout, grasp of stuff that’s there.

The knowledge you’ve had thus far in your tour you’ve given us is amazing cuz I would’ve expect you’ve been there much longer than six months. Thank you. WGN is a big TV station that’s up here and my second day here, they were doing a live broadcast, like on their morning news. [00:43:00] And so I literally just signed like the w2, like that’s all I had.

So I walked out, the crew came in, it’s like five in the morning. She’s like, okay. Well, Jim, where, where do you wanna start? And, uh, tell us what, you know. I was like looking at the signs. I’m like, I went to loaner. I’m like, what do I know about these cars? So he basically like gave me the rundown enough to like fake it.

But it was live TV too, so it was terrifying. So now after a couple of those experiences, I got pretty good, pretty quick, just cause it’s fun. I mean, every day there’s just something new that you find. And not even just the cool stuff, but the story on how they got it, the story on, you know, what it went through, even like the Bonnie and Clyde thing, like it was fake, but it’s almost a cooler story than the actual car.

So, so are you yourself a petrolhead? No. So for the fact you’re not a petrolhead, how do you feel in the environment where it’s all automotive based? Love it. Transportation based, right? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It’s, I’m learning stuff every day and we’re nationally known. We’ve been around 60 years, so we get YouTubers and influencers all the time that want to come here just cause the collection is so ridiculous.

They [00:44:00] can get a lot of content done in one time. So I’ll be on their show almost like a hand puppet, but whatever. We go through these cars and he breaks down, he’s like, oh, this 4 27 when this is here, and here’s what this means and why this is here. And like I really get like the inside scoop. And now like it’s fun.

Like when new cars come in, I can start to tell the difference between the ears and the. Kinds and what’s rare and what’s not. This is the mechanic side. So this is when they first come in and they’re checking everything. So they have everything from cheaps to absolutely beautifuls. This the first one on, right?

Look like a early seventies. Monte Carlo, that challenger’s Ainger. That’s a Dodge Dart Stinger. Yeah, those are pretty rare too. They got a sting. I think that’s a sting right back there. This purple one here is really, really interesting. Kind of reminds me of, oh, it says Gatsby, so whatever. The movie car.

Yeah, I was gonna say it’s a doozy. Yeah. Funny. Is that ostrich interior? Yeah. You’re freaking me out with how good you are at this. I guess that’s why you have a show. Thank the other dusenberg still in here. Here. It’s bow tail. Those are beautiful cars. I’ve seen one of those in person. Only one though.

This is the one we lent out to [00:45:00] Brad Pitt. You used this in a new movie that comes out, I wanna say this summer. It’s a one title movie. I forgot the name of it. But we just got this back from the studio. So it’s a doozy boat tail then, not an auburn. Okay. Yeah, it’s a doozy. Nice. I’ve seen an Auburn boat tail in person.

They’re humongous. I mean, they’re just gorgeous. That was, that was like a trend for like a year or two, whereas like, oh, we’re gonna make ’em look like your yacht or whatever that you have, or whatever your sailboat is, you know, kind of thing. And then they just, they became passe almost quickly as they became a fad.

So, but they’re neat. Yeah. Really cool. So this is usually where, if they’re sold to come in here to get cleaned out and then transported out or. If they just get ’em in. So most of the time, whatever’s in here, no one’s even seen yet. How many of these cars would we end up seeing? Maybe crossing the field at something where like Bear Jackson or something like that.

I’m just curious, like what types of auctions these cars end up either coming from or going too. Right. They go, he flies around the country. So Mecu auctions, which is big, is actually like. 20 minutes down the street from here where they started. I actually went to high school with them. They are from this area now.

They’re nationally and they’re huge. So their prices have gone up. The owner of Mecu and the owner of this [00:46:00] place are still friends. He flies around the country because they have to buy in such large amount. I mean, a lot of people know about us here, so they’ll bring either selling consignment or bring ’em here, but we still go through a ton of cars.

So he flies out to auctions and they’re kind of all over the country. That’s a separate thing I could probably set up and have you talk about how he acquires ’em because that, that’s a whole different episode of just, it’s amazing. The operation on, it’s basically like five guys that just turn these cars.

There’s two salesmen and like five guys and they sell like 50 to 70 cars a month and just turn ’em over all over the country. That’s amazing. Looking at the future of the Volo Museum, do you see them getting more into maybe the Motorsport side or race cars or anything like that? Or is it always gonna stick with um, you know, the hot rods and, and the movie cars?

I wanna say they would stick to hot Rods movie cars cuz that’s what they’ve done. But I won’t say no because they’ll get a bug up his ass and all of a sudden we have a a 1928 carousel building. You know, I guess we’ve had a lot of people ask that cuz there’s obviously huge industries in all those, the fans are just, And there’s not a lot, at least that I know of that are around the country that [00:47:00] have that kind of stuff.

So obviously Peterson and some of the bigger places have rotating exhibits of that, but I’d love to see it. I think that stuff’s awesome. Pretty much it. I got one more thing to show you over here. Sure. The shopping cart, actually two things. So one thing I might even stump you on, this is something that I learned before I stump you.

I’m just gonna show you a couple more cool things. All right. So we have just a radio flyer. That you can drive down the street. I read about that car that somebody was driving right around for a car show or something and we were, we were laughing about it. Like, seriously what? Ridiculous. We go down the highway here, get some looks, and this guy too.

That’s awesome. But this is the, uh, the shopping cart. I love the stadium seating in the shopping cart. It’s fantastic. So I like the driver doesn’t even sit down here, he says way up at the top. The shifter is like right above it, you can see. But it’s got a Mopar thing. Yeah. Yeah. I can see it on the valve cover.

So this is a fun, we take them out. We have the trails that that go all along the property and we’ll take some of the stuff out. The mechanic is freaking nuts, so I’ll just be like, Jim, hop in. I’m like, what is this? Is this [00:48:00] okay? Like, is this safe? There’s no floor. You could just fall right through and land right on top of one of the pipes.

But it’s fun. So are you guys ever looking for volunteers to come drive any of the equipment to keep it running because. Eric and I will gladly come volunteer for that. Oh man, you guys gotta come out and see the stuff. I mean, the crews here just are really cool and as long as it’s not for sale or whatever, we donate a lot to different car shows and fundraisers and stuff like that.

So we’ll bring some of these cool cars out for people. Not necessarily to drive around. Like if it’s in our parking lot we will, but for insurance purposes, obviously. So do you know the year of the very first Lamborghini. I have to refer Eric on that one. Uh, it’s gonna be a tractor, not a car, so, oh, well done.

It’s gonna be post-war, so I’m gonna say 1948 or 49, early fifties. Good job. I’m impressed. This is the 1958. This is probably, this tractor’s probably worth more than all of the other ones here, but this, so we have this one and we have a Porsche tractor, actually, [00:49:00] is that a Porsche next to it? Yeah, this one, this is just one of the orchard.

Oh, that’s a case. Okay. A tractor. Yeah. The Porsche is being fixed. That’s one of the projects with the monster truck in the silver recall car is the Porsche tractor and the, the same guy fixes all ’em, which is crazy. But we did a promotional video where we’re like, we’re debuting our new Lamborghini. And you see like it’s all closeups.

They’ll put on like the leather glove and it goes around the steering wheel, you know, and you see like the gas. That stuff. Then it pans out and he’s just like chugging along on a little tractor. We interviewed the gentleman that runs the Porsche Diesel America company and he, he deals a lot with the Porsche diesel tractors.

Not only that, he owns the only unsold Porsche tractor in the United States. It’s brand new. It’s pretty cool. That’s amazing. So these trains I have on our YouTube channel, we crane these trains in and I put together like a three minute video of each one. Pretty cool. These cranes run on like eight tires.

That all steer independently. So this thing can crab walk and like move into super tight corner and then lift these massive [00:50:00] train cars over the museum. It’s awesome. But that’s pretty much nutshell. So Jim, let me ask you this as we close out our segment here, any shoutouts promotions or specials, anything else you’d like to add that our listeners would need to know about if they’re interested in visiting BOLO for the first time?

You know, the combo passes are really our best value because you can see the dinosaur park and everything here, so it’s like 30 bucks, it’s a full day thing, and then you can come back the next day for free. So if you come out here on the weekends, it’s a full weekend can really get your money’s worth.

Other than that, yeah, we have Titanic and Ice Cream Parlor Ford versus Ferrari. The new dudes and Rogue room, the Fast and Furious collection, all of these are gonna be a lot more interactive. There’s a documentary on Disney Plus called Imagineering, and a retired Imagineer lives like 20 minutes away and actually reached out to us.

Worked on a lot of the attractions and rollercoaster stuff, and he is like, I’m bored. Can I help you guys? And we’re like, not really. And all these new exhibits came up. So now he’s starting to help us design the Titanic display and some of this other stuff to really kind of take the displays to the next level and really draw people in and, uh, and interact with them.

We don’t want you to just, like, like you said, a lot of these Smithsonians [00:51:00] and these beautiful museums, they have awesome stuff, but. It’s just, you’re so disconnected with this. We really want people to touch and feel and experience it if they can. So that’s kind of how our competitive advantage, I guess you can say.

It’s weird cuz it’s just a bunch of buildings don’t even match. So it’s kind of, it’s like a redneck Smithsonian I guess I could say. I don’t even know, but exactly. We put a lot of passion into it and like I said, they invest everything. Every year, all the profits go right back to just make it better every year.

So that’s hopefully what people will see. It’s not just an auto museum, it’s, it’s an auto museum, but there’s just so much more that’s nobody else in the world really has, especially together the collection. So I’ll say this, Dan, I don’t know about you, but now in this post covid world as the. Museum is back in full swing.

I think we’re gonna have to make it a point to take a field trip and see this in person. What do you think guys have to I’m definitely down for that and so I’m, before you mention this there, I’m already thinking in my head what tracks are nearby, where we go out and track, you know, and then hit the museum up while we’re out there.

I think it’s time to hit Road America and get that off our bucket list there, Dan. It sounds like a plan. I don’t think [00:52:00] Elkhart Lake is. Too far from where you guys are at, but Or some of the other ones, even Gingerman and some of the other tracks. But you know, it will sweeten the deal if Jim can get us the defender from Viper.

That’s all I’m saying. And they’re gonna make it worth my visit. There’s other Viper for you to see. No, no. It’s gotta be the defender. I’m telling you. Not the cheesy one, that it turns into a boat. It’s gotta be the original defender, you know that. No that nonsense. Alright folks, if you’re looking for something else to do this weekend, how about a road trip to the Volo Museum to check out some iconic cars?

And if you can’t make it out to Illinois, be sure to check out the TV series. Volo House of Cars originally aired on the History Channel. Now available on Amazon Prime. And to learn more about the Volo Auto Museum, be sure to visit www.volocars.com or follow them on all the social media majors at Volo Museum.

So Jim, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and giving us this virtual [00:53:00] tour of the museum and sharing all these wonderful things that we didn’t know were hidden. Basically in the middle of nowhere, Illinois. So good on you guys. This is absolutely amazing and we look forward to seeing you in the near future.

Likewise. Thank you for having me. Thank you for helping me get my steps in too. I appreciate that.

The following episode is brought to us in cooperation with the Volo Museum. This episode is a virtual tour of the museum. Its facilities, all the different features that it has to offer. If you’d like to get the behind the scenes video version of this virtual tour, be sure to log onto www.patreon.com/.

Gt Motorsports or check out volo cars.com today and reserve your tickets to visit the museum in person. If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on [00:54:00] Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our text at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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