Ringing Out One Year, Ringing in Another at Revs
By John Lamm
If words like “museum,” “collection” and “archive” conjure up images of dust and solitude, you don’t know Revs Institute and the Miles Collier Collections.
Throughout the year, Revs Institute has concours to attend and races to run. The collection’s 115 cars need to be maintained and driven to keep them at the ready. Some restorations are started while other original vehicles are skillfully preserved by fine-art curators. Thousands of museum visitors are shown the collection by a superb crew of docents. Displays need to be polished and the comprehensive archive of books and ephemera kept in perfect order.
In addition, Revs Institute’s library team continued scanning negatives and transparencies from the collections to create digital files. The team has also moved to a new Revscat library catalog (https://revsinstitute.on.worldcat.org/discovery), and they migrated almost half a million digital images into an all-new Revs Digital Library (https://library.revsinstitute.org/digital/). In addition, the library opened a storefront on Amazon (https://amazon.com/shops/therevsinstitute) to sell duplicate books.
Oh, and occasionally there’s a hurricane.
In 2017, a pair of Dan Gurney Eagles were loaned to Los Angeles’ The Petersen Museum to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the great driver’s Spa and Le Mans wins in 1967. The 1927 Delage started a months-long journey to events in France and England. Florida’s Amelia Island Concours saw the 1958 Vanwall and 1955 Jaguar D-Type on display. Come summer the Vanwall and Delage competed in the first of two Goodwood events, joined in September by the 1957 Cooper-Climax T-43 at the Goodwood Revival.
During July, we had our annual Hoods Up display, giving visitors a chance to compare the engines in everything from the 1896 Panhard & Levassor to the 1995 McLaren F1.
August is always busy for Revs Institute. Gunnar Jeannette raced the 1964 Abarth Simca 2000GT and 1966 Porsche 906 at California’s Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the Rolex Reunion. The 1908 Mors race car rumbled across the awards ramp at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Revs conducted a symposium at Pebble Beach titled ‘From Here to Autonomy’ about how car design and collecting could be affected by the widespread adoption of new technologies and regulations.
Just a few weeks later, the 1966 Ford GT 40 MkI and 1962 Lotus 23 were raced at the Lime Rock Historics in Connecticut. The GT40 was back on the road in November for the Hilton Head Concours, joined by a perennial crowd favorite, the Figoni et Falaschi-bodied 1937 Delahaye 135MS Roadster.
That is a short list of how the cars were used, but much more happened. There was the 3-day Symposium in which well-known collectors and other experts gathered in Naples to discuss everything from proper restoration to the future of vintage cars to automotive history. Peter Stevens, designer of the McLaren F1, and Grand Prix expert Doug Nye joined from England.
The extensive conservation and body restoration of the 1968 Porsche 907 was completed.
And then there was October and Hurricane Irma. In impressively quick fashion, our crew managed to get the 70 Collier Collection cars housed on the first floor of the museum up to the second and third floors for safekeeping. Luckily the hurricane caused little damage, but Revs Institute was ready.
Naturally one last task in 2017 was prepping for 2018. The restoration of the Porsche Gmund 356SL is scheduled to be done in time for the Porsche Rennsport Reunion next fall. There is a gathering of Cunningham cars in early summer at the Greenwich Concours, followed by the Goodwood Festival of Speed and later the Revival, the Rolex Reunion and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The Mercer Raceabout and Duesenberg SSJ are already promised for a special exhibit in autumn…so much to do, so little time.
Dust and solitude indeed…stay tuned.
