Auto World Museum

200 Peacock Drive
Fulton, Missouri

573-642-2080

Admission varies from $4 - $8.  Parking is free on museum lot.

https://www.autoworldmuseum.com/

Opened in 2006.

This museum looks like on old warehouse sitting back from the north/south highway between Fulton and Jefferson City.  What a surprise to see what beauty is inside! The museum is 20,000 square feet with over 75 cars. 

This museum houses the auto collection of the late William E. Backer, shown here in this video.  There are available at the beginning of your visit five videos to watch that talk about his collection and the history of cars. The films are also on the museum's website. 

The cars are placed in period-appropriate settings with many historical settings and pictures from Fulton.  

Here the oldest cars seen in the back are parked before a large mural of the 1904 World's Fair. 

Almost every automobile has a sign like this that tells you a great deal about that model.

Then if you want to learn even more, you can hook up to a video with your phone. 

Your phone is then connected to a video interview and you can learn even more including listening to an interview of William Backer discussing that vehicle. 

The oldest car in the museum is this 1903 Humberette shown on the right. The car on the left is one of two replicas in the museum.  It is a 1902 Oldsmobile Runabout, Model R. 

The 1909 Black Auto Buggy Highwheeler was marketed by mail order and made in Chicago. Check out the pedals! 

This 1909 Ford Model T Touring Car has the standard wooden wheels.

This Kelsey Motorette was built in 1910 and is a three-wheeled roadster.  

The Studebakers manufactured wheeled vehicles starting in 1852 but did not produce gasoline-powered cars until 1904.  This is a 1915 Touring car. 

This is a Scripps-Booth 1917 Roadster.  By the end of that year, Chevrolet absorbed this car into its line. 

This 1919 Chevrolet Roadster was one of the first cars Chevy made under the GM banner. Its price was $715.

This 1920 Ford Model T "Center Door" Sedan was built 11 years after they first starting producing Model T's. 

This 1924 Stanley Steamer was built the last year that Stanley produced automobiles. 

The first Packard was built in Ohio in 1900.  This 1926 Packard Touring, Model 243 was a five-passenger automobile. 

George Pierce was originally a manufacturer of bicycles but in 1901 introduced his first car.  This is a 1926 Pierce Arrow, Model 80 and is a 7-passenger touring car. 

Introduced in 1929, the Cord L-29 was the first American production car to feature front-wheel drive.

1929 Chevrolet Model 6AC Cabriolet - The 1929 production year was Chevrolet’s response to Ford's introduction of the Model A.

This is a 1929 Rolls Royce Drop Head Coupe. The first Rolls-Royce cars were offered in 1906 and by September of that year the first Rolls-Royce arrived in America.

This Ford Model A was a successor to the Model T. In 1930 when this Model A Sport Coupe was manufactured, the Model A was the #1 selling car. 

Love where they first put rear view mirrors - attached to the extra wheel! 

And early windshield wipers were attached from above! 

 A 1932 Buick

 This 1932 Chevrolet Confederate was available for $485.

This1932 LaSalle Series 345B Coupe was the first production automobile to be designed, as to its general shape and features, entirely by an automobile stylist rather than by draftsmen and mechanical engineers.

 Check out the hood decoration on that car! 

This 1950 Buick Special, Series 40, Model 430 (D), 6 passenger Sedan featured the "Deluxe" package and carried a factory price of $1952.

1952 Kaiser Manhattan -  the Kaiser Car Company was founded by a shipbuilder, Henry J. Kaiser, at the close of World War II.

The 1955 Studebaker Speedster was an automobile produced by Studebaker only during the 1955 model year.

1957 Ford Thunderbird was introduced in answer to the Chevrolet Corvette. 

This 6-passenger 1959 Ford Galaxie Series Skyliner Convertible, was assembled at the Kansas City plant. In 1959, Ford produced 12,915 Skyliner Hardtop Convertibles.

This picture is blurry but I had to include a picture of the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray!

1966 Ford Mustang Coupe - The Mustang was introduced at the New York World's Fair in April 1964.  In the first week over 20,000 cars were sold.

And the 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, the Beetle being the most produced car ever. 

1969 Mercedes Benz 280SL - these attractive sports cars were highly regarded when new and have remained sought-after classics.

This is a 1975 Renault 12 which was converted to electric power after being built. 

The 1982 DeLorean Coupe - this car was conceived in 1973  as a stylish, affordable rear-engine sports coupe but the price kept rising. 

This 1986 Litestar Pulse Ground Cruising Recreational Vehicle were produced for five years. 

This 1997 Mizzou Sun Tiger II was made by Mizzou students to compete with 37 other schools in a race in their solar vehicles from Indiana to Colorado. Yes, it is hanging on a wall! 

For some unknown reason the museum includes two pianos and a number of toys! 

This blurry picture shows an area set aside for social functions complete with a diner. 

And of course there is a gift shop! 

which sells lots of signs and models, etc. 

There are a few vehicles outside on the grounds. 

Comments:  I am so glad that someone recommended that we visit this museum. It is definitely a fun time! 

The museum is well laid out - mostly chronologically. All of the cars going back to 1903 are in excellent condition.  The paint jobs on the old cars are beautiful!  Anytime you take a walk down memory lane is special so of course we enjoyed many of the newer cars.  

It was especially nice that the walls are covered with period designs.  It makes it very authentic and interesting. 

With most of the cars there is a large sign giving details about the car and also an opportunity to listen to a recorded message about the vehicle.  It runs for approximately five minutes.  In other words one can learn a tremendous amount about each car if they take advantage of this offered information. However a few cars just had a sign on the front telling you the year and model and a couple cars had no information on display.  They do rotate cars in the exhibit so I wonder if that is why some cars had so little information. 

At the beginning is the opportunity to watch five videos. They range from 6-21 minutes long; two are about William Backer and the museum and three are about the history of cars. One can sit there for quite awhile watching these; we stopped after two of them because it was so much to absorb. One can watch them on the website so my recommendation is to watch them at your leisure before you go. 

We probably spent 90 minutes there but you could easily spend maybe all day there if you chose to listen to every recording describing the cars. 

There were very few other visitors when we were there on a Wednesday morning but the employee told us that they had had 500 visitors over the week-end!  

The gift shop had lots of fun things for car-lovers!