Inside The Auto Collections at the Imperial Palace

Last week, I had the chance to go to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Now, most normal people would take this as an opportunity to check out an epic entertainment show, or take their chances in one of the casinos. I, however, am not a normal person. I'm not much of a partier, I hate losing money, and smoky casinos give me a headache.

I love cars, though. And in addition to the largest automotive aftermarket trade show, Vegas is the home of a well-known auto museum. Once we had seen all there was to see at SEMA, we headed down the Strip to the Imperial Palace, and the famous 125,000 sq-ft showroom known as The Auto Collections.

The Armacost Auto Museum in Grandview is a little-known Kansas City treasure

When it comes to automotive culture, Kansas City will surprise you sometimes.

It’s easy to look at the beautiful coastal settings of Pebble Beach or Amelia Island and think nothing like that can happen here. But then we have the Art of the Car Concours as held last weekend at the Kansas City Art Institute.

It’s easy to look at Detroit and think we are not a mecca of auto manufacturing. But in fact, both Ford and General Motors build some of their most popular vehicles in the area.

The Rennaisance Center - GM's awe-inspiring world headquarters in downtown Detroit is a symbol of American automotive excellence

With an auto plant in the Fairfax district, a district office in Corporate Woods, plus hundreds of area dealership locations, Kansas City is a major market for auto giant General Motors.

But whenever you watch local news coverage about GM on television, they will often cut to stock footage of GM’s corporate headquarters in Detroit, Mich.

That massive structure of seven meticulous skyscrapers is called the Renaissance Center, or “RenCen” as it is known by insiders. It houses the GM world headquarters, as well as a downtown shopping district that includes storefronts, a food court, a Marriott hotel, and a movie theatre.

Cool photos of a 1963 Corvette dealership display during Grotewold Chevrolet grand opening celebration

Today, I have some interesting pictures from the 1963 grand opening of Grotewold Chevrolet in LeMars, Iowa.

The pictures themselves have an interesting history, as they were among a stack that was to be thrown out when the Chevrolet Zone Office closed in 1986. My dad was a district manager there, and grabbed a big handful of pictures for me because he thought I’d think they were neat. Most of them were of dealerships that the district managers took to put in the file. I’ve featured some of them before on my Examiner page, and I really do think they’re fun to look at.

Long-closed car museum loaded with incredible hidden treasures including Clark Gable's Auburn and a Stutz Bearcat. Amazing photo slideshow!

Everywhere you turn, there’s another story about an old car that has been sitting in solitude for a few years, and everyone gets excited about the prospect of a “barn find.” You hear it so much anymore that the term is almost becoming cliché.

Often, the barn find is nothing more than a dried-up ’78 Camaro Berlinetta that someone dumped in a shed for 20-years. Well this barn find, friends, is not like that.

Roll back the clock more than 70-years, and you will find a guy who loved Classic cars (classic with a big C), and on his way across the country, he decided to settle in a small, southern Missouri town. Even then, these cars had a novel allure, but they could be purchased for mere peanuts.

The man decided to open a classic car museum, and over the years, he amassed one of the finest collections of pre-war cars in the country. The unassuming original tin building and remote location would prove to distract passersby to what actually lived inside.

A couple of years ago, there was a woman who worked in our office who mentioned that her dad had a bunch of old cars in a long-closed museum. It was intriguing enough to the car guys in our department that we decided to take a field trip. I’ll never forget what I saw.