Seventh-Annual Art of the Car Concours brings fine cars to the Kansas City Art Institute

Every weekend throughout the summer we visit car shows and cruises full of run-of-the-mill muscle cars, old trucks, and rat rods.  And I do love all of these events, which is why I keep going back.  But once in awhile, it’s nice to class it up a bit and check out some really fancy stuff.  The annual Art of the Car Concours is just such an event.  This is an opportunity to see local and national fine automobiles that rarely see the light of day.  But here they were, all on the manicured lawn of the Kansas City Art Institute for everyone to see.  Yeah, it was hot, muggy, and even a little rainy.  But it was worth a little discomfort to experience this very special show.

Potato chips and untouched classics at the Auto World Museum in Fulton, Mo

What do potato chips have to do with a rare and unusual car collection?  Well, in the case of the Auto World Museum in Fulton, Mo., they have everything to do with it.  You see, William Backer, of Backer’s Potato Chips fame, loved rare Classics.  So in the 1950s, he embarked on a journey that would result in what is likely the finest auto collection in central Missouri.

One of the reasons my dad and I decided to go to this museum is because we had been there before, and I thought it would be fun to see it again.  So we headed east, straight to the old K-Mart building on the main drag in Fulton where we thought the museum would be.  Turns out, that’s a Tractor Supply store now.  After punching the address into the GPS, we discovered that the museum moved into a large, 18,000-sq/ft facility in 2006.