{"id":18168,"date":"2016-03-05T20:13:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T00:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=18168"},"modified":"2016-03-05T20:13:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T00:13:54","slug":"payne-the-swashbuckling-ceo-of-americas-car-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/payne-the-swashbuckling-ceo-of-americas-car-museum","title":{"rendered":"Payne: The swashbuckling CEO of America\u2019s Car Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Madeira_Mustang\"<\/p>\n

America\u2019s Car Museum CEO David Madeira has trekked through Cambodia, Turkey, Sardinia. And the Himalayas. Three times. On a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

He should do interviews wearing an Indiana Jones fedora, jacket and leather whip wrapped around his shoulder.<\/p>\n

For his latest adventure, the rugged 65-year-old is leading what he calls the \u201cSmithsonian of Car Museums\u201d in Tacoma, Washington. It\u2019s a vision built on late refuse magnate Harold LeMay\u2019s epic car collection with ambitions to educate a new generations of vintage car mechanics and bring our auto heritage to drivers everywhere.<\/p>\n

One of those road trips, \u201cThe Drive Home,\u201d featured three cars from ACM \u2013 a 1957 Chevy Nomad, \u201961 Chrysler 300G and a \u201966 Ford Mustang \u2013 driving 3,170 miles from Tacoma across the Rockies to the Detroit auto show in January. Naturally, Madeira led the way in the red \u2019Stang.<\/p>\n

I sat down with the ex-University of Illinois fundraiser to talk about America\u2019s largest car museum, mechanics and crossing the Khardung La pass.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0You a car guy from birth?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0I think every boy who grew up in the \u201950s and \u201960s was a car guy. I loved British sports cars and motorcycles.<\/p>\n

Q: First car?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0Triumph TR3.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What\u2019s in your garage now?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0My daily driver is an F-150 pickup truck. I also have a 1983 Porsche 911S convertible. A 1973 Norton Commando 850 that I just finished restoration on \u2013 British, one of the sexist motorcycles you\u2019ll ever find. 2009 Royal Enfield Bullet 500cc motorcycle I bought in Bhuton after riding across the Himalayas. I had to have it.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0You\u2019ve circled the world. What\u2019s your most harrowing journey?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0Total wild-ass adventure was this summer in Kashmir. (Four couples on motorbikes) rode up into the Himalayas (in) the disputed area with Pakistan. Way out there. As remote as you can get today. We went over this pass called Khardung La (Ed. note: The highest vehicle-accessible pass in the world<\/i>), which is 18,406 feet. We were held by the Indian army for four hours because there were avalanches up there. We could hear cannon fire behind us in a border flare-up. They (finally open the road) and all these vans and Tata trucks made a race for the top. I\u2019m two-up with my wife on a 1950s Royal Enfield. We\u2019re riding through sleet and snow, thunder and lightning, on an all-dirt road. No guardrails. I\u2019m riding with the screen of my helmet flipped up so I could see. There had been three avalanches that day and (there were) boulders everywhere. We\u2019re riding through raging waters and about 20 km from the end one of our guys hits a boulder he doesn\u2019t see and breaks a leg.<\/p>\n

Two people (not in Madeira\u2019s group<\/i>) died on the mountain that night \u2013 crushed by rocks from avalanches. I would do it again tomorrow in a moment.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0Patagonia in 2017.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What did LeMay\u2019s collection look like when you started?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0The collection went back 100 years. It was mostly American. And if you walked through it, what you saw was America\u2019s experience with the auto. He had collected 3,000-plus cars that ranged from absolute junk in the field with trees growing through them to million-dollar Duesenbergs. He had 227 Chevrolets. It was mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What\u2019s it mean to be the \u201cSmithsonian of Car Museums\u201d?<\/p>\n

Madeira:\u00a0Most museums struggle \u2013 because it\u2019s someone\u2019s wonderful collection. In 30 years no one\u2019s going to care \u2013 it\u2019s not a sustainable model. (Ours) was always a larger vision celebrating America\u2019s love affair with the car. To tell the story of its impact on American life.<\/p>\n

Then the vision grew to: How do we differentiate ourselves and be sustainable? I have great respect for craftsmen, but our schools don\u2019t teach those shop skills anymore. The car has had more impact on American life than any other product in the 20th\u00a0century. How do we preserve that heritage? Part of it is keeping cars on the road. So we got into the Hagerty Education Program to fund wooden boat-building programs (because the skills are related) and schools like McPherson College in Kansas and high schools in Michigan that are providing the education for kids.<\/p>\n

The third piece is we want to get the cars out and drive them \u2013 like the Drive Across America to show the relevance of the car today. For our members we create unique driving experiences and events all the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s Car Museum CEO David Madeira has trekked through Cambodia, Turkey, Sardinia. And the Himalayas. Three times. On a motorcycle. He should do interviews wearing an Indiana Jones fedora, jacket and leather whip wrapped around his shoulder. For his latest adventure, the rugged 65-year-old is leading what he calls the \u201cSmithsonian of Car Museums\u201d in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18169,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18168\/revisions\/18169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}