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Columbus Ohio Auto Enthusiast Attractions / Activities


AudiOn19s

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I'm not sure why this is such a difficult question for me to answer, a member from Rennlist reached out to me asking me what attractions / activities are a must-do for an auto enthusiast visiting Columbus OH. He is visiting from Germany

 

Catch is he's coming in a couple of weeks, so mid Feb I'm struggling with what to suggest.

 

Obviously there's Cars and Coffee but you can never guarantee turnout in feb.

 

Mid Ohio won't have anything going on in Feb. No Auto-x or the like either.

 

Obviously we have a couple of race teams in town here (Rahal and Shank) but I'm not sure if they do shop tours or anything like that....come to think of it why have I never even looked into something like this???

 

So anyhow...Mid Feb, what do you suggest a car guy (Porsche specifically) do and see when they come to town?

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Shank does do shop tours, February might be a good time to go with Sebring being a month out. http://www.michaelshankracing.com/shop-tour/

 

Not sure if Rahal does shop tours, they only have the GTLM (BMW) program here, Indy program has moved to Indy.

 

It's February so...If he's into motorcycles at all there the AMA Museum

 

Team Sahlen is based in Akron and races Porsche's in the ST class of CTSCC and various other events http://www.teamsahlen.com/index.cfm?template=home They were more than happy to do a Mazda meet & greet when they ran a MS3 and were great hosts.

 

Go Karting?

 

Tail of the Dragon road trip?

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Summit is a fun place to visit, way better than Jegs but it is two hours drive just to browse a store.

 

As mentioned before the AMA motorcycle museum is in town and is awesome. It's not big but it's fun if you like to geek out on old motorcycles, esp racing bikes.

http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/

 

Is he into airplanes? The Crawford Auto Aviation collection is pretty awesome. It's 2 hours away in cleveland, but it has about 140 cars, mostly brass age. Highlights include the 3 stainless steel fords that ford built as show cars, a gull wing mercedes, and many local early autos (like clevelands). They have about 10 airplanes all related to golden age air racing in Ohio - specifically the Collier and Thompson Trophys. They also have one of the largest collections of historical costumes and textiles so once you are done looking at a cord 810 roadster you can walk over to the other building and see how the driver would have dressed in 1935. If you make a day of it you can hit the brown derby in Mansfield on your way back to columbus for roadhouse steaks.

 

https://www.wrhs.org/research/crawford/

 

 

A similar distance is the canton classic car museum. I haven't been but it looks interesting and you could hit both since they are close enough:

http://www.cantonclassiccar.org/

 

Closer to home is the Wagner-Hagans collection. It's in German Village and it's small and kooky (1980 pontiac wagon as a collector car?!?) but the memoribilia makes it really fun. plus german village. I would call about this one since all I could find was a trip advisor page about it:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g50226-d7377857-Reviews-Wagner_Hagans_Auto_Museum-Columbus_Ohio.html

 

there is also the Bob McDormand collection in canal winchester:

http://www.bobmcdormanautomuseum.com/

mostly corvettes but lots of cool neon signs and stuff too. As always call to make sure they are open.

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Len Immke used to have one of the more unique car collections in Columbus back in the late 80's. Even had a mid 50's corvette / thunderbird hybrid (Literally using parts from both) in his stable. The location on Dublin road (close to 5th avenue) was where it was located. I know that location was shut down and really wonder where all the cars went. I believe it was 80 - 100 cars.

 

I remember a 3 -4 Buick Riv's (Hideaway headlight types)

Corvettes

T-Birds

Couple grey market Mercedes (I was told some we being held for Dave Thomas @ from Wendy's)

Some old cars (30 - 40's)

Multiple Rolls Royce's

Do not recall any racing cars

 

My first job was @ Hammond's Electronics and I used to install factory (Like) stereos and sunroofs in new Honda's and Buicks. Went to this location one to two days a week.

 

Seems like 30 years ago... Wait it was : )

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what's the story on that porsche dude in cincy? the one with the crashed 959? the one who passed away in 2013? Isn't his collection a museum?

 

 

edit: nevermind it was the Taj Ma Garaj I was thinking of.

Edited by Geeto67
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