We booked an appointment at National Indoor R V Center in Nashville many months ago, to get our motorhome serviced. They have a great reputation and I am particular about who works on our motorhome. It was time for the engine and chassis maintenance, and we were having trouble with two of the slides.

NIRVC gave us a code to get in the gate after closing, which we did the night before our appointment. They have 50 amp electrical hookups so we could camp easily. The place is HUGE! Hundreds of rigs surround a very large building… many rigs here for service, and many obviously new, waiting new owners.

I was hoping they would look at our list of services requested, and say they’d be done in a few days. Then we’d drive back to Lincoln in time for our next appointment. They looked at what had to be done, and said it would likely take most of two weeks… So we decided to drive the car back to Lincoln so we’d be there in time. Before we left, however, we decided to look at new rigs in the Indoor showroom. I’ve heard of NIRVC for years, but never been to one of their sites. We found out they really don’t have rigs inside! So why the name?? It turns out their first business, years ago, was indoor storage. National Indoor Storage. As they moved to RV sales, they kept the name, misleading as it is.

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Lane Motor Museum

We hadn’t planned anything in particular to do while in Nashville, and now that we had to turn our “home” in to the service folks, we had to decide where we’d stay and what we’d do. We packed up a couple weeks’ worth of stuff in the car, and suddenly felt lost. We discussed what we might do, and Cherryl said she’d rather go back to Lincoln and help with the VBS there than do Nashville stuff. So we decided we’d go almost directly back… but we’d stop at a little car museum on our way out of town.

It turns out the Lane Motor Museum is NOT little!! I’ve probably put up way too many cars on this blog over the years, but this place is full of really unique cars. I have to include a bunch of vehicles I’ve never heard of or imagined before.

1957 Wartburg 311 Camping-Limousine
The Wartburgs were made in the shadow of Wartburg Castle, of Martin Luther fame. The company was owned by BMW since 1928, and after WWII, BMW relocated them to Munich, leaving the factory. The Soviets took over the factory, and continued production of pre-war BMW designs until a court order forced them to stop in 1952. Why this is called a Camping-Limousine is beyond me; nothing inside but seats.

2020 Citroen Ami
Part of this eclectic collection is a new-looking and very weird Citroen. It was designed to be affordable, and has many cost saving features. All body panels, except the roof, are interchangeable. The front end and rear end panels are identical, differing only in the placement of headlights or taillights in the openings. The doors are even identical, with the handle on the left… which means on one side, the door is hinged in the back, and the other door is hinged in the front! Cute but weird!

1938 Steyr 50 “Baby”
This Austrian built car looks like a miniature Chrysler Airflow… also a car ahead of its time, and pretty much a commercial failure. After WWII, the VW beetle took off, and this competitor lost traction. The company went back to building bicycles.

1939 Hanomag 1.3 Liter Saloon
This German company was building cars in the 20’s, but they weren’t doing too well. In 1932 they gambled on concentrating on only one car – a 1.1 Liter sedan. (Saloon) to some languages.) It was fabulously popular, and in 1939 they introduced the 1.3 Liter Saloon. It was built for only one year, and never got a “real” name – was only called the 1.3. In 1940 the company shifted to war machinery, and this would be their last production car. The raised seam down the middle of the car makes me think of a fantastic old car – the Phantom Corsair. Wish I had time to talk about that one!

Thermador Car Cooler
Only about 50% of cars sold in 1969 had air conditioning, and external “swamp coolers” were an economical way to stay cool. It had a towel on a circular rack, which when you pulled the string would rotate through some stored water and into the airflow. IF you didn’t mind stopping every 100 miles or so to add water, and IF the string inside didn’t break, and IF traffic kept moving, and IF the humidity was low, you did very well!

1962 Auto Union 1000SP
In the late 50’s Auto Union (Today’s Audi) was in a pickle… they had no cool sports car to compete with VW’s Karman Ghia and Mercedes’ 190SL. American cars were all the rage in Europe (can you believe it?) and they decided to blatantly copy from the new Ford Thunderbird. It was too expensive for its target market, however, and didn’t sell well.

1955 MG TF 1500
As a young boy, Jeff Lane (the owner of this museum) went to MG meets with his father. They restored a 1954 MG TF together, and at age 12, he asked for his own MG. Much to his delight, he received this 1955 MG TF for Christmas! The only trick was… it was in pieces in the back of a pickup! He spent the next 4 years restoring it, and drove it to get his driver’s license. He credits this MG with starting his love affair with cars, and eventually this whole museum.

1960 Frisky Prince
Just the name alone makes this one worth putting here! The car was designed as a very fuel efficient model… A publicity stunt was set up where they drove the car to 5 European capitals – Paris, Luxembourg, Brussels, Amsterdam and London, on less than £5. The car was able to do it, but the stunt did not boost sales and it was only produced that one year. One mystery remains: Where did they get that name?!

1948 Larmar
In 1940’s England, there were many ex-servicemen who had been wounded in WWII. The Larmar was designed in a category called “Invalid Carriage,” which could be described as a road-worthy wheelchair. It was for one person, and so narrow it could go through the garden gate (and maybe a standard door, as this frame shows.) At 2 feet 4 inches wide, it is believed to be the world’s narrowest production car. It was also marketed as a shopping car for women, with a very large trunk (probably designed to hold a wheelchair.) In spite of its boxy looks, it had some surprisingly sophisticated running gear.

1958 Opperman Unicar
Opperman was a tractor manufacturer, and when they saw the popularity of the Mini, they decided to build a tiny car too. It could be ordered ready-made, or as a do-it-yourself project. Parts would be sent to you by mail, and by putting it together yourself you saved a lot of taxes.

1958 Sir Vival
Walter Jerome, in the 1950’s, felt the auto industry was not producing safe enough cars. He bought a 1948 Hudson Commodore 6, and rebuilt it so dramatically you’d never know how it started. He called it the “Sir Vital”, a pun on the potential survivability of the strange vehicle. It had rubber bumpers, a roll cage, seat belts, side marker lights and doors that pop out and slide back like current minivans. Those are pretty normal now. But wait, there’s more! The car was in two parts, hinged together in the center. The front portion held the engine and transmission. Steering was accomplished by hingeing the two halves. Weirder still is the driving position – 3 feet above the rest of the passenger compartment, where the driver could see almost 360 degrees around. The windshield was a glass cylinder, completely surrounding the driver… and it rotated! The glass would rotate around, and get cleaned as it passed the very back support. Bet you’ve never seen that before! If it worked, and you got bugs on the windshield, you should see the bugs slide to one side and clean glass replace them from the other side.

He never got support from major manufacturers to build it (Surprise!) and this is the only one ever built. The museum says they will rebuild it someday.

Above are pictures of what’s left of the car today: below are some promo pictures from its introduction.

1932 Helicron
Built in France, this one-of-a-kind car was propelled by a propeller (Of Course!) It was abandoned, found in 2000, and rebuilt. It steers with the rear wheels. It supposedly passed the French safety inspection in 2000 and is approved for use on their roads!

1967 Gyro-X
This car was designed with two wheels, hoping to be more fuel efficient. It is supported with a large gyroscope and a very clever way of letting the car tilt in corners and then right itself. It supposedly was very maneuverable, but got a bit unstable at 70 miles per hour. (Can you imagine driving this thing at 70 mph?) It never had the bugs worked out so more versions were never produced.

1938 Citroen Berline 11 Gazogene
During German occupation of France in WWII, gasoline was scarce, expensive, and sometimes just unavailable. Many companies tried to use alternative fuels, like wood, coal or charcoal. This Citroen was converted to run on coal. It could be adjusted to run on gas or coal… first you got the coal going (a half hour endeavor,) then you would start it on gasoline and once it got running you’d adjust it again for coal gas. Not sure why it’s not more popular today!

1955 Fuldamobile NWF 200
This tiny car was actually popular in Germany in the 50’s and 60’s. Early versions were made with wood frames, and plywood panels for the exterior. This one is metal; some later models were fiberglass. About 700 of the three wheeled cars were built.

1948 Davis 494X-P
Gary Davis founded the Davis Motor Car Company in Southern California in 1946. He was convinced that three wheeled cars were safer than 4 wheelers. I’ve seen some of his two door sedans, like below. They are very wide – it’s a four seater, with four big men able to sit side-by-side in the front seat. I never realized that they made a Jeep-type vehicle too!

1945 Surlesmobile
Copied from the sign: “As a lieutenant in the Army Air Force, Texas native Don Surges had an innovative idea stemming from this thought on why someone hadn’t designed a more practical door. He imagined a door, “that would open without hitting the curb or another parked car. A door you could leave open as you backed out of the garage… one that wouldn’t be in your way when you climbed in and out of the car… and above all, a door and window that would never rattle.”
So his design has a door that rotates down under the floor, and a window that slides up into the roof. While his plans never moved farther, GM used a tailgate on their station wagons for a while in the 70’s that looked a lot like this.

1969 Fascination
In the late 60’s, Paul Lewis established the Highway Aircraft Corporation in Sidney, Nebraska. He had previously built aircraft in Denver. Now he created a propeller-driven prototype, with the prop and engine in the rear. “An accident occurred during its demonstration” which led him to delete the propeller and mount a VW engine in the rear instead. He put in on display in several dealerships, including one at Stapleton Airport in Denver. I think only 4 prototypes were built, and this is number 1.

1952 Citroen 2CV “Bichephale” (Replica)
Cogolin, France’s fire and rescue service operated a Citroen in their mountain patrol fleet for fire surveillance. One night, Colonel Hourcastagne came to a block in a mountain road, and had to back down the narrow road with only the help of a firefighter and a flashlight. He decided to never repeat that performance… he took the front ends of two Citroen 2CV’s, modified the drive systems substantially, and came up with a car that can be driven either way. He did place tail lights on one end and headlights on the other, but otherwise it’s pretty symmetrical.

1989 Citroen 2CV “Skinny”
Citroen produced over 7,000,000 2CV models. They were as strong and as dependable as they were ugly! The Lane museum has several 2CV’s that have been adapted for some interesting mission. (Like the one/two above.)
Somebody narrowed a 2CV so drastically that it has been called a 1CV. It was so skillfully “skinnyized” that it still sports all the original running gear. It is now a two person car, the driver and a single passenger in the rear.

1952 Future
Sigvard Berggren created this streamlined vehicle in Sweden. He used a 1938 Dodge and placed a flathead Ford V8 in the mid-rear. The aircraft like styling seems to have been all the rage in the 50’s, and he accomplished this design with hand-formed steel panels. This car got a lot of attention at the time, but its weight limited performance. Berggren gave up on car design and focused on African Wildlife, and zookeeping. Some of his zoo designs were adopted by zoos around the world.

1959 LARK-LX
I almost didn’t include this crazy vehicle, because you can’t judge its size by the photo. It is over 62 feet long, 26 feet wide, and almost 20 feet tall! The tires are 9 feet tall! It is amphibious, with four diesel engines, four wheel drive, twin props, and four wheel steering. It could carry 60 tons from ocean to inland, across heavy seas, and up inclines as steep as 60 degrees. It could land and leave beaches through heavy surf. Don’t mess with this guy!

1998 McLean Wheel
A mono wheel is one big wheel with the driver sitting inside the rim, as compared with a unicycle where the person sits atop the wheel. The first known patent for a mono wheel was issued in 1869.
Kerry McLean started experimenting with mono wheels in the mid 1970’s, and spent 30 years perfecting them. Like a bicycle, they are not stable until they get moving, when the gyroscopic effect of the big wheel gets going. At 15 mph and more, the driver can rest his feet on the pegs, leaning to turn. I’m told learning to ride it takes a bunch of patience!

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Vacation Bible School

Our daughter Becky was heading up the baking section of the VBS that we hurried back to Lincoln for. The theme of the event was “Nazareth: where Jesus lived as a boy.” One huge room was converted into a marketplace, with many shops with activities.

Every day Becky and helpers guided the kids in making cute rolls shaped like fish, birds, scrolls, roses and a shofar. They were delicious and very popular. Cherryl and granddaughter Dayna, and Sister-in-law Jeanne helped with that massive operation. I say massive – there were 160 kids at the VBS, and about 100 helpers.

Brother-in-law Steve and I got to help in the Carpenter Shop. We had a signpost that kids could nail their customized signs on, a log sawing station, a clever little tic-tac-toe game they could finish, and the most surprisingly popular, stumps to pound nails into. Kids loved all the activities… There were other stations where they learned to write their names in Hebrew, or grind wheat at the mill, or plant seeds, or see different animals, or weave, or who knows what all. Crazy crowded, a lot of fun.

This little guy used the cut-off slices from the log sawing, and made a stack nailed together. I thought it would be impossible with the angle he was nailing them together, but he did it and was very proud of it!

I’m not sure how many different animals were presented, but I did see a rabbit and these cute Sugar Gliders.

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Peter recently got a “Big Boy Bike.” He did a little demo of how small he was with his first little bike, then the middle sized bike, and now how tall he is with his big bike!

Interesting and beautiful clouds one evening…

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Once again, I’m going to break my “Blog is always one week behind” rule, and comment on this week.

My mother-in-law, Joanne, died a few weeks ago. She had requested to be buried in Evergreen, Colorado, by her first husband, Frank. You might notice that I like cars, and have had the fun of driving many types. Now I added a new type to my list – a hearse. We drove Joanne, and her casket, in our Suburban, from Lincoln to Evergreen. We had a small family-only graveside service, led by good friend of the family Lonnie. It was a beautiful service, and a gorgeous day. Here are a few pictures of the Evergreen Memorial Park and Joanne’s service.

Next week I’ll get back into normal schedule, and record a bit more on the trip and whatever else (if anything) happens this week. Actually hoping for a little rest for a bit.