00:02 - Welcome to the Swagger Museum.

00:04 - We're in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.

00:06 - I'm Pat Swigert.

00:07 - Our museum is the oldest car museum in America.

00:11 - And possibly even in the world.

00:13 - It was started in 1920 by my husband's

00:16 - father, W Emmert Swigert, at the time.

00:20 - He started it in Huntington at a place called the carriage House.

00:24 - We have cars here and the collection from 1899

00:29 - up until the present time.

00:32 - This is a 19 three curved old Mobil.

00:36 - This was my husband's favorite car.

00:38 - He enjoyed coming down and taking it out for a little drive on the highway.

00:43 - It's tiller driven and it's one cylinder.

00:47 - You could purchase the car by pound.

00:50 - It was 650 pounds and it was a dollar a pound.

00:54 - So you paid $650 for the car itself.

00:58 - William used to take the car, and we'd take it out on a Friday afternoon

01:03 - when he would leave the business and we'd go out on the highway.

01:08 - He enjoyed driving down the highway in the center lane.

01:11 - The tractor trailers were gone, flying past you.

01:14 - It was a little scary, but he enjoyed it.

01:20 - This is a 1988 Studebaker Electric.

01:23 - It was used between the House and the Senate down in Washington, D.C..

01:28 - There were two of them made.

01:29 - One was Tommy and one was Peggy.

01:32 - This is Tommy.

01:33 - And when we would take it out to different shows, why we got blue bath towels?

01:38 - Because Tommy had to have blue booties.

01:41 - The car was tailor driven,

01:45 - and the driver would sit on one side

01:50 - when they're going one way in the tunnel

01:52 - and move to the other side when they were coming the other way.

01:56 - When the government sold them,

01:59 - they sold them for $35 each.

02:03 - William purchased this from a man in Hanover,

02:06 - but I don't know what he paid for it, but I think it was more than $35.

02:29 - This is a 1911 Sears.

02:32 - You could buy this car from the Sears catalog.

02:34 - Every home had a Sears catalog.

02:36 - It was almost like the Bible to the house.

02:39 - And everyone purchased their things from the catalog.

02:42 - When you bought this car and it was delivered to you, it was delivered.

02:47 - And a large box.

02:49 - The box was the garage.

02:52 - Very interesting car.

02:54 - Tell driven.

02:59 - This is a 1912 Detroit Electric.

03:02 - This car was donated to us by one of our board members,

03:06 - Steve and Blanche Gordon, from Chatsworth, Georgia.

03:10 - It's a very quiet car, a very nice car.

03:14 - It's like considered a Sunday car.

03:17 - The driver would sit in the back.

03:20 - There are two bench seat and the driver was in the back bench.

03:25 - So they had to look out through the people who were in the front

03:29 - bench when they drove it.

03:34 - This is a

03:34 - small portion of our license plate collection.

03:37 - We have the largest

03:40 - collection of license plates in the world.

03:43 - We have them here according to state and country.

03:47 - People can come see what we have.

03:50 - Many times we have people that stop in and say, well,

03:53 - you don't have a certain license plate from my state.

03:56 - And a couple of weeks we'll get one in the mail.

04:00 - Early license plates were made of soybeans.

04:05 - The animals would eat those.

04:07 - Then they went to, like, a cardboard.

04:10 - And of course, they didn't last throughout the the rainy season.

04:15 - And so then they went to the metal.

04:19 - We do have some that are porcelain also.

04:24 - This is a 1916 Scripps Booth town car.

04:29 - A very elegant car.

04:31 - It was made for Eleanor Sayers, who was a tennis player in the teens.

04:37 - She wanted a car that had the smallness of a model-t,

04:41 - the elegance of a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes radiator.

04:46 - The school at Pennsylvania

04:49 - College of Technology and Williamsport

04:52 - came and got the car as we were invited

04:55 - to take it down to Hershey to a show.

04:59 - They got it running for us and

05:04 - at one time they were having

05:07 - Jay Leno come to their school.

05:10 - They asked if they could take the car back up,

05:13 - and he did drive the car.

05:16 - We do a lot of work with the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport.

05:22 - The students are very anxious to work on the cars.

05:26 - They're very good at it.

05:27 - They're very particular on what they do, and they take care of our cars.

05:39 - This is the 1960 Fiat Jolly.

05:43 - The jollies were used mostly on beach areas.

05:47 - People would get them.

05:49 - Of course, it has the wicker seats.

05:51 - And they were a lot of fun to drive.

05:53 - It was like the golf carts are today.

05:57 - Were the different resorts?

06:00 - People have golf carts rather than using their cars.

06:03 - The jolly was something they did kind of lose their interest for a while.

06:09 - And then several very wealthy

06:12 - people got some and started driving them again.

06:15 - And they did take on a new interest.

06:19 - This is a 1947 Tucker.

06:22 - This was the Tin Goose.

06:24 - It was the first car that was built.

06:27 - Mr. Tucker built 51 cars.

06:30 - We have number 13 as well as this

06:35 - prototype.

06:37 - Each of the first 25 cars had a little bit different

06:41 - in every one of the models that they had built.

06:46 - Mr. Tucker made the car

06:49 - to have safety glass in it,

06:52 - and many safety features.

06:56 - This is Herbie the Love Bug.

06:58 - One of the features of the museum

07:01 - most people know of Herbie.

07:04 - This particular car was in the first movie,

07:06 - which was known as The Love Bug, and it was in the fourth movie.

07:11 - It was the prime car in that Herbie Rides again.

07:15 - But Herbie is one that everybody loves no matter what age they are.

07:21 - They have.

07:22 - At some time, brother learned about Herbie

07:25 - and people come and just enjoy it.

07:28 - We had a gentleman here recently.

07:31 - He said it's made his life because he always wanted to see Herbie in person.

07:37 - I'm Lonnie Smith

07:38 - junior, and I'm the director of the swag Art Museum.

07:41 - This neat item

07:44 - is an auto theft signal system.

07:47 - It was patented in 1914.

07:51 - It was used as like a boot that you would put on your own vehicle.

07:55 - A tire that had spoke wheels.

07:57 - You'd put this around and you'd lock it, and it would keep somebody

08:00 - from stealing your car.

08:04 - We all have our plastic driver's license we use today.

08:08 - Well, as early as 1919

08:11 - and even before there were driver's license.

08:15 - But they were pins that you would have to have

08:18 - displayed on you while you drove through the town.

08:22 - Some places required a special license just for that town.

08:26 - And if you were a chauffeur, you had your own chauffeurs badge as well.

08:35 - This item you would find

08:36 - most likely in a glove box

08:40 - when ladies would get, say, a teaching job, they might travel

08:45 - and they would go to a boarding house during the week they worked,

08:49 - and then they would go home on the weekends.

08:51 - Well, this item they would take into their boarding room

08:56 - and they would clamp this around their doorknob.

09:00 - And this winds up.

09:02 - So if anyone would try to break into the room

09:06 - when they turned the doorknob.

09:10 - This bell would go off,

09:12 - alerting them.

09:16 - I hope you enjoyed your short

09:17 - tour of Swagger Museum.

09:21 - We're open from Memorial Day weekend until the end of October.

09:25 - We're open every day from 10 to 5.

09:28 - You can also find us on our website w w w Dot's

09:32 - flagship museum.com, and we're on Facebook.

09:37 - We enjoyed having you with us.

09:38 - Please come and see us.

09:40 - We have a membership.

09:41 - We have an adopt a car program and we take donations.

09:46 - Thanks for being here.