In June, Vintage Roadcar had an opportunity to visit with Jeff Lane at the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. Lane, whose background is in mechanical engineering and who is a former sports car racer, has been collecting cars for some time, and his collection has been called unusual, eclectic, eccentric and other similar terms. The best description, however, is that it’s just cool. Lane is a car guy with some very unusual and interesting cars.
VR: When did you get interested in cars?
JL: It almost goes back to when I was a kid. My dad was in the automotive supply business in Detroit, Michigan, and he was also into cars. Oddly enough, he was into European cars. So as a kid we were always working on cars and going to car meets. Being a car person was just kind of ingrained in me, I guess, from my youth.
VR: What was your first car?
JL: My first car was a 1955 MG TF, and it has a very unique story. My dad bought a new MG TF when he was in Germany, in the Army in 1954. He was in the Army for two years. When he got out, he came back to Detroit, where he grew up, and got married within about a year and a half of coming back. He quickly realized that being in a northern climate and now being married, the MG TF was not a very practical car. So he got rid of it after having it about two or three years. Then in, I think, 1967 he became interested in having another MG, and he bought one that was in poor condition. He drove it a little bit. At that point I was seven years old. After about a year of driving it, he decided to restore it. So, I spent three or four years helping take it apart and restoring the car. When I was twelve, he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and, thinking like a kid, I said, “since I helped you rebuild your car, maybe you’d give me a TF for Christmas.” I didn’t think anything of it, but he bought me an MG TF in pieces, and that’s what I got for Christmas. It was in the back of a pickup truck in the back yard when I woke up Christmas morning. I spent the next four years putting it together. I grew up in the little town of Romeo, north of Detroit, and there was one lady who ran what they called Secretary of the State who sold license plates and gave out driver’s licenses. She had seen my dad’s car; it had been done for a couple years, and she had seen it around town. She’d asked him for a ride in it, and he had said, “maybe some time.” So finally he told her, “My son’s going to get his license in his car, and you can get a ride when he comes down to take his driver’s license test.” We went down there—my dad drove of course— and I got in the driver’s seat, and she got in. She told me to go down the street and turn and to go to where her neighbors lived; she wanted to show them the car. We drove over there, stopped and showed her neighbors the car, drove back to the office, and she gave me my driver’s license. It was a special car back then, and I’m lucky that my very first car was special. I never considered getting rid of it.
VR: So you still have it?
JL: I still have it. It’s still here in the museum.
VR: What made you decide to start collecting?
JL: I guess my dad was a little bit of a collector. We started out with MGs, and he kind of stuck with MGs. I know at one time we had about ten MGs—T-series, J2, an M-Type—but I really didn’t get interested in collecting until, I would say, the mid-’90s. Before that, I had my MG, and I bought a TC. I had a couple cars, but I think I got interested in collecting when I bought an Isetta and restored it in the early ’90s. From there, I kind of blossomed out into car collecting.
VR: I know you’re a racer. When did you start racing?
JL: I started racing at Waterford Hills (a club track in the Detroit area). I think back then you could race at Waterford when you were 16. SCCA was 18, but Waterford Hills was a private club, so you could race at 16. But it seems that I was 17 when I got my first racing license and started racing. I lived only an hour from there, so it was close.
VR: Then you raced with the SCCA?
JL: Yes, I raced in SCCA. When I went to college, I was in Nashville part of the time, so that’s when I started racing in SCCA.
VR: I seem to remember that you went to the Runoffs on occasion.
JL: I finished 2nd twice, but I never got the big win. It was four or five years that I ran at the Runoffs pretty competitively in an F Production MG Midget. The car in the collection is the third Midget. The first one I raced at Waterford Hills got totaled—it never raced in SCCA. Then the second Midget got totaled at Mid-Ohio, and this is the third car. After I wound down the national racing, I got involved in Improved Touring racing and endurance racing in Volvos. That was a lot of fun, and a lot less work.
VR: You went to Vanderbilt?
JL: Yes, for mechanical engineering.
VR: When did the museum happen?
JL: The museum opened in October 2003, so we have just observed our tenth anniversary. We spent a year before that renovating the building, so we started in ’02.
VR: Had your collection grown to the point that you thought of having a museum, or had the thought of having a museum caused your collection to grow?
JL: First of all, there was never a grand plan. Some people might say that you planned this all along or you’re where you want to be, but that’s not how it happened. I didn’t have a grand plan, but what really happened was that I started to collect cars— Amphicar, Tatra T 87, some unique cars. I would drive around town and people would see them and would ask about them. It got to the point where I had people say they’d like to come see my collection. Before the museum started, I had about 90 cars in five different industrial buildings—spread out—and there were always a couple scattered around in garages in rental houses. I had a neighbor whose son was a car nut who wanted to see the collection. My neighbor wrote me and said that was what his son wanted for his birthday present. So we set a time, and he came over—young, enthusiastic kid. We went over to where three of the industrial buildings were close together. He had an instant camera; we got in the first building, and he’s going crazy. I told him that this was only the first of three buildings—he had taken about half the camera in the first minute of being there. So, I would take people on tours, but they never got to see everything, because the cars were so spread out. I finally decided that I had two choices—one was to stop collecting cars or not collect any more, and the other was to put them together in an entity where people could see them. I wanted to share them with people; I wanted people to see them and experience them. So, I thought the museum was the perfect thing. That way, people can come and experience them. I’ll be here for a while to take care of them, but when I’m gone, they’ll still be here for people to enjoy.
VR: How did you find this building?
JL: We looked for at least a year for a building. It was difficult, because every building we looked at was a crummy old industrial building. This building wasn’t in the greatest shape, but we could see a lot of potential in it. We initially tried to buy it, but they had their offices here for their bakery business. So we suggested that we buy only the warehouse space and they could own the offices, which would bring the price down to be in our budget. They didn’t want to do that, so we continued to look. Six months later, they were still here, and we were still looking. They became more flexible, so we were able to buy the whole building.
VR: You now have quite a staff—you not only display cars, you maintain, restore and build cars.
JL: Yeah. We built a couple cars from nothing. We have eight full time people and two part-time.
VR: The cars you have are as unusual as the Gregory we saw in the shop and the Voisin that is in there being restored. On the floor and in the basement, you’ve got a lot of cars. How much space do you have here?
JL: We have 140,000 square feet. We’re actually giving more basement tours these days—not every weekend, but most weekends we open up the basement for people to see the cars down there.
VR: What’s your favorite car?
JL: That’s a tough one. I don’t really have a favorite. If I had to pick one, it would have to be my first car, the TF, but I like all the cars. I enjoy driving a Fiat 500 or BMW Isetta. I enjoy the cars for what they are and what they represent. To me, that’s the passion. I’m not like a reporter from one of the major newspapers who wanted to drive the Peel in the lobby at the New York Auto Show. He was obviously not a car guy. You have to get in there—the hand start is right next to you, and it’s really difficult to drive. We had to push-start it to get him going because he couldn’t get it started with the hand start; he just wasn’t that coordinated. He went about 30 feet and stalled it. He said, “It’s not a Honda Accord, is it?” I said, “No, it’s not a Honda Accord in any way, shape or form.” It was never meant to be. It was a tiny little car made to run around on an island and keep you out of the rain when it was pouring. Cars are what they are, and there are reasons why they are what they are.
VR: You walk into the museum, and the first impression is OMG, there’s some of everything in here. How do you decide what you’re going to buy and add to the museum?
JL: We have some core themes—Tatra, micro cars, and unique and unusual, which is a very wide theme. We try to stay focused on things that are in the niches that we have—propeller cars is one of them, a small one, and amphibious cars. When we look at a car, I ask if it fits in with the collection. When we go to a concours, even when we’re not with the car, people know it’s a Lane Motor Museum car because it’s different than anything else around. That’s our strategy and our branding, I guess. We ask is it unique and different, something people haven’t seen, and does it fit in with what we have now. There are so many choices for collections, but nobody can do everything. There’s a poster with all the Fiat 500s that were made—all the variants. That could be a museum in itself. So, we look at a car and ask: is it unique and different, is it interesting, does it fit in with what we have?
VR: Now the question we ask everyone we interview: If a genie popped out of a lantern and said you could have any car in the world regardless of cost, what would you get?
JL: Wow. Just one? I’m torn between picking something that exists and something you hope exists. One of my favorite cars that exists is the Voisin C27 Aérosport that’s at the Frist (Sensuous Steel exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville). That’s a spectacular car. And if I could pick a car that probably doesn’t exist—the Davis was developed from a car called the Californian that was a one-off prototype. Or maybe I could pick a Layat? Maybe I’ll pick the Layat Monthléry speed record car, which we know does not exist. I guess that still gives me two picks (laughter).
More information on the Lane Motor Museum can found at www.lanemotormuseum.org
