Where are Smithsonian’s cars?
ne reason why the story concerning the McKinney family’s donation of a 1932 Ford Model B to the Smithsonian piqued my interest was the curator’s assertion that this was only the second car in the Institute’s permanent collection. Page 101 of Floyd Clymer’s 1953 book “Those Wonderful Old Automobiles” counters that the Smithsonian once boasted an impressive collection of pioneer cars that must have been dispersed long ago, given how the Institute’s current curators evidently forgot all about it. It signiflcantly featured the horseless carriages flrst demonstrated by Charles and Frank Duryea in 1893 and Elwood Haynes in 1894, as well as a single-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline car reputed to be one of four Ransom Eli Olds completed during 1897. It also included the original patent model for the crude, two-stroke auto that accompanied George B. Selden’s 1879 application, which he
