The Color of Rust: Motorama Auto Museum

Motorama, an obscure little auto museum outside of the obscure little town of Aniwa, WI, hosts an annual Military vehicle show. Participants bring their old jeeps and other antique military rigs and set up reenactment camps for the three day event. I enjoy attending because it is an excuse to see the regular attractions on the grounds which houses an impressive Alfa Romeo car collection, bike barn and race car room. The addition of this event to an already unique venue surrounded by woods and riverside campsites is an opportunity to witness the knowledge and passion of the people involved. They share a love of history and paying tribute to those that lived in another time, to which I can certainly relate.

While we always tour the indoor museum of immaculate vintage vehicles and cycles I am equally drawn to the opposite. A somber walkway of rust and ruins hiding behind the clean and organized storage buildings. A startling juxtaposition from preserved history to discarded memories.

I spend more time with the patina. More time appreciating natures final touch on these once beautiful specimens of transportation.

More time contemplating how long the vehicle with the tree growing through it has been stranded there than I have ever wondering about the time it takes for a first class restoration on an expensive ride.

I’m not sure why but they draw me in.

They just all look like they have seen things.

Like there is wisdom in their rust.

Nick admired the emblem of a once prestigious sedan-

“Someone who first owned this car probably bought it feeling like they had made it. It was a status symbol to have. It represented all they worked for and earned and now here it sits…someone’s dream.”

I can appreciate his notion. To be thinking about the human behind the rusty shell. To be thinking of the life lived that this vehicle was a witness to.

We’re car people. We get attached to our vehicles and they become a part of our story. We often remember what we were driving during times in our lives much the same way you might recall what song was playing on the radio. Of course none of these memories are with fancy luxury cars…they are pick-up trucks, a Jeep, a Dodge Daytona… But they still resonate with us.

I don’t know who owned these relics or how they all came to find themselves in this woods for their final resting place. I don’t know who saved up to buy them or who dreamed of driving them. It’s a diverse exhibit of makes and models and the many colors of rust. Each have long since passed their usefulness for why they were created but at one time they shared a piece of someone’s life with them.

And in my opinion-

that makes them kinda special.