Just had a very unique and fun event for my Aston. After a selection process, my DB9 has been accepted as one of a limited group of Aston Martin cars in the 2013 Best of Britain exhibit for the 100 year centenial celebration of Aston Martin at Simione Foundation Museum.

The 3 week long exhibit from March 22nd - April 14th 2013 focuses on the History of Aston Martin, the first 100 years. Aston started making cars in 1913 and has for the most part never turned a profit or showed a postive balance sheet for nearly 100 years until within the last decade, yet they stilll continue to have a legacy and presence that is not only steeped in graceful style and tradition, but also second to none as builders of some of the worlds finest automobiles.

This is a huge honor to be part of this event in conjunction with the world renowned Simeone Museum on Philadelphia and will be nice to have in the car's logbook for provenance purposes. I can't explain how it feels to have your car staged in a museum 5 ft from a priceless DBR1 and accross the Isle from a 250 GTO and 375MM. There were many applicants and 14 or so privately owned Aston Martin cars were selected, along with FC Kirbeck's showroom examples for the Best of Britain AM marque Centennial Celebration - all the applications were reviewed my Fred Simeone and his staff for a several weeks, I'm quite lucky and really grateful to have been chosen and been given this very rare and unique opportunity.

The museum and it's cars is something very special, priceless examples including previous LeMans Winners, Bugatti Type 57 "Boat", 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO (est. $35M), 1957 Ferrari 375MM, Original TestaRossa, Aston DBR1 driven by Sir Stirling Moss only one in existance, Aston DB4 GT, 1929 Blower Bentley (1 of 4), LeMans winning Ford GT, the fastest car ever in LeMans 257 Mph on the Mulsanne Straight Porsche 917 longtail, the First Shelby Daytona coupe and Sebring winner ever made, Pre and post war Astons, Mille Miglia and Targa Florio winning Mazeratis and Alfa Romeos etc..etc.. just mind blowing examples of priceless cars through history, each grouped by racing vintage, era, and historical significance.

I would like to organize a meet over at the Simeone Museum located in Philly, I figure a group of us can drive up from MD/VA/DC and meet with whomever else wishes to join us from other states, we can converge on philly at the Museum. Our dates are April 6th or 7th, OR April 13th or 14th...saturdays and Sundays the Museum is open from 10am - 4pm. I figure we can see the special cars and the Best of Britain exhibit and hang out and maybe get some famous Philly cheesestaks afterwards! Would be a fun outing for our enthusiast community, and I can promise you the cars you will see will be second to none, and truly define the world's great sports car history, priceless examples of magnificent cars many of which remain unrestored and preserved just as they were in victory lane at the worlds greatest races!

Please let me know your thoughts, what date works best, I personally would like the 6th or 7th, but am open to thoughts/suggestions. If we get enough people interested we can have the museum cater lunch for us. Please let me know if you are interested and able to commit to it

My friends were taking some pictures thru our day there unloading and staging the car, please enjoy a few pics:

 

I vote for April 7th. And Gino's, not Pat's.

 

i'm in.

 

Neither of those two are great for parking with a group. Tony Lukes on Oregon Ave or Jims in North Philly both have large lots.

 

Can't make it in Philly, Sunir, but amazing pics. Thanks for posting.

 

I'd love to go. Sundays probably work best for me, but I'm close to Philly and can probably make any of those dates.

 

Yes on the places with better parking. Sunday

 

Thanks guys for the kind words of encouragement and support. So far over 118 views and a handful of posts. Please take a moment to chyme in

I am trying to organize a museum and cheesesteak cruise to philly it's about 1.5 hours away (from Baltimore)...the plan is to go to the Simeone Museum first which is open from 10am - 4pm on weekends and then have cheesesteaks afterwards, and those that want to stay in Philly thereafter can do that and those who wish to return home can do that also.

Please let me know if you are in, also please post a date that is most suitable.

So far we have some people interested in the 6th and 7th...from what I've gathered. I am still queing up interest, I have posted here in the AM forum and the Mid Atlantic forum. Will begin a roster shortly.

thanks...again, I appreciate your participation and I think it will be a very enjoyable day, the museum is truly awesome and the cheesesteaks in Philly top off a great activity just right!

 

Sunir,

Add me to your list. I sold my Aston in November, and need some ideas for my next purchase. 4/6 or 4/7 is fine.

- Ben

 

Outstanding photos and cars. Thank you for taking the time to communicate and post. Cannot make the trip the Philly. Hope all you guys enjoy it ... truly amazing automobiles.

 

UPDATE:

Okay so the date we are going with is Sunday April 7th. After gathering what works for most folks looks like that is the date. There seem to be conflicting car related events otherwise.

Plan:

- Arrive at Simeone Museum at somewhere between 11:30 and noon. The Museum hours are 10am - 4pm I think if you want to read each car plaque seeing the entire museum will take 2 - 3 hours, maybe 4 (if you are taking extensive pics as you walk around the to each car) so if we get there no later than noon it should give all of us enough time.

- Those from points north of Philly or not traveling with us on the cruise up can just meet us at the Simeone Museum at approximately noon.

-When we are done at the Museum we can head to Tony Lukes which is 10 minutes away from the Museum and has a ton of safe parking available for our cars and has nice Philly cheesesteaks and other sandwiches available.

The Route:

- It's basically a straight shot from Baltimore up I95 to Philly, it's just about 1.5 hrs drive.

- We will meet at the Baltimore Travel Plaza at between 10:00am - 10:30am. This meet up point is conveniently located just of both I95 and 895 literally just off the exit ramp. Lots of safe parking, lowered car friendly, place to gas up and so forth. There is a Best Western Hotel there, we can meet in the parking lot out front.

Address for Baltimore Travel Plaza is:

5626 O'donnell Street
Baltimore, MD 21224

We will depart the Baltimore Travel Plaza at approx. 10:45am. There are 2 small tolls along the way, please make sure you have a few bucks or Easy Pass with you.

- A second stop - We will make one stop on the way for bathroom, or fuel etc. This will be at Delaware House which is a few miles after the Delaware line.

- we should arrive at Simeone Museum right around noon...

Simeone Museum address is:

6825 Norwitch Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19153

Phone - (215) 365 - 7233
www.SimeoneMuseum.org


This will be a fun relaxed day, a nice cruise, a wonderful Museum, some amazing cars, food, fun, and spending time with fellow car enthusiasts and friends. Everyone is welcome, please feel free to bring friends, family etc...we'll go up at a liesurely pace, it's not a super early event, anyone that knows me would know that I wouldn't do a super early event so this gives us time to enjoy and not have to wake up really early Sunday morning.

My cell phone number is (202) 641 - 8211 in case you need to contact me for whatever reason, running late, lost etc...

thanks and look forward to it!

 

I stumbled across this recent video posting, which highlights only a small portion of the exhibits...
I wish I were closer so I could attend your outing...have a safe drive and a great day! And don't OD on the cheesesteaks


Looks like it would be easy to spend an entire day looking at all the exhibits
Thanks to phildb4 for the original posting!

 

[QUOTE=sunir;3804004].




The museum and it's cars is something very special, priceless examples including previous LeMans Winners, Bugatti Type 57 "Boat", 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO (est. $35M), 1957 Ferrari 375MM, Original TestaRossa, Aston DBR1 driven by Sir Stirling Moss only one in existance,


Great photos, but I don't believe it's the only DBR1 in existence. While its extremely cool, this DBR1 was the car the put Aston on top with American Carroll Shelby:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ing-price.html

I don't think it's the same car. I bought Michael Furman's book about the museum. Someday we plan to visit.

 

Nice Vid Don... they cover a lot of the Pre-war era Astons, and some of the very historic cars there at the Museum, although the Best of Britain exhibit is central to the displays there are many many cars to see and read about. A lot of these cars are historical in their racing history, build number, documented provenance, and tradition/pedegree. I am going to take my time and read as many car plaques as I go through and take some time to look at all the cars, when I was unloading my Aton for the exhibit I didn't get around to all the cars I would have liked to.

 

Congrats Sunir!!! Very cool!