Chicago is known for its many great features from incredible architecture and famous cars to how it flirts with Lake Michigan so perfectly. The city is also great for its historic museum district on the lake. But if you’re into cars rather than science or art, your museum won’t have the backdrop of a beautiful blue lake. Instead, head west, where you’ll find a warehouse nestled between neighborhoods. There you’ll find the Klairmont Kollections, a museum of hundreds of cars, many of which you’ve probably never seen before.
My wife, Sheryl, and I have embarked on an adventure to find America’s best transportation museums, starting right here in the Midwest. I’ve written numerous pieces about America’s largest train museum, the Illinois Railway Museum. I’ve also shown you the National Railroad Museum, the Crazy ’80s Car Museum, the Pontiac-Oakland Automobile Museum, the National Motorcycle Museum, the Volo Auto Museum, the EAA Aviation Museum, the Harley-Davidson Museum, and a section of the Petersen Automotive Museum. Then there’s the epic Lane Motor Museum that you’ve almost certainly read about on here and places I haven’t written about like the Fox River Trolley Museum.
Really, if you like taking in transportation history, America has no shortage of places that’ll amaze you. The Klairmont Kollections Museum is a must-visit if you want to see the kinds of cars you’ve only seen online. But more than that, the Klairmont also comes with a feel-good story.
A True Gearhead
I’ve lived just outside of Chicago for most of my life, yet I’ve never heard of the Klairmont Kollections until earlier this month while I was talking with a railfan. It’s sort of shocking because the non-profit museum is right when it calls itself Chicago’s Premier Auto Museum.
Larry M. Klairmont was born in 1926 to a poor family. As a boy, he worked odd jobs selling shoes and delivering Chinese food to help support his family. At 16, he enlisted in the military and found himself on the battlegrounds in World War II. Reportedly, Klairmont fought in the deadly Iwo Jima and Saipan battles. He came out of the other end of his military service with two Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars, and a Bronze Star.
In 1952, Klairmont was able to take advantage of America’s post-war boom by opening the famed Imperial Cleaners. The enterprise quickly grew to 100 stores and for a decade was Chicago’s largest dry cleaning business.
It wasn’t long before Klairmont found a new passion: Real estate. Klairmont started by buying the oldest building in Highland Park and then refurbishing it. That became a whole business under the name of Imperial Realty Company. Klairmont would find historic buildings in and around Chicago, restore them, and put them on the market. If you live in northern Illinois, chances are you continue to see Imperial Realty everywhere. The company leases space to such big names as Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Subway.
The fortunes from Klairmont’s businesses allowed him to donate to charitable causes, but also to live his childhood dream of collecting fascinating cars.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Klairmont studied cars while making his Chinese food delivery runs as a kid. When he returned home from the war, his first car was a 1935 Plymouth. That was only the start. Later, he’d buy a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn. The Chicago Tribune notes that Klairmont hated how the car drove and how it didn’t even have heat or air-conditioning, but people around Chicago couldn’t get enough of his $9,000 Rolls. Klairmont soon learned that some cars could be investments as his Rolls-Royce went from being a relatively inexpensive car to being worth $125,000 or more.
Klairmont started collecting tons of cars and he enjoyed them with his wife, Elaine, for 57 years. She passed in 2008 and in 2010, he met Joyce Oberlander. As Mecum writes, when Klairmont met Oberlander he was sitting on a collection of 600 cars stored in various properties around Chicago. She suggested that he should put all of his cars in one place. Klairmont chose a 100,000-square-foot former printing facility and turned it into a private museum of his fantastic cars.
The Kollections
Klairmont Kollections opened to the public in 2011 and at any given time there are a few hundred cars inside of the two-story museum. Some of the vehicles have sold off in auctions, but what’s left is still impressive. Klairmont passed in 2021, but his non-profit museum remains to teach generations of people about automotive history dating back over a century ago to the tech-packed rides of today.
When you enter the museum, you’ll start in a hallway with a video telling Klairmont’s story. Then immediately to your right is a room with vintage police vehicles. It’s a great start, but then you walk directly into a large room with incredible cars you’ve never seen before.
On my visit, the first cars to attract my eyes were this 1947 Tatra T87 and a 1937 Cord Beverly Sedan.
Behind these vehicles sat a recreation of the famous Cucamonga Service Station that sits off of Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The retired fuel station is a historical landmark that is believed to have been built over a century ago and last operated as a gas station in the early 1970s. It’s the only station of its kind in preservation in California and people come from all over the world to see it. So, I can see why Klairmont wanted to have his own Chicago version of the station.
While the big room was a little short on cars at that moment, there was a 1947 Chrysler Town & Country and a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk.
Also worth noting is the fact that the restroom in this room was full of French nudie postcards from the 1910s and photos of more modern adult film actresses. I wondered why the bathroom door said it was 18 or older only.
Walk across from that room and there’s an alcove filled with some of the wildest cars you’ll ever see. The 2002 Lincoln Continental Concept caught my eye here. I’ll let Lincoln do the talking:
Two important goals of the Lincoln design team were to maximize interior space and optimize ingress and egress. This led to the creation of a unique proportion, in which the Continental’s cabin is centered within the wheelbase. The passenger space is exceptionally large, the trunk is cavernous, and a powerful 6.0-liter V-12 engine resides under the hood.
The powered center-opening doors are triggered by remote or simply by a touch of the flush aluminum door handles. The Continental’s doors operate independently and with both doors open, the pillarless aperture is almost six feet wide. All this is made possible by articulating hinges that open to 90 degrees and a ring frame that adds structural rigidity along the A-pillar, rear roof pillar, sill and roof rails.
The headliner and the Eames lounge chair-inspired seats are covered in full-grain aniline leather dyed a creamy hue called Rhode Island Sand. A translucent silk panel shades the overhead fiber optic light strip. The flooring is a close-sheared midnight blue sheepskin. The instrument panel and doors are trimmed in a combination of Rhode Island Sand and Midnight Blue leather. The dark leather helps mask the transition to the window glass.
The Continental’s full-width instrument panel is built around reconfigurable displays for engine functions and vehicle systems, including concierge and telematics features, navigation and the THX-certified audio system. The chaplets that ring the speedometer and other gauges displays are fixed to the glass for a jewel-like effect.
While you’re still appreciating what could have been a great Lincoln flagship, your eyes will then be pulled to this 1962 Vortex X-2000 behind the Lincoln and the 1950 Studebaker Ice Princess XF58.
I haven’t seen either of these and you probably haven’t, either. Klairmont Kollections has this to say about the X-2000:
Jerry Woodward, one of the greatest creative car builders in the U.S., started with a 1952 Lincoln V8, designed it for a 3-wheel design, a delta shape, and other futuristic features. It took Woodward six years to assembler and complete the design of this Vortex, building this vehicle for the streets and highways of Utah.
Jerry Woodward claimed the vehicle can take a 90-degree turn at 60 mph, though there is no proof of this. The Vortex has a tubular steel frame in the front of the vehicle for safety purposes, the headrests contain radio and TV speakers, electric fans are linked to the V8 engines with thermostatically controlled temperatures.
The museum is quick to note that Klairmont loved oddball cars, especially one-offs. The Vortex was originally named “X1970-Vortex” but was renamed to the X-2000 to help illustrate how it was supposed to be a future car. Just this one was made and Klairmont has had it since about 2013.
Then there’s the Studebaker Ice Princess.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you and this beauty really does have four steer wheels. Not just that, but there are 6 exhaust pipes and a twin canopy allegedly sourced from a fighter jet. Here’s what Klairmont Kollections says about it:
After traveling around the world in his youth, Richard Fletcher landed in Phoenix in Feb. 1979. There, he became a manufacturer of customs, but special cars for the movies and actors. Fletcher built cars from scratch and altered them. He sculpted with foam and merged the shapes with different pieces of cars.
The first version of the Ice Princess was called the Vampiremobile before its name change in 2005, and was made in the late 1980s from a 1950 Studebaker, 2-door streamline style and futuristic aerospace style. The essential features are the 4 front wheels, the tapered headlights, and Imperial fins nozzle reactors in the style of the early 1960s Cadillac. The bubble top was made in the mindset of the Lincoln Futura, and F-4 Phantom airplane twin cockpit. The Ice Princess is a rare 1 of 1 gem that was shown at the 2020 Chicago Auto Show and was a huge hit.
That one was a bit of a word salad, but the Ice Princess also has an 8.2-liter V8 from a Cadillac and unique gauges. This car toured Europe twice, first as the Vampiremobile and then as the Ice Princess. A piece of its past remains as one gauge is the vehicle’s “blood” meter, which I suppose is necessary if your car is a vampire.
The room continues with bangers like a Tucker and this wild 1955 Ford Beatnik Bubbletop. This one isn’t a nutty concept, but another custom by Gary “Chopit” Fioto. While the vehicle is technically a Ford, very few Ford parts actually remain. Instead, the build features a lot of custom work plus a melding of parts from Cadillac, Chrysler, and Lincoln vehicles.
The crazy part is that we haven’t even left the first big room yet. Your eyes will also gaze upon a replica of an 1867 Roper steam-powered motorcycle and a 1903 Oldsmobile Curved Dash.
Once you move to the next room you’ll find Klairmont’s education section where videos show how various major car components work. There’s also a sort of workshop here showing vehicles in various states of disassembly. The highlight vehicle in this section is a Santarsiero Atlantis.
I’ve written about Ron Santarsiero before and this car is a parts bin special and a half.
This car is nominally a first-generation Dodge Dakota underneath complete with the donor truck’s 3.9-liter V6 and other bits and pieces from the Chrysler parts bin. There’s also some Chevy Camaro up front and in the rear, but it’s otherwise a custom body meant to emulate the multi-million dollar streamliners of the 1930s.
From there, you’ll move to a room full of the cars that populated the 1960s and the 1970s. A number of these cars are special for being unrestored survivors with low miles and incredible original paint.
When was the last time you’ve seen a Levi’s Gremlin? Have you even seen one in real life? This blew my mind perhaps more than the Tatra.
The last room on the main floor is just a random mix of cars. There’s a little bit of everything from a 1916 Detroit Electric Brougham electric car to a Pulse Autocycle and the Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Swarovski Crystal Car. Klairmont loved eclectic cars so much he also bought Michael Jordan’s Bentley Continental Flying Spur.
This room also appeared to be in flux as pictures of the Klairmont online show a lot more cars in here. However, the museum has said it is moving things around to make it easier for people to actually see the cars inside.
Finally, we head upstairs, where there are even more priceless classics. This area used to have one of the first Tesla Roadsters, but the poster remains even though the car itself is nowhere to be seen. There are some racecars up here, a model trainset that wasn’t working at the time, and an entire Jeep section that was cordoned off.
Check out this 1982 Dodge Turbo Charger Pace Car!
A Bricklin SV-1 always gets a smile from me, too.
Then there’s a whole microcar section upstairs and while this collection isn’t on the level of what our own Beau Boeckmann has, there’s still some awesome stuff to be seen in here. I love this baby sports car 1959 Goggomobil Dart and the ridiculous 1957 Cyclops II Microcar.
Klairmont’s description of the Cyclops is worth quoting:
Mad genius and cartoonist, Stan Mott, created the first Cyclops Microcar with the help of designer Robert Cumberford in 1957. Part microcar, part go-kart, part accident-waiting-to-happen, this small vehicle has become a fixture of American motor history. It stands at 52 inches tall, 48 inches long, and 38 inches wide, seating only two people. It has been entered in prestigious events as the Rallye Monte Carlo and the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. This one was made to look like a tiny motorized magician.
A Must-Visit With One Caveat
That said, there’s one thing you should know before you go. I’m not sure if there was something wrong on the day I went or if things were normal, but the museum was almost unbearably warm on a 76-degree day. The lower floor was practically a sweat box and the fans down there didn’t do much. I could not imagine The upper floor did have nice air-conditioning, but that was just a small slice of the building. So, I would say dress and prepare for the occasion. The water fountains in the building do not work, so bring some of your own water.
Admission to the Klairmont Kollections is $21.95 for adults, $15 for children, $20 for seniors, and free for military.
I won’t spoil the rest here. If you or your kids want to see an incredible collection of cars you’ve probably never seen before, I can’t recommend the Klairmont Kollections enough.
(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)
The Jeepsters!! 😀 This place looks awesome.
I had heard of the Swarovski-bedazzled Rolls Royce; I wonder how much weight that adds.
I have seen a handful of Levi’s Gremlins. First was it as a beat up car parked near my uncle’s apartment in Boulder. Saw a fairly good survivor one at a Cars & Coffee some time back. Never seen one as well preserved as what the museum has.