TUPELO, MISS. Museum hopes for road raves

Frank Spain hopes tourists leaving Elvis' birthplace will drop by to see the curiosities in his car museum.
TUPELO, Miss. (AP) -- Move over, Elvis; there's a new tourist attraction in this north Mississippi town known best as the birthplace of the king of rock 'n' roll.
The Tupelo Automobile Museum, featuring more than 100 painstakingly restored cars dating from 1886 to 1994, opened Dec. 7.
Visitors to the new 75,000-square-foot showroom get a tour through automotive history, from the sublime to the bizarre.
There's a 1928 Franklin that features a windshield in the back for passengers. And a 1955 Messerschmidt, whose cockpit chassis resembles the Nazi fighter plane that is its namesake.
Another standout out is the 1948 Tucker with its distinctive middle headlight and a sign in front that reads: "51 made, none sold."
The ill-fated Edsel can be seen, as can a 1948 Jaguar convertible with headlights as big as dinner plates, a car similar to the one Clark Gable owned.
What would a display in Tupelo be without a tribute to Elvis, who was born in a cabin only a couple of minutes away from the museum? The hip-gyrating legend's 1976 dark blue Lincoln, which he gave to a Denver police captain shortly after buying it for more than $13,000, is a must-see.
The collector
The cars are all original except for the 1886 Carl Benz, a replica belonging to Tupelo television station owner and museum founder Frank Spain, whose 30-year collecting habit has taken him all over the country. It took "a lot of intestinal fortitude" to drive some of the aging vehicles back home, he says.
"There are wonderful tales behind some of these cars," says Spain's wife, Jane, who recalls breaking down in one of them while driving it back from Alaska.
Frank Spain hopes the car museum will give his hometown another popular tourist attraction and give visitors a chance to see the wide sweep of automotive history hard to find in many other places.
Looking over the expanse of shiny and colorful models on the well-lit floor, the 75-year-old electronics engineer bemoans a lack of daring behind today's car designs.
"I've been a car nut all my life, and I can't tell one car from another nowadays, or if it's made by Ford or Honda," Spain says.
Proceeds for scholarships
Once the $3.5 million museum building is paid for, Spain says, proceeds from the exhibit will go for college scholarships. The museum will be run by a nonprofit foundation, says business manager Mary Thompson.
Spain may be on to something. Car museums are popular tourist stops, reflecting America's infatuation with the automobile, says Robert Sbarge, former board member of the National Association of Automobile Museums and president of the Auburn (Ind.) Cord Duesenberg Museum.
"We're seeing that the auto museums are quite healthy, and as you are seeing down there, there are new ones opening all the time and there are others under planning right now," Sbarge says, noting that attendance at his museum has been up significantly last year and this year.
Other attractions
At the Tupelo museum, visitors can watch curator Max Berryhill and his crew restore dozens of antiques from behind windows.
In one corner of the showroom, an old-time gas station has been re-created, complete with an antique gas pump, tools, oil cans and a weathered garage.
"When I was a kid, that's where you got your gas and car repaired," Spain recalls. "Anybody 60 years old and over will recognize that."
Vintage gasoline-station signs hang from the rafters and all over the walls. A gift shop sells T-shirts and collectibles. The place smells of brand-new tires.
It's obvious to see that this could easily become a shrine to the automobile.
Each car on display has a small sign near it that says what it is, when it was built and how much it sold for at the time, if known. A tape-recorded message gives some facts about the vehicle.
Labor of love
Spain has an encyclopedic knowledge of cars, and his love of the three- and four-wheel members of his collection is apparent.
Looking at a gold 1981 DeLorean, popularized in the "Back to the Future" movies, Spain scoffs: "You have to be a pretty good driver to keep it on the road at any speed."
Commenting on his favorite, the 1948 Jaguar, Spain says it reflects the classic period of automaking. Then he shrugs his shoulders. "And it's a sexy-looking machine, what the hell."
The 1982 Maserati Quatroporte featured an array of electrical switches, Spain says. Only problem is that sometimes a switch worked, and other times it didn't.
Because the trunk could only be opened with one of these switches, it wasn't unusual to see lots of these cars with trunks that had been pried open, he said.
Other head-turners are the Barrister Corvette once owned by Liberace, with a huge brass angel jutting out from the hood; a Dodge electric car Spain says used to scare the daylights out of people because it doesn't make a sound; a 1957 BMW Isetta with a door where the hood should be; and the 1985 Triton, a red, white and blue rocket-looking car meant to be an eye-catching delivery vehicle for the Domino's pizza company.
Only problem was, Spain says, the sporty ride made it too expensive for Domino's to insure the drivers.
Tupelo officials hope a good chunk of the more than 100,000 tourists who come annually to see the modest two-room shack where Elvis was born will drop in at Spain's car museum.
For his part, the tall man with sandy hair just wanted to help his community refurbish a part of downtown while getting all these cars out of storage.
"If you have all these things, what are you going to do with them?" Spain says.
XTickets for the Tupelo Automobile Museum are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and AAA members, and $5 for children 12 and under. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More information: (662) 842-4242.