After two years preparing the collection for our new museum, it was finally time to move from Collection Management’s temporary home in Fife to our new 165,000 square foot building in Tacoma! 

Our first day of car moves into the museum was primarily all of the pre-war vehicles we had ready and waiting at our warehouse.  I selected these cars because many are open cars with delicate interiors and exteriors, and it was looking like our first day was going to be excellent weather for moving them safely.

As it turned out, our unpredictable Pacific Northwest weather smiled upon us with two beautiful sunny days. With the help of our friends at Tacoma Towing, we moved over 100 vehicles that were in our Fife location into the museum in two days! 

For each of the two days, our volunteer teams broke up into two crews. One crew was set at Fife to push and stage the cars for pickup, and another crew ready to receive the cars at the new museum. 

The great weather allowed us the luxury of staging the cars outside in our parking lot to allow faster pickup for the ramp trucks.

The cars were staged in rows of three in the parking lot, with three roll-back trucks running back and forth between locations.

It all went like clockwork as the trucks could pick up without waiting and go!

Then our crew on the Museum end got busy placing the cars in prearranged display locations for viewing as we had private banquets already scheduled just a few days later in the building on Friday and Saturday!

It all went very smooth, with the help of our wonderful volunteers everything worked like a well-oiled machine.

It was a couple of long days but we had fun...how could you not have a fun day taking care if these great cars?

-Renee Crist, Collection Manager