Simeone Foudation Museum

“The first race was conceived when the second car was built.”
On Saturday September 26, 2009 Barbara and I went to the outskirts of Philadelphia to a warehouse with the sign that names it as The Simeone Foundation Museum ( http://www.simeonefoundation.org/ ). It is a museum that holds Racecars and Sports cars from as early as 1918 up to 1970. Now most of you will say that is not so special, but the cars in this Museum all had an important part in the history, development and advancements made in the car industry. Most all of the cars in this museum come under the category of Sports car not racecar. Some of you may not know the difference so if I may I will educate you. A racecar is just that a car you use to race, it does not need fenders, headlights, taillights, or a windshield. A sports car on the other hand must have fenders, headlights, taillights, a windshield, windshield wipers…. Under Le Mans rules the cars had to have everything they would need to run on the road legally. Of course over the years the rules have changed, some of these sports cars had covers over the rear seat that where required to compete others had luggage compartments. These cars where production cars and had to have everything a car needed to be a street car. Some cars where nothing more than racecars that the manufacturers had added fenders and all the other things needed to complete in Le Mans to, but in the end most of the cars in the museum where sports cars.
The highlight of the day was at noon when we went outside into the parking lot for the race. In 1959 the Le Mans race circuit was being fought over by the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa and the Aston-Martin DBR1. First one would win the race for the day and get ahead in points and then the other would win and be ahead in points. In the last race for the title the Ferrari was ahead in points but even with suffering a fire in the Austin-Martin that was ahead of the others on the team the lead driver jumped into another Austin-Martin and slowly over took the Ferrari and won the race and with it the title of the best car in Le Mans. On that day in 2009 the same two cars (at least the Austin-Martin was the car that had caught fire that day) where to startup and run around the parking lot in the sun. After the race they took the hoods off of the two cars and let you get up close and get a good look.