[10.15.22] 56+ Minute Read Based on WordPress Calculations
Revised 20 March 2024
Introduction
This past week, Debbie and I decided we needed to get away from home for a few days, and combined a few recent interests into something of a Southeast Georgia Barrier Islands historic retrospective with a visit to Savannah, a few days at Jekyll Island, with a stop atThe Brumos Collection in Jacksonville, Florida.
This is the by-product of the latter, which combines my original objective of creating a photo Archival Blog of the vehicles we saw during our three hours at The Brumos Collection, along with what became another one of my trips “Down the Rabbit Hole:” some historical information on the merger of two dominant forces from two completely different Florida-based businesses into the personal automobile collection of Mr. A. Dano (aka, Dan) Davis, now open to the public as The Brumos Collection.
Visiting the Brumos: There are actually two different sets of rules and guidelines “in effect” with regard to visits to The Brumos Collection, and those interested in seeing the collection first hand — and that truly is the only way to appreciate and gain a true museum experience vs. attempting a virtual visit — should read them both. I falsely assumed too much given we’re members of a few museums and did not appreciate that The Brumos Collection is only open three days a week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday — and on their own website rules and guidelines note, “Admission tickets and times are available only on a pre-sale basis only; There is no admission for walk-up visitors.” However, ontheir 3rd party “Tickets” sitethe policy is stated as, “Pre-purchased admission tickets are strongly encouraged.” Thankfully, there were just the two of us and attendance was well down due to Hurricane Ian having just passed through Florida when we arrived, so they were able to accommodate our visit. Note that there is also additional guidelines and details for docent-led tours, group bookings, and events that warrants guest attention.
At the Brumos SiteAt Their 3rd Party Ticket SiteTours, Groups & Events
To be totally transparent, I’ll offer this: the Brumos Collection is amazing. I seem to recall reading somewhere that it’s one of the top 15 most historically significant collections the world, and now I know why, having seen the “Forerunners” exhibit. Most of the historically significant vehicles we see at the Savoy are on loan from private collections and museums who have extensive collections that they are willing to “loan” to other museums, with the exception of the very, very rare cars. And, a visit to The Brumos Collection will bear this out. Thank you Mr. Davis for creating and making your collection available to the public: it’s amazing.
With all that said, I’d like to say “I’ll be brief,” but as I sit here having compiled some 3,000 words of notes and began with over 460 photos of the 47 vehicles on displaywe saw during our visit and 14 others previously displayedI discovered via their Facebook page, so let’s just say that’s a goal I’ll likely not achieve. However, I’ve included a linked index so readers can “jump to” whatever interests them the most, i.e., a collection of links to the source data, the Brumos ownership history, Davis family history, museum design, some other history highlights, or the collection photo galleries and associated information.
Printed Length: 177-Pages, Word Count: 16,770 (56-Min Read), Images: 403, Video Links 5
A Brief Overview of The Brumos Collection
The Museum sitting off the beaten path at the Northeast Corner of the Davis Family’s Dee-Dot Ranch
For those who’d like a fairly detailed, but succinct overview, let me suggest this February 2020 article by the local Jacksonville Daily Record, as it does a very good job of capturing the who, what, where, when and why associated with Brumos Motors for which the collection is named and from where many of the former Brumos Racing Team vehicles came, the former owners of Brumos, including the collection’s owner, Dan Davis, the building, and the like. It’s a very good overview, and far less lengthy than mine will be. You can access it by clicking on the highlighted link above, in the text, or by clicking on the image at right with the photo of Bandon Starks, the collection’s Executive Director, standing in the Forerunner exhibit.
Let me offer up two additional overviews. The first is an article published by Hemmings that offers up some insightful observations from what appeared to be the author, Mark Austin’s, first visit to the Brumos, which also includes an excellent photo gallery. The second is geared more towards those who prefer to gain insights through video: The “Inside the 59” video will provide viewers with a good feel for the collection, but also lets you see the museum and collection in great detail. Again, the content can be accessed by clicking on the image.
Brundage Motors Gives Birth to Brumos, Thanks to Telex
Let me start off by clarifying the origin of the name “Brumos” as it was never a person, place or thing, up and until 1955.
The Brumos story began in the early 1950’s with Hubert Brundage, a gentleman who worked at one of three family-owned hardware stores in Miami Springs, Florida who became a Volkswagen dealer in 1952. At first, he began selling the cars out of his hardware store before taking on a partner — Glenn H. Curtis II, son of the aviation company pioneer –– who together established Brundage Motors where they sold Volkswagens and a variety of different imported brands, e.g., Porsche, Healy, MG, etc. After becoming the sole Volkswagen distributor for Florida, Georgia and Alabama, he relocated his business to Jacksonville, Florida. By 1959, he was the exclusive Volkswagen and Porsche importer for the seven, southeast United States.
In the background, Brundage was also a second-generation racing enthusiast who began racing a heavily modified Volkswagen Beetle of his own design in events like the 12 hours of Sebring endurance race. He went on to invent the SCCA class of Formula Vee racers — a very inexpensive, Volkswagen Beetle-based, open-wheeled racer — with his Nardi Special in 1958. He became the first person to drive an early Porsche 356 speedster to compete outside of Europe in 1955. Awarded the Porsche distributorship for the Southeast, he named his new operation “Brumos” a more catchy and much shorter name using the abbreviated Brundage Motors address — BRUndage MOtorS — that had been adopted by the then-dominant Telex communication system. He drove the first Brumos Racing Team Porsche at Sebring in 1960.
First and foremost, The Brumos Collection is a private entity and not a public, private/public community resource, a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or part of a non-profit corporation as best as I can tell. In fact, it would be hard to characterize it even as a for-profit business as I’d be surprised if revenue from entrance fees even covers minimal housekeeping costs for dusting, vacuuming and keeping the restrooms clean. And, while they are set-up to host full-service events with on-site meeting rooms, social gathering spaces and even kitchen facilities to support the paid-use of those facilities, I suspect it’s benefactor — Dan Davis –– has likely established a trust that funds the upkeep, staffing and other related expenses beyond any new acquisitions.
I make mention of this in light of the relatively “light” hours when the collection is open to the public that seems somewhat fluid: at present, it’s just three days a week for 5-hours on Thursdays and 6-hours on Friday and Saturday. And, based on what we experienced, even with the limited hours, attendance was very light both from what we observed on Friday and had heard about Thursday’s sparse attendance, likely somewhat influenced by the recent Hurricane’s impact on the Florida tourism industry even in areas not directly impacted that suffered damage and prolonged loss of utilities like power and water.
The Savoy at Night when viewed from Georgia Route 20
Moreover, and unlike The Savoy in Cartersville, Georgia — which has an overwhelming public presence with its 37-acre campus, 65,000 square-foot main museum space, nearby 33,000 square-foot vehicle storage building, and bright red and silver exterior that is bathed in light at night — it takes some level of effort to find The Brumos Collection, as it’s somewhat hidden from public view and sits on a private road and there is not a lot of signage that suggests were this magnificent automotive history collection can be found.
This is, in part, because the 35,000 square-foot building that houses The Brumos Collection was originally developed as a storage building and small display area for the private collection with some 60-vehicles, artifacts and memorabilia from Dan Davis’s life-long interest as “a car guy.” This interest was clearly super-charged by his 33-year history with Brumos Motors, the Brumos Racing Team and it’s collection, which former Brumos General Manager and then President and CEO, the late Bob Snodgrass may have had a lot to with it’s initial establishment.
The public portions of “San Pablo Road” end at the entrance to the private Pablo Creek community and the private portion of San Pablo Road that leads into the Dee-Dot Ranch where The Brumos Collection’s home, exhibition areas and workshops are located. This is also where Google’s “Street View” ends.
An overhead view, looking east of the building that houses The Brumos Collection, located well-off the beaten path and out of view from public space, with minimal signage identifying it. It sits just south of Butler Blvd (FL-202) and west of the Intercoastal Waterway at the northwest corner of some 55,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land owned by the Davis family since the 1940’s.
When the Brumos dealerships were sold to Fields Auto Group on 31 March 2016, a permanent place was needed for Dan Davis’s growing car collection that had been stored in the Brumos Racing Team headquarters behind their dealerships on Atlantic Boulevard in Jacksonville. The collection was something of a secret museum few had seen.
Worthy of mention would be Don Leatherwood, the Brumos Collection Manager who began his career with Brumos Racing in the 1980s and learned how to work-on, maintain and drive everything from an early 1953 Porsche 356 Pre-A coupe to the uniquely engineered Millers, who retired in April 2021 after 40 years in various Brumos roles. At right is a link to the first of a 2.5-hour-long, three-series video by (Porsche) P-Car Talk in October 2020 that’s a very interesting look at Brumos Racing from 1980 until 2021 featuring Don Leatherwood.
And, it’s also hard to talk about The Brumos Collection without also mentioning Bob Snodgrass who was a key-figure at Brumos Porsche from 1972 until he passed in 2007, who had a lot to do with the creation of The Brumos Collection. Once again we have Don Leatherwood along with several other folks from Brumos who readers will recognize, who takes viewers on an amazing journey through the Brumos history centered around the rare sale of a Porsche 911 from The Brumos Collection that affords a lot of insight into Bob Snodgrass’ role and the lasting influence he afforded Brumos in his 25-years of involvement and the creation of the Brumos Collection.
If you’d like to immerse yourself in Brumos history, they have a YouTube Channel with about 19 videos produced over the past 2 years that you can find by clicking the image to the right, a screenshot of The Brumos Collections landing page. Inside the 59 contain a variety of behind the scenes videos that are very insightful.
Getting back on track, the building that now houses the museum on a small section in the northeast corner of the Davis family land known as “Dee-Dot Ranch” on San Pablo Road — originally a 28,000-acre tract of land that was expanded to 51,000 acres — was first being designed as the private museum and storage building for the car collection. However, during planning stage, it evolved into a museum that would be open to the public, which is why it’s not located in a far-more public area and visible to passers-by and tourists, such as alongside Interstate 295 or even along-side Butler Blvd / Florida Route 202.
Now configured as a publicly-accessible museum space, the building only houses perhaps 38-45 of the 65+ vehicles in the total collection which, while not the largest by far, I believe may now be rated as the 15th most historically significant given some of the more recent acquisitions, such as the 1894-5 Peugeot Type 5, the 1910 Peugeot V2Y2 and 1914 Peugeot L45, and the 1970 Porsche chassis 917K, 917-024 used in the making of the 1971 movie Le Mans with Steve McQueen and Siegfried Rauch.
Although the civic-minded philanthropist Dan Davis says he would have liked to have bought and renovated Jacksonville’s long-since abandoned Ford Assembly Plant factory along the St. Johns River, time and neglect have rendered it economically beyond salvage.
Completed on November 13, 1926, the 165,200 square-foot factory quickly began producing close to 200 vehicles a day, upwards of 74,908 Model T passenger cars by 1927, and another 14,821 trucks. At peak production, the plant employed more than 800 workers and continued in full operation until 1932, when the Great Depression drove massive consolidations and reductions in plant capacity across the entire U.S. automotive industry. Ford used the building as a parts distribution center through 1968, before abandoning it and moving operations to the west side of Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida areas.
However, as an homage to the historic plant, he and his architect designed the new home of the Brumos Collection to incorporate many visual design cues, features and materials such as towering red-brick walls, expansive multi-pane factory-like windows, exposed brick interior walls, an exposed metal truss ceiling, skylights, a wooden walkway to the entry as a nod to the old board tracks.
When it first opened to the public back in December 2019, a 1926 Ford Model T Touring Sedan manufactured in the Jacksonville assembly plant that has never left the state was put on display in the lobby, which has since been moved to the back shop area where it was when we visited.
A vital part of maintaining the collection is exercising the cars. Though not meant to be a speedway, The Brumos Collection has its own circuit around the museum, complete with the original, round Union 76 spotter’s tower from the Daytona International Speedway, and wooden guard rails reminiscent of the racetracks of a bygone era.
And, on the way in or out, be sure to look at the amazing, three-dimensional, metal-art gates that also evokes the spirit of motorsport through time and of the Porsche 356.
The collection is presented in two large spaces just beyond the sliding entry doors at the lobby, where visitors will walk across a metal threshold featuring the number 59.
The number 59 as well as the widely recognized white with blue and red stripe Brumos Racing Team’s signature livery came into being after Peter Gregg bought Brundage Motors, Brumos Porsche and the Brumos Racing Team following the tragic passing of Hubert Brundage in 1964. You’ll find the number 59 on all of the cars Peter Gregg raced as well as several other Brumos cars, noting it was the ship number painted on both sides of the USS Forrestal’s island structure and deck, a ship on which Gregg served in the U.S. Navy: he just liked the way the number looked.
The General Layout
Once inside the museum’s exhibition space, first gallery is called The Forerunners and features open cockpit racers and early innovations, which set the stage for racing and automobile innovations. In the second gallery area are The FrontRunners where Porsche design and engineering is featured with cars celebrating Porsche endurance racing and Brumos’ many racing victories.
Acting as something of a bridge between the two main exhibits is the back shop and vehicle storage area, open to the museum, where a variety of vehicles are also on display but without the digital reader boards, along with the two large vehicle transporters used to move vehicles from the collection and Brumos race cars.
The oldest vehicle in the collection is a gasoline-powered, 1894-5 Peugeot Type 5, believed to have been one five specially prepared Type 5’s entered by Peugeot is what was considered the world’s first long-distance motoring competition, a 79-mile reliability trial of “voitures sans chevaux” from Paris to Rouen held on 22 July 1984.
Regardless, this is an amazing and extremely rare vehicle which is true for most of the vehicles in the Brumos Collection. This is pure speculation, but it appears that many of the non-Brumos Racing Team vehicles in The Brumos Collection were acquired following restoration by others, and not sought-out as “barn finds” or otherwise acquired and then restored. The quality of the restorations of the collection is perhaps some of the finest I’ve ever seen, without any exception, to include the restorations performed by the Brumos team. And, it all begins with this vehicle, the oldest example in the collection.
As before, this appears to be a vehicle acquired following restoration at auction in 2018, ref. the listing that follows. But, to be sure, the quality of the restoration is of the highest order…. this car never looked this good even when it was new.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: The cars in the Forerunners gallery aren’t just a collection of open-wheel racers, they’re all intrinsically connected. For example, this 1914 Peugeot L45 is in some ways the forefather of Miller cars: after competing in the Indy 500, it ended up in the shop of Harry Miller, who got his first look at its groundbreaking dual overhead cam-shaft and was so inspired by its design, he started building his own engines.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
The Brumos Collection Owner, Dan Davis Talks About the L45, Peugeot and Harry Miller
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: This 1920 Miller TNT is the oldest known surviving Miller, featuring a unique cast-alloy body, that demonstrates Harry Miller’s famous cutting-edge designs and passion for metallurgy. In fact, Harry Miller’s cars and engines dominated the Indianapolis 500 in the 1920s and 30s. Between 1922 and 1938, Miller-powered cars won Indy 12 times, half of which also had a Miller chassis and, from 1926 to 1929, about three quarters of Indy starters were Millers.
Many of the vehicles in the gallery can be found sitting on display platforms that mimic the dirt, brick, asphalt and wooden board track surfaces on which those cars would have raced, such as the bricks at the Indianapolis Speedway.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
Harry Miller played a fundamental role in automotive history and. in 1993, his innovative designs that dominated the 1930s were celebrated at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races held at Laguna Seca Raceway, captured in this amazing picture of Miller cars, including some that are now part of the Brumos Collection.
1917 Miller Golden Submarine, 1985 Recreation by Buck Boudeman
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: The 1917 Golden Submarine was Harry Miller’s first enclosed race car and was made with a “safety” cage after the death of driver Bob Burman. It won 17 of the 35 races it ran and set every international dirt-track speed record.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
Additional Information Found on the Internet
I’ve not been able to establish how or when this vehicle was acquired by the collection, as I’ve seen it displayed by both Buck Boudeman at the 2013 Goodwood Festival in July and at the Peterson Automobile Museum in early in 2013. The latter was billed as the last time it would be exhibited on the west coast. However, while several “recreations have been made” Buck Boudeman‘s truly does appear to be nearly an exact replica and is fitted with one of the original Miller engines that would have been in the actual car.
Many of the vehicles in the gallery can be found sitting on display platforms that mimic the dirt, brick, asphalt and wooden board track surfaces on which those cars would have raced, such as the asphalt in later years after they replaced the bricks at the Indianapolis Speedway.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
Did you know Indy cars once raced at Daytona? It happened only once and our newest collection car was part of it – more so, it actually set a new lap record. Our 1959 Epperly Indy Roadster was part of the 1959 Daytona 100, the USAC Championship season opener raced at the then brand-new Daytona Speedway. No one knew how open-wheel cars might handle the high speeds its extremely high banking would generate. The answer was: not well. After several high-speed crashes along the way, the race ultimately resulted in a fatal accident in this car in the very last lap. Daytona was deemed too dangerous for Indy cars, and they never returned.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: The Bugatti Type 35 is widely considered the most successful of the Bugatti racing models, winning over 1000 races throughout the 1920s. The Brumos Collection’s 1925 Bugatti Type 35 only raced once in its lifetime.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
After an 11-month project, we’re so proud to welcome our 1925 Bugatti Type 35 to our gallery display. Preserving its unique history, we serviced the car’s engine, cleaned its hardware and returned it to its original color. As the icing on the cake for our restoration project, we painted the #26 on our 1925 Bugatti Type 35 to match the way it looked for the one and only time it raced in 1937.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: What’s better than one Miller engine? This 1930 Sampson Miller has two, created by mating two Miller 91 engines to form a 16-cylinder supercar. It was was done for the 1930 Indy 500, when the relaxed rules known as the “Junk Formula” were introduced. Although it never won at Indy in the 7 years it raced, it qualified in second in 1930 at 111.290 mph, and finished fourth.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: During its incredibly long Indy career, this 1931 Stevens Belanger Special completed no less than 8 Indy 500s between 1936 and 1950, thanks to continued improvements. It was restored to its 1949 version as seen here, when Duane Carter qualified in 5th place.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Built by A.J. Watson and driven by A.J. Foyt, this 1958 Watson Sprint car had both a legendary builder and driver. Like for many drivers, racing sprint cars was a stepping stone for A.J Foyt. After his sprint car successes, Foyt went on to become one of the most successful Indy 500 drivers, winning it four times.
Cars built by A.J. Watson won the Indy 500 every year but one from 1959 through 1964. In 1963 our Watson Roadster was one of no less than 14 Watsons (and 7 copies) on the grid and in 1963, it was one of 12.
Many of the vehicles in the gallery can be found sitting on display platforms that mimic the dirt, brick, asphalt and wooden board track surfaces on which those cars would have raced, such as the many dirt tracks that sprint and champ cars raced on.
Note: My Samsung J3 Galaxy phone’s battery unexpectedly went to 15% at this point during our visit, at which point I had to switch-over to Debbie’s somewhat older Samsung J3 Galaxy and it’s less capable camera for the rest of our visit and greatly reduced numbers of photos and photo quality, especially of the digital display information.
1946 Kurtis Novi
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: Known as the fastest cars that never won the Indy 500, the unusual supercharged Novi V8 engines like the one in our 1946 Kurtis Novi were the terror of the Indianapolis oval from 1941 to 1965. Our 1946 Kurtis Novi was the first true Novi car that created a sensation at Indy that year, though it never finished: its race ended after 121 laps when the engine failed.
“The most original single-seat, rear-drive Miller in existence,”
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: The 1923 Miller 122 is a precise example of Harry Miller’s attention to detail and design. Harry and his racing machines were made famous for their outstanding performance at Indianapolis and on the board tracks of the day. Few know that three Miller 122’s were built for Grand Prix racing in Europe. These cars were built at the request of English racing driver Count Luis Zborowski.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: Our Miller 122s don’t just share the same name, they both started their life as Indy cars commissioned by Cliff Durant, son of GM founder William “Crapo “Billy” Durant. Formerly known as Durant Special no. 4 and 6 respectively, our Miller 122 GP was then reconfigured and left the US to race in the Grand Prix circuit in Europe, while our Miller 122 Junior 8 Special continued to race in the Indy 500. 89 years after its departure, the GP car returned home, bringing both Miller 122s together at our collection.
1963 “Sheraton Thompson Special” Meskowski Dirt Champ Car
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: When the low, rear-engine Lotus-Ford he was supposed to drive didn’t arrive at the Milwaukee Mile in 1965, A.J. Foyt wanted to leave, but his mechanic urged him to try to qualify anyway. He swapped the dirt tires for pavement rubber on the front-engine dirt-champ car he’d raced the night before: this 1963 Meskowski. What happened next became legend. With a dirt-car on a paved track, Foyt (driving with #1) qualified in pole position and almost even won the race, had it not been for a late-race fuel and tire stop.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
More Detail on the 1965 Milwaukee Mile: The Milwaukee race traditionally followed Indy by a week and so it was in 1965. AJ Foyt arrived at Milwaukee, but his rear-engine Lotus-Ford did not. That left him with his dirt car as his only mount. AJ’s reaction to this development isn’t recorded, but likely wasn’t positive! His mechanic, Steve Stapp, changed tires from dirt to pavement and talked AJ into at least giving qualifying a try.
To the shock of everyone, AJ put the upright dirt car on the pole! So off he went, a towering front-engine car in a field of mostly lower and sleeker rear-engine cars. He led the field for a lot of the race until a late fuel and tire stop dropped him to second behind eventual winner Parnelli Jones in his Agajanian/Hurst Lotus-Ford.
AJ would later say that his finish that day was “one of the highlights of my career”, high praise indeed for a man whose competition history included victories on all manner of races including a Le Mans victory in a Ford Mk IV with Dan Gurney in 1967.
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: Considered one of the most beautiful pre-war sports cars, Alfa Romeo built just thirty two 8C 2900s before World War II engulfed Europe. As one of only 12 known Touring Spiders, ours also has a stunning open body by Touring on the chassis.
2005 Porsche Carrera GT & 2015 Porsche 918 Brumos 918 Spyder SE
In the back shop, which is adjacent and open to the museum, the Brumos had a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT sitting along side a 2015 “special edition” Brumos 918 Spyder.
The back shop also featured a Porsche 917-10 raced by Hurley Heywood at the Road Atlanta Can-Am Championship in 1973, along with a 1953 Porsche 550 Spyder #48 replica of the car that was entered into races from 1953 through 1959, what looks like a Jaguar Formula 1 and Worldcom Indy Light race chassis’ hang from the rafters, a Brumos Porsche 964 Turbo chassis sits on a work stand, and extra bodywork from other Brumos race cars and the A.J. Foyt IMSA Porsche 962 hang on the wall.
Also not on display during our visit, I believe I see the collection’s 1930 Cord L29, 1929 Duesenberg Model J and 1987 Porsche 959 Prototype hiding in the vehicle storage area behind the shop.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
Details of our 1972 Porsche 917-10, the Can-Am race car that Peter Gregg deemed “a monster” when it came back turbocharged after a midseason crash. So used to the normally-aspirated 500HP car, Peter Gregg sold the now 1100HP monster to Hurley Haywood to drive it in the next season because he knew Hurley would love it.
A 1950’S Mercedes 300S sits in front of a pair of what look like a front-engine Indy Champ Cars, nestled between two of the large Brumos transporters with a pair of 1950’s era Kurtis Kraft midget racers and 1925 Ford Model T that at one time sat in the building’s entry.
Note: My Samsung J3 Galaxy phone’s battery unexpectedly went to 15% earlier in our visit, at which point I had to switch-over to Debbie’s somewhat older Samsung J3 Galaxy and it’s less capable camera for the rest of our visit and greatly reduced numbers of photos and photo quality, especially of the digital display information.
1941 Phil Remington Hot Rod, Replica by Dan Webb, 2011
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: In 2011, Dan Webb fabricated a faithful replica to celebrate automotive legend Phil Remington’s 90th birthday in 2011 (Immortalized as Carroll Shelby’s right-hand “Phil” in Ford vs. Ferrari) “It had a Model A frame, a 21-stud flathead with a ’32 trans and a stock Model A rear end. To change gearing he’d change tire sizes. He found the cowl in an alley and fashioned the rest of the body panels, including the grille, himself.” Remington raced the original roadster at the El Mirage lakes Dry Lakes in Southern California from 1946-1948, the roadster consistently ran over 130 MPH running a 21 stud Ford flathead fed by two Stromberg 97 carburetors,
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Much like Porsche’s more mainstream sports car lineup, the Porsche-Diesel tractors incorporated advanced technological design for the era, notably with the hydraulic coupling installed between the engine and transmission, removing the need for the clutch while shifting in motion. High prices and plenty of local competition meant Porsche-Diesel tractors didn’t enjoy the same level of success it did overseas. Between 1956 and 1963, more than 125,000 examples were produced, with only about 1,000 made it to North America.
I must note, in an interview by the P-Car folks back in 2020, Don Leatherman did suggest the real selling-point on adding the 308N Super Tractor to The Brumos Collection had as much to do with it’s model year as anything else, i.e., it’s a 1959.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Known as Porsche’s first production car, the 356 was the first car to wear the Porsche badge and the 356th project since Porsche’s inception in 1931. Our 1953 Porsche 356 pre-A coupe is part of first series of the 356 known as “pre-A” and has the bent window that replaced the split window.
Note: My Samsung J3 Galaxy phone’s battery unexpectedly went to 15% at this point during our visit, at which point I had to switch-over to Debbie’s somewhat older Samsung J3 Galaxy and it’s less capable camera for the rest of our visit and greatly reduced numbers of photos and photo quality, especially of the digital display information.
And,, quite frankly, we were mentally exhausted after our first two hours seeing and learning about this amazing collection. We should have taken a lunch-break and returned, but that didn’t seem feasible. The Brumos Collection is definitely a four-hour experience, best divided into two two-hour segments with a break for lunch in-between.
1960 Nardi Formula Vee Prototype
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: We’re taking it back to the beginnings of Brumos with our newest car that will be on display for the next year. This 1959 Nardi Formula Vee Prototype was built based on an idea of Brumos founder Hubert Brundage, whose family loaned it to us. Originally commissioned as inexpensive car for the new Formula Junior class that was seen as a ladder to Formula 1, it ended up becoming the inspiration and prototype for another new class: Formula Vee.
Mercedes is known to only have made two of of these iconic vehicle transporters and they were both for Porsche. One is owned by Porsche and the other by Brumos Porsche affectionally named “Buster” that is part of the Brumos Collection. Carrying everything from 910s to 956s in its cargo hold this Porsche transporter is said to have “struck the fear of God in other team’s hearts“. The transporter was the first thing that competitors and spectators saw of Porsche’s arrival to an event. According to Hurley Haywood, that truck “meant Porsche was there to do business“.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Despite being a then yet unproven model and facing harsh weather conditions, Jo Siffert and Vic Elford took their chances in our Porsche 908, a then yet-unproven model. Despite the rain and hail, they won – marking the first of four consecutive wins for 908s at the Ring.
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Our Porsche 917K is cemented in history as one of the cars in the iconic movie Le Mans, but it also played a role at the actual race when it was used for testing and pre-training to compare setups and gain experience. A few months later, another 917K earned Porsche its first overall Le Mans victory.
From the Brumos Collection Facebook Page
Yes, the Camera Mounts Are Still on the Car from the Filming of Le Mans
From the Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Everyone knows our iconic Brumos racing colors, but did you know that our first racing cars were tangerine? The color was chosen, in part, because it was Dr. Porsche’s favorite color. This 1970 911 S competed in all IMSA GT races in 1972 and was the last tangerine Porsche raced by Brumos before moving on to the famous white, red and blue colors. One of the reasons why Peter Gregg changed the Brumos livery from the tangerine color to the now iconic red, white and blue livery was because the tangerine color didn’t stand out enough in that era’s black and white photography?
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Did you know that racing legends A.J. Foyt and Hurley Haywood have raced together? After meeting in 1983 to share a 935, Foyt called Haywood to drive multiple races with him in his new Porsche 962. At the time, the Brumos team maintained the car for Foyt. After racking up just shy of 7,400 miles in it, he eventually traded the 962 to Brumos in 1990 – now it lives on at the Brumos Collection
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: This 1990 March-Porsche 90P played a role in Porsche’s last-ever year of Indy racing, which was the marque’s second attempt at Indy racing, after changed regulations made its first car 10 years prior ineligible before it even raced. Despite a good maiden year upon its return in 1988 and its successful year in 1989, the rulebook prevented Porsche from continuing the success in 1990, ending its foray into Indy racing.
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Our newest loan car, a 2003 Porsche Fabcar, takes us back to the birth of the Daytona Prototype class. Brumos and then-CEO Bob Snodgrass were at the helm of the class’s development in the early 2000s and raced with this Red Bull livery and Fabcar chassis in its early years, before switching to a Riley chassis in 2006 and taking the crown in 2009.
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: Etched in Brumos history as the car that led to a fourth Daytona win in 2009, 31 years after the previous win, we’re so honored to have this Porsche Riley on display in our collection for the next few months.
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: With our Porsche 911 GT3, Brumos Racing returned to its roots in the Grand-Am GT class in 2011, after nearly 10 years of Porsche prototype racing. The inaugural season proved unforgettable, with Andrew Davis and Leh Keen clinching both the team and driver championships that year.
This last set of vehicle galleries depict collection vehicles that have previously been exhibited in the museum from when it first opened to the public at it’s 5159 San Pablo location on 20 January 2020 until prior to our visit in October 2022.
I’m not certain if it’s a comprehensive list, as I compiled it and the associated photos from the Brumos Facebook Page and do not know if it includes every vehicle that has been displayed, or if any previous Facebook postings may have been removed.
However, since the folks at The Brumos Collection invested so much time in developing and sharing-out such a wealth of information on their collection — remembering the museum decided to close its doors to the public just two months after it opened due to the Covid-19 pandemic and did not re-open until 21 January 2021 — I wanted to include much of what was shared in this “Brumos Archival Blog” entry to my Savoy Automobile Museum Archival Blog.
From The Brumos Collection’s Facebook Page: A testament to the automotive genius of Harry Miller, the Miller 91 was the culmination of Miller dominance on American racetracks, winning every major race in the late 1920s and breaking all possible speed records. Considered the pinnacle of American race engineering before WWII, the Miller 91’s influence reached far beyond America, and heavily influenced European automakers like Ettore Bugatti.
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: This 1930 Cord L-29 Town Car may be one of the few passenger cars in our collection, but it has a significant connection to our race cars. Racing fan E.L. Cord was so impressed by Harry Miller’s front-wheel-drive race cars, he purchased Miller’s patent for passenger car use in 1927. He then hired the man who had improved Miller’s design, Cornelius Van Ranst, to develop a practical front-drive passenger car: the Cord L-29.
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: The Porsche 550 Spyder was Porsche’s first true sports racing car. Its historic significance lies in its position in the long line of legendary Porsche race cars. Bearing chassis number 030, the Brumos Collection’s 550 Spyder was a Porsche factory race car. It first raced in the 1955 Venezuelan Grand Prix with then head of Porsche PR and Motorsport, Husche Von Hanstein, at the wheel. The car was flown to Caracas, making it the first Porsche ever flown to a race. Von Hanstein drove it to an 8th place overall and 1st in its class.
It was in 2011 when Brumos Porsche announced the creation of five rare, factory-built 911 Carrera GTS B59 Edition coupes built in honor of racing legend Hurley Haywood’s amazing overall Daytona 24 Hour victory record. At the time, Haywood was the only racer to achieve five overall wins.“In creating the 911 Carrera GTS B59 Editions, we honored the close working relationship Brumos has enjoyed with the factory over the years,” explains Ray Shaffer, Brumos Porsche general manager. “The late Peter Gregg often ordered unique street and race cars for himself through his factory connections and we wanted to revive that same spirit for a new generation.”
From The Brumos Collection Facebook Page: Few cars embody the glamour, speed and power of the pre-war Bentley era better than the ‘Blue Train’ Bentley Speed Six. Our recreation car is a tribute to Bentley Chairman Woolf Barnato’s legendary effort to beat “Le Train Blue”, the train that ran between the French Riviera to Calais.
Additional Information Found on the Internet
The real story behind the Blue Train Bentley can be found in these two articles:
The Bentley Speed Six HJ Mullier Four-Door Saloon That Ran the Race
All evidence points to Barnato carrying out the Blue Train run in a Speed Six Bentley fitted with a four-door Weymann fabric saloon by H J Mulliner (chassis BA2592 registered UU5999) delivered to Barnato in June 1929, shown below.It is owned by Bruce R McCaw.
Photos of Barnato’s Custom Bentley Speed Six
The Gurney Nutting Speed Six’ Bentley coupé, is a flamboyant Grand Touring three-seater with rakish helmet wings, the third seat fitted sidesaddle beneath a sloping roof, finished off by a pair of oversized Zeiss headlamps to the front, a long, louvred panel along both sides of the chassis and a neat trunk to the rear of the body (chassis HM2855, registered GJ3811).It is also owned by Bruce R McCaw.
Bernato’s actual 1930 Bentley Speed Six “Sportsman Coupe,” Chassic #Chassis #: HM2855, Engine #: HM2863, Registration #: GJ3811: ConceptCarz
Captain Woolf Barnato with his ‘Speed Six’ Bentley fitted with the one-of-kind racing body that was found in 1963 by Hugh Harben after years of neglect and virtually derelict who restored it a very high standard.
This recreation is one of a few cars currently being built each year by Bob Petersen Engineeringin England, inspired by an infamous race between a handsome piece of British engineering and a world famous train.
This is a recreation, rather than a replica. That means they there aren’t trying to create something that is an exact copy of an original model. Very close in a number of areas of course, but a recreation allows the builder some artistic license to include their own changes. Built by a dozen highly specialized craftsmen in rural Devon, England, it’s a truly beautiful car.
After buying his first Volkswagen Beetle, Hubert Brundage immediately saw the sales potential and became an early Volkswagen dealer, first selling the cars out of his Brundage Hardware store in 1952 before taking on a partner — Glenn H. Curtis II, son of the aviation company pioneer –– and opening what he called, “a hobby-shop, imported sports car garage” named Brundage Motors where they sold Volkswagens and a variety of different imported brands, e.g., Porsche, Healy, MG, etc. throughout 1952 and into 1953.
In parallel, the second-generation motor racing enthusiast was also driving modified Volkswagens, MGs, Porsches at Sebring and elsewhere, firmly setting his eyes on expanding his Volkswagen dealership and pursuing a Porsche franchise.
In early 1953, Hubert contacted Volkswagen directly, in an effort to by-pass Max Hoffman who was at that time the sole-U.S. importer, to establish he and his partner Curtis as factory-authorized importers and distributors for cars, parts and service.
Shortly thereafter, Will Van de Kamp, who was in charge of Volkswagen’s North American sales and distribution who offered them the entire Florida territory, with an initial commitment to take delivery and sell 75 Beetles over the next three months. The next day, Hubert and his wife Nadine headed-off in their Volkswagen Beetle on a two-week road trip around Florida where they signed-on over thirty Volkswagen dealers.
In 1959, Hubert was awarded the Porsche import, sales and service distributorship for the seven southeastern U.S. states and adopted the name BRUMOS Porsche Car Corporation for his new company. It was at this same time when, my mutual agreement, Hubert acquired Glenn Curtiss’ 51% stake in Brundage Motors.
By 1964, Brundage Motors had sixty-one dealerships in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and had sold over twenty-five-thousand Volkswagens and was one of a handful of elite Porsche dealerships and distributors had become the industry standard for success in both sales and racing.
Hubert Brundage’s life was cut tragically short at the age of 53, just as his Brumos Motors and Racing Team were gaining their stride. He died on 9 November 1964 from injuries, following a motorcycle accident near his property in Mandarin, Florida.
However, in just 10-years, Hubert — or Mr. B. as he was known by his staff — grew a small sportscar “hobby shop” into a multi-million-dollar automotive juggernaut, founding three different corporations in the process: Brundage Motors Jacksonville, Brundage Motors, Inc., Volkswagen’s Southeast U.S. Distributor, and the BRUMOS Porsche Car Corporation, a retailer and distributor with agents in seven Southeastern U.S. States.
Peter Gregg, a friend of Hubert Brundage whom met through SCCA racing in Florida, purchased Brumos Motors and the Racing Team the following year, while also retaining the Brumos name for the Porsche dealership. Gregg would have been 25-years old at the time.
Gregg was a brilliant, but complex individual whose early life was dramatically impacted when he lost his mother for unknown reasons — noting she was always plagued with depression — when she committed suicide 4 May 1947 on Peter’s seventh birthday by stepping off a subway platform into the path of a train while returning home from buying a birthday cake.
He went on to attend private prep school before attending Harvard, earning a degree in English in 1961, then dabbled in filmmaking, tennis, and played professional squash. He first stated auto racing in 1958 with hill climbs in New England, and then began racing sports cars in Florida during 1963, in parallel with a 4-year military commission as an air intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy. It was also during this time he married Johnson & Johnson heiress Jennifer Johnson who was instrumental in his purchase of Brumos. They had two sons, Jason in July 1962 and Simon in Oct 1964, and eventually divorced in 1973 after 13-years due to Peter Gregg’s propensity for infidelity and other issues. Simon went on to follow his father into sports car racing with some success.
1973, Haywood at left & Gregg at right
Under Peter Gregg’s ownership, Brumos Racing adopted the white with blue and red stripe signature livery widely recognized through motorsports. He adopted the signature number 59 on all of his race cars as well as several other Brumos cars, noting it was the number of the USS Forrestal, the ship on which he served while in the U.S. Navy. Brumos Motors also acquired a Mercedes-Benz franchise, named Gregg Motor Cars. In 1966, Gregg earned his first major sports car race win.
When a young Hurley Haywood bested Gregg in a local autocross event in 1967, the two — often mistaken as brothers and who shared the same 4 May birthdate — became friends and also teamed up to make racing history, dominating the world of sports car racing and making the Brumos name known around the world. Haywood would eventually rise to become a Brumos Vice President all while earning ten major endurance victories in his career, including five Daytona 24 Hour and three 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, as well as two victories at the 12 Hours of Sebring, many of which came at the wheel of a Brumos Porsche.
In 1973, Bob Snodgrass joined Brumos as the manager of the Porsche dealership. This was the same year Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood won the Daytona 24 Hours in a Porsche 911 RSR. Up and until then, and even during his undergraduate studies in economics, Bob had been racing, buying, modifying and selling cars. With his new position, racing took a back seat while managing the Brumos dealership and supporting the racing effort as he understood the two went hand-in-glove.
Heading into the 1980 season, Brumos showrooms were thriving and Gregg’s unprecedented fifth IMSA title was a given. However, it was also in 1980 when tragedy once intervened in 1980 to alter the course of Brumos history. However, unlike on 9 November 1964 when Hubert Brundage’s life was cut tragically short from injuries following a motorcycle accident at the age of 53 — just as his Brumos Motors and Racing Team were gaining their stride –– Peter Gregg ended his own life following a more enigmatic series of events playing-out over seven months, likely the culmination of a nearly life-long struggle with depression.
Even though plagued by depression, Peter Gregg was known as a complex but brilliant individual and something of a perfectionist, being given the nickname ‘Peter Perfect’ for his attention to detail and driving skills during his racing career, noting that “Peter Perfect” was a reference to a character in a Hanna-Barbera “Wacky Races” cartoon.
And while at the height of his driving performance entering 1980, by June on track success for Peter Gregg had been elusive. Just after turning 40 in May, it was on 10 June 1980 when he was in France for the 24-Hour of Le Mans — driving for the Porsche factory team and teamed with fellow American Al Holbert in one of the new Porsche 924 Carrera GTS models — where he was involved in a non-racing accident while driving to a practice session at the race course. Although his passengers — artist Frank Stella and Peter’s then girlfriend — were unhurt, a violent impact with the steering wheel left Gregg’s head visibly injured. Though his injury was not life-threatening, the concussive head injury prevented him from racing at Le Mans, with Derek Bell taking his place.
However, the concussive, traumatic brain injury (TBI) on 10 June also left Gregg with lingering headaches, migraines and persistent diplopia, more commonly referred to as ‘double vision’. It wasn’t immediately known at the time, but the lingering effects of the concussion would effectively end Peter Gregg’s ability to remain competitive throughout the rest of the 1980 racing season, and the recently crowned 5-time IMSA champion would never win another race.
Less than a month later, on 4 July 1980, as originally planned and despite his TBI and double vision issues, Peter Gregg teamed up with his long-time co-driver and Brumos business partner Hurley Haywood to race the 250-mile Paul Revere night race at the Daytona Speedway. Given Hurley’s mastery of the Daytona race course that earned him the nickname ‘Mr. Daytona,’ and per the Brumos team’s plan, Hurley prepared the car and put the Brumos Porsche 935/79 on the pole, ahead of the factory Porsche 935 Kremer cars.
In the actual race, Hurley quickly established a commanding lead; however, with 30-minutes to go into the 250-mile race, Hurley was exhausted and made a driver-change with Gregg. Even with the huge lead, his impaired driving ability didn’t allow him to maintain the lead and Gregg finished his stint and the overall race in third-place, having clearly struggled his double-vision. But, instead of admitting his racing form had been impacted by his vision, Gregg publicly accused his longtime friend Hurley of setting him up to fail, which Hurley flatly denied. A week later, Gregg confronted Hurley in their Brumos offices, essentially fired-him by banning him from Brumos property and then remained distant until 14 December.
Looking back based on more recent revelations, there was a lot going-on in Gregg’s AND Haywood’s respective lives during the latter half of the 1970’s following Peter’s 1973 divorce following his 13-year marriage to his first wife, Jennifer1. It was also in late December 1979 when Hurley first met and began a lifelong relationship with his husband, Steve Hill2.
Note 1: You’ll recall, Peter’s first wife was Jennifer Johnson, who had significant financial resources with both social and business associations owing being a member of the Johnson & Johnson family. When Gregg’s infidelity lead to their divorce, Gregg lost access to Jennifer’s nearly unlimited financial resources which had given him the ability to acquire Brundage Motors, Brumos Porsche and the Brumos Racing Team following the tragic passing of Hubert Brundage in 1964. The loss of Jennifer was an ever-present strain on Gregg following the divorce.
Note 2: Hurley Haywood and Steve Hill went to great lengths to keep their relationship secret as they both knew that to have come out as gay in the racing world would have likely ended Haywood’s career. It was in January 2018 when Hurley Haywood released his memoir where he finally revealed publicly for the first time he had been gay throughout his adult life. Hurley noted that only a few people in his inner circle had known about his sexual orientation — which spawned unsubstantiated rumors about his and Peter’s off-track relationship — and it had been in 1979 when Hurley first met his future long-time partner Steve Hill at a Jacksonville bar who was on his way back home to Chicago, Illinois, during the Christmas holiday, and the two were married in 2018 following publication of Hurley’s memoir.
Though Peter and Hurley had been so close as to have garnered nicknames like “Batman and Robin” as well as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” their relationship was not without its difficulties, which was true of almost everyone who was close with Peter, recalling his first marriage ended due to his known infidelities and his manic-behavior in his home life. As had been noted by many of his close associates, on one day he’d treat you like a best friend, and the next as an enemy. Hurley one time said in an interview regarding the last, tumultuous year of Peter’s life, “I don’t think anybody really understood his mental health at that time, and the issues that he was going through. We all knew that something was wrong. He was taking medication, but Peter always thought that he was smarter than medication. So in a lot of cases, he didn’t take it.”
It was also during the 1980’s when Peter began dating a string of new girlfriends and making marriage proposals, including a 25-year-old commercial artist who had recently relocated to Jacksonville named Deborah, or Debbie to her friends and Peter.
Right after Peter severed ties with Hurley in early July after the Paul Revere night race, he met friends for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. It was at the time when Peter’s dinner companions introduced him to their friend Deborah Jane Marrs3. Later into the evening, Peter challenged his friends to a friendly race on the nearly deserted streets of Jacksonville around the restaurant by offering them his Porsche while he’d drive a friend’s BMW. Deborah Marrs took him up on the offer, was said by Gregg to have driven the car well for someone who had never taken an active interest in motorsports or raced before and he became intrigued with her.
Note 3:As background, after being born and raised in Callahan, Florida — a Jacksonville suburb — Deborah obtained her Associates of Arts Degree from Atlanta’s Art Institute in 1975, where she remained and went to work at McDonald & Little through 1976. In 1976-1977, she freelanced before taking a position as the Art Director for a marketing firm called ‘The Boardroom’ in Tucker, Georgia, and then moved back to Florida in 1979 where she began working at the Malone Group in Jacksonville.
According to Deborah, after returning from their friendly competition, Peter asked for her phone number but she declined to provide it. However, Peter obtained the number from one of their mutual friends and the next morning called to invite her to a follow-up date. As she recounted in an interview, “We went out that night and just about every night after that. He was putting the pressure on me, I guess. Calling every night and taking me out. It was like a dream or Dynasty. This stuff doesn’t happen in real life.”She eventually moved-in with Gregg at his home at Point Vedra Beach in Jacksonville.
Peter Gregg qualified 11th for the 30 November, 250-mile “Daytona Finale” race at Daytona, but withdrew before the race citing handling issues with the car. Hurley suspected Gregg’s decision was due to multiple factors, “not the least of which was the realization the man other racers called “Peter Perfect” was no longer the best.” New drivers were driving a Porsche 935 and they were faster. “Peter could not accept the fact that he was not the top dog anymore.”
In the background, the relationship between 40-year-old Peter Gregg and 25-year-old Deborah Marrs continued to grow and the two were married on 6 December 1980, much to the concern of his closest friends and business associates given the events of the past year, his manic behavior and actions. He had also taken time to update his will, in which his new wife, Deborah, was his sole beneficiary.
On Sunday morning, 14 December 1980, Hurley Haywood received a phone call from Peter Gregg — to whom he’d also not had any contact since being dismissed from Brumos back in July — inviting him over for lunch so he could meet Deborah and talk about his Brumos racing plans for the future. During the cordial afternoon-long visit, Peter shared his plans to resume their partnership and start a new Indycar team4 with Haywood driving.
Note 4: The Indy plan actually had more substance that being just an idea, as Gregg had been in contact with John Gordon Bennett who co-drove for Chevron Cars Ltd. with Brigg Cunningham and was considering the acquisition of the late Derek Bennett’s firm from his heirs to build a Chevron Indy car. However, the financial implications of the deal didn’t represent a prudent move by Gregg, who passed on making an offer. However, during those discussions Gregg shared with John Gordon Bennett (no relation to Derek) he had difficulty coping with the fact that his injury had reduced his ability to race at the level he had been accustomed to.
as the next afternoon on 15 December 1980 when beachgoer at Point Vedra Beach discovered Peter Gregg’s body on the dunes at ‘Mickler’s Landing’just off of Florida Route A1A around 1:30pm, killed by what appeared to be a self-inflected gunshot, with the .38 pistol found under his left leg. Nearby was a briefcase with a hand-written suicide note dated Monday, 2:30pm — the time discrepancy was never explainable — as well as the box and recent receipt for the gun.
The note read:
“Dec. 15th-2:30 p.m.
Debbie. First I love you and this isn’t related to you. I don’t want to live with my lifelong illness of driving everything away, with making myself and others miserable.
Please don’t feel you are partly responsible – you’re not. Try to have a happy life. I’m no good for you in the long run.
Jason & Simon. Forgive me. I just don’t enjoy life anymore. I must have the right to end it.
Jennifer. You helped me more than anyone. You shielded me from despair for years. Thank you.
Bob S. You’ve been wonderful to me. I want you, Myrtis and Siggy to own auto business with Debbie. Debbie, please honor my request about Bob getting to own car dealership.
I don’t feel crazy. I have done all I want to do. That’s it.”
C&D June 1992, The Many Faces of Peter Gregg
Other than for the reasons mentioned in the note, there are no other more-specific reasons why he killed himself so it technically remains a mystery. Police said that he had recently undergone psychiatric care. That he suffered from life-long, manic depression and that his mother who also dealt with severe depression also committed suicide for unknown reasons, are clearly indicative of a troubled mind.
The hand-written, sometimes unintelligible suicide note purportedly included a change whereby he wanted to leave his entire business to the general manager Bob Snodgrass, to his race crew chief Jack Atkinson, and to Sigmund, his service chief. However, given the nature of the note, the lack of a witness and mental state of the presumed writer, it was not legally enforceable. Therefore, at 25-years of age, his wife of 9-days, Debbie, was a mentally-shattered widow, as well as the sole benefactor of Peter Gregg’s estimated $19-million* $72-million adjusted for inflation estate, inclusive of four auto dealerships, the Brumos Racing Team, his home, cars and other possessions.
Note*: Debbie has stated the estate’s net value was less than $9-million $34-million adjusted for inflation a number grossly inflated by other’s.
Peter’s business partner Bob Snodgrass, who managed both the Brumos dealership and the racing team during the troubled 1980’s, one time said in an interview, “Peter had been concerned with a lot of things philosophically. And after the accident that happened in Le Mans, Peter went through a rough period of having to face the reality that he was physically not able to race because of his medical problem.“
Hurley later related that while everything appeared to be back on track, had he known what to look for in terms of red flags associated with suicidal behaviors — last minute fence-mending to achieve closure, etc — he may not have so easily dismissed Peter’s ‘usual depressed demeanor’ as being normal for him.
The Deborah Marrs Gregg Era
Bob Snodgrass remained the minority partner during DebbieGregg’s ownership of Brumos, noting she essentially left the operation of Brumos Motors and the Racing Team to Bob while pursuing her own career in sports car racing.
Debbie did make a number of changes in things like company colors and logo, eliminated the professional racing program, and enabled Bob Snodgrass to a far more prominent role in running the company as Debbie pursued her own racing career in GT, open-wheeled, and Trans-Am racing.
Bob always saw Porsche racing as the foundation of the company’s sales, service and marketing concepts, and focused on supporting those things to keep the business viable and to preserve the Brumos image, in light of the shift to mostly amatuer racing programs and support to clients, customers and their brands.
Hurley Haywood also assisted Debbie as she took the position of Owner/CEO at Brumos Motorcars.
Debbie Gregg re-married the late Rex R. Howe [b.1957, d.2016] in October 1989, whom she met through auto racing in 1988, and sold the automotive businesses in 1991. The couple relocated to Colorado in 2014, where at last check she still lives.
From a 1987 Boston Globe Interview:
Deborah was left with four auto dealerships, worth an estimated $19 million, Peter`s racing team and a shattered life.
”It affected a lot of people,” she said. ”He could never know how many people he affected by his decision. So all of a sudden, I had to be this grown-up, intelligent, mature, hard-working mother to everyone as a 25-year-old person. I went home every night and cried, but I couldn`t show my grief to anybody else.
”I had to show them the strength that, by God, we were going to carry on. That this deal was staying together. That we were going to move forward, we were going to go through this and we were going to go beyond this. ”There were about 200 people who didn`t know if they were going to have a job the next day, and I had to be a pillar of strength for these people.”
Her voice lost its hard edge when she said: ”It`s been hard, but you learn each day a little more and you finally figure out some things, you think, about yourself and you accept (the suicide) because there was nothing you could do about it.”
With the help of her business partner, Bob Snodgrass, Gregg was able to keep her husband`s holdings intact. She was still in dire need of emotional resuscitation, so seven months after her husband`s death, she enrolled at Bob Bondurant`s driving school in Sonoma, Calif. She can`t say what compelled her to do it.
Racing, one of her childhood dreams, soon became a form of therapy. ”And,” she said, ”I guess my therapy became my passion.”
It has become a way of life for Gregg, 32, a rookie on the SCCA Trans-Am series.
A veteran of IMSA`s various circuits, Gregg is the newest member of Jack Roush`s successful Lincoln-Mercury factory team, spearheaded by series point leader Scott Pruett and Pete Halsmer.
Before Saturday`s 66-lap race at Lime Rock (Conn.) Park, she was ranked third in the point standings, thus becoming the first woman to break into the top five. She had five top 10 finishes, including a pair of fifths in Portland and Detroit, and as a result, is now the front-runner for Rookie of the Year. She took fourth Saturday, with Halsmer beating Pruett by 37-hundreths of a second for first place.
”I didn’t take the driving school until June 1981, and I did some showroom stock races, but I didn’t really start driving until 1983,” she said.
That year, she fielded a Brumos Porsche 924 and had three top five finishes in the Camel GTU series.
”But maybe it was a form of emotional therapy,” she said. ”Sometimes diversions are the best therapy, because it takes you away from the other problems at hand by distracting you with other problems that are of no consequence in the world today. I mean, they have no effect on whether or not the Soviets are going to nuke us, but in your own small world, they mean a lot.”
She realizes the specter of her husband`s death will linger as long as she`s around the track.
”I`ve recently come into my own personality in that now I`m Deborah Gregg,” she said. ”Yes, okay, I`m still the widow of Peter Gregg and I cannot deny that it has opened doors for me that may not have been opened for me otherwise. He is responsible for a lot of what I am today. He determined my future, basically. Changed my life totally.
”But I don`t know, maybe I`ve become a believer in destiny and fate or something. But I think my success of late in the Trans-Am has been due to Jack. That has helped my reputation and helped my stock go up.
”Now people are starting to say, ”Hey, that`s Deborah Gregg.` And they don`t add, `The widow of . . .` ”
Deborah Gregg raced sportscars in the States in the 1980s, and ran Brumos Motorsport after the premature death of her husband, Peter Gregg, in 1980.
Now a widow, she went through the normal grieving processes, but she was also, now, a very wealthy woman, with the resources at hand to go racing, an ambition she had always harboured. According to her mother, she had been interested in cars since the age of five.
Her first IMSA event, in 1982, was the Daytona Finale. She drove a Porsche 924 with Elliot Forbes-Robinson. They were 22nd overall, and eleventh in the GTO class.
In 1983, she started racing for the Brumos team, which now technically belonged to her, as it had been owned by Peter since 1965. Hurley Haywood, a former team-mate of Peter’s, was on hand to help. Deborah ran a Porsche 924 for an all-female team of herself, Bonnie Henn and Kathy Rude. Their first event together was the Daytona 24 Hours, and they were thirteenth overall. The trio reunited for the Sebring 12 Hours, in which they were 35th. Deborah and Kathy then did the next three rounds of the IMSA series together, with a best finish of 17th, at Charlotte.
Mid-season, Deborah travelled to Germany for the Nürburgring Grand Prix. She shared a car with Lili Reisenbichler and Jürgen Hamelmann, but they did not finish. Back at home, she did the last two rounds of IMSA in two different Porsches 924s, driving alongside Elliot Forbes-Robinson and George Drolsom.
1984 was a much quieter season. She raced with the El Salvador team, in another 924. Her team-mates were Jim Trueman and Alfredo Mena. They were meant to do the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours together, but Deborah never got to race at Sebring. The team did not finish either race anyway.
1985 saw her back in a Brumos car for the Road America Trans Am round. This time, it was a Buick Regal. She was 23rd. She also drove an Alba AR4 for Malibu in the Watkins Glen 500km, and was fifteenth.
She returned to IMSA in 1986, driving a Tiga GT286. For Daytona, she was part of a four-driver Rinzler Motoracing team with Mike Brockman, Steve Durst and Jim Trueman. They qualified in 28th place, but the car’s engine failed. Sharing with Jeff Kline, Deborah was eleventh at Laguna Seca, then ninth at Charlotte, with Jim Trueman. This was her best finish of the year. Later in the season, the car was taken over by Brumos. This particular team’s best result was a twelfth place at Palm Beach, before another Tiga was brought in, which did not run as well.
Her fourth Daytona 24 Hours was the best of her career. She got a ride in a Roush Racing Ford Mustang, with Scott Pruett, Scott Goodyear and Bobby Akin. They were ninth overall, third in class. This was more remarkable considering that they were unable to set a qualifying time, and started from the back of the grid.
Deborah remained a Roush driver for the rest of the season, and tackled the Trans-Am series in a Mercury Capri. This car seemed to suit her. She was eighth in her first race at Long Beach. By the third round at Portland, she was into the top five. Her first podium happened at Road America, and was quickly followed by another third place at Memphis. She was fifth in the championship, and won the Rookie of the Year award.
In 1988, she joined up with another Roush driver, Lyn St. James. They drove a Mercury Capri at Daytona with Mark Martin and Pete Halsmer, but crashed out quite late on. Deborah and Lynn had more success as a duo, finishing eighth at the Sebring 12 Hours in a Mercury Merkur XR4Ti. They were second in the GTO class.
Deborah had not always had such good relationships with other female drivers. Shortly before her 1988 Daytona run, she had appeared on a speaking panel with Janet Guthrie, who said, in front of her, “as for Deborah Gregg, I don’t know how much money Peter Gregg left her, but it was evidently enough for her to buy herself a ride.” It is unclear what her grudge was, or what the context of her remarks was. Others were more complementary. Including former team-mate Elliot Forbes-Robinson, who praised her progress that year.
Deborah’s Trans-Am season was not quite as strong as her 1987 run, although she remained a solid competitor. Her best result was at Detroit, where she was fifth in the Merkur. This was one of four top-tens she earned that year.
During her time at Roush, Deborah also did some truck racing in a Mitsubishi and a Jeep Comanche, although results are proving hard to track down. Lyn St. James used a Ford Ranger.
After the 1988 season, Deborah took a break from racing, although she came back to Trans-Am in a Chevrolet Camaro, in 1991. She was 18th in the 1991 championship, and tenth in 1992. A part-season in 1993 gave her a 21st place.
Her last IMSA race also occurred in 1993. She was twelfth at Miami, in her self-entered Camaro.
Shortly afterwards, she sold her interest in Brumos, and concentrated on other things, including family.
July 1980 – “We’d been racing together and working together for more than a decade, but now he told me he didn’t want to see me on the Brumos property any more. So I was effectively thrown out.”
14 December 1980 – “Our homes were close to each other, but I never saw him, I kept away – and then more than five months later, one Sunday in December, he called me up as though nothing had happened. He’d met a girl called Deborah and had married her very quickly, a few days before. He said she was cooking lunch and why didn’t I come over. “
“It was a total surprise. I went over, everything was totally cordial, I met Deborah, and we had a really nice lunch. Peter was full of plans for the future. He was planning to go Indy racing with me as the driver, he had it all mapped out.“
15 December 1980 – “Next morning he went to a shop, bought a gun, walked onto the beach and shot himself. He left an almost illegible note, addressed to his wife of nine days, saying he wanted to leave the entire business to the general manager Bob Snodgrass, to his race crew chief Jack Atkinson, and to Sigmund, his service chief. Deborah said she wasn’t going to let that happen, and of course the scribbled, unwitnessed note would never have stood up in court.”
“Bob continued to steer the business for her: with her lack of experience the manufacturers would never have let her be in sole charge without him, and he’d already been running the dealership for Peter since 1972. But she did make changes that severely compromised what Brumos was doing: like she changed the famous colour scheme, she started to race Mustangs instead of Porsches”
“Then in 1991 a major car dealer entrepreneur, Dan Davis, came along, and he and Bob Snodgrass bought her out. It was like those 10 years had vanished and all the original philosophy was back, with those unmistakable racing colours of white with the broad red and blue stripes, which just said Brumos to everybody.”
In 1991, Bob Snodgrass joined with Jacksonville businessman and racing enthusiast Dan Davis to buy-out Deborah Gregg’s majority stake in Brumos, at which point they merged the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz brands under the Brumos name and reactivated the racing with Daytona Prototypes, GTs and resumed their place as one of the premier teams on the motor racing circuit. Or, as noted by Hurley Haywood, “It was like those 10 years had vanished and all the original philosophy was back, with those unmistakable racing colours of white with the broad red and blue stripes, which just said Brumos to everybody.”
In 1991, Davis and Snodgrass were awarded the Lexus franchise for Jacksonville, Haywood won his fifth Rolex 24 at Daytona, followed by SuperCar Championship titles. Snodgrass was also instrumental in founding the GRAND-AM Rolex Series in 2003. He supported it fully by debuting a pair of Brumos Porsche Fabcar prototypes. He also resumed racing as a hobby, winning the Historic Sports Car Racing Championship 10-times racing Porsches from The Brumos Collection’s rare and significant automobiles, founded by Snodgrass during the 1990’s.
Since then, Brumos Motor Cars has continued to evolve, now including five stores — Brumos Porsche, Brumos Motor Cars (Mercedes-Benz including Sprinter) and Brumos Lexus of Jacksonville; plus Mercedes-Benz of Orange Park (including smart) and Brumos Lexus of Orange Park. Also located in Jacksonville is the Brumos Collision Center.
Following Snodgrass’ death in 2007, Davis acquired all interests in Brumos and continued his support, never missing a race. Two years after Brumos Racing won the 2009 Rolex 24, Davis returned race operations to Jacksonville. Deciding to ‘race what we sell’, a #59 Brumos Porsche 911 GT3 made its debut in the GT Class in 2011, winning the GRAND-AM Rolex Series GT championship that same year.
In January 2009, the late Charlie Tomm was appointed President and CEO of Brumos Automotive, a position he held until 31 March 2016.
On 31 March 2016, Brumos Porsche was acquired by the Field Automotive Group and after 56 years, during most of which the Jacksonville, Fla. Porsche dealer was heavily involved in sports car racing under the Brumos Racing banner, the Brumos Porsche signs came down, to be replaced by new Porsche Jacksonville signage. Dan Davis retained the Brumos name rights in the transaction.
So, this is where we get into the interesting convergence of the two iconic Florida businesses and personalities who somehow came to be the patron saints of The Brumos Motors Company, Race Team and now their legacy: The Brumos Collection in Jacksonville, Florida.
Seriously, how does a young man from Texas born in 1880 somehow end up with a grandson who, while still running the “family grocery store” in the 1990’s, is also the major stakeholder and a key executive member of one of the most iconic, American-based sportscar racing teams and the most successful U.S. importer, distributor and dealer of Porsche sports cars?
The Davis Family’s Journey from Texas, to Arkansas, and Idaho
William Milton Davis was born in Denton, Texas, 10 December 1880, moved with his family to a farm in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. As a young man he helped his father, Artinus R “Tine” Davis, manage the family’s general store in Gamaliel, Arkansas. At 24-years of age, he opened his own store in nearby Henderson, just across the Norfolk River.
In 1912, he and his brother N. Carl Davis moved to Burly, Idaho with his brother which was experiencing a booming growth in agriculture due to the introduction of irrigation. In 1913, William and Carl began working at Clark Mercantile General Store, which they subsequently bought and renamed Davis Mercantile. By 1916, they expanded the store to an 8,250 square foot retail space called Davis Department Store, selling a variety of goods, food and clothing. Their annual sales increased from $30,000 to $300,000 in just a few short years, and did so by affording customers sales on credit as was commonplace at the time.
Recession and Skaggs Inspire the Davis Family’s Move to Florida
In 1925, once again, they made a strategic decision to close their business –– surrendering their assets to their creditors — and relocated to south Florida where, during the prosperity of the “roaring 20’s” both central and south Florida were experiencing a tremendous interest in early resort centers with an explosion in numbers of land buyers and a frenzy of real estate sales and new land development.
After obtaining a $10,000 loan from his father, “Tine” Davis — apparently another ambitious man with great influence on his children given he was born in Cabell County, West Virginia, and by the age of 25 had moved to Denton, Texas where William was born, and then to Arkansas perhaps 20 years later where he was both a farmer and a general store owner — William surveyed the expanding growth around Miami and focused his attention on the emerging community of Lemon City — today’s Little Haiti — just north of downtown. Building on the Skaggs model of acquisition and expansion, on 15 November 1925, he bought the Rockmoor Grocery Store from owner C. A. Rhodes with an unsolicited offer of $10,000 cash, noting the store had netted $6,000 in 1924.
W.M. Davis (founder at the far right), third from left is his son J.E. Davis and fifth is son A.D. Davis. Florida Memory
In the booming south Florida economy, Rockmoor’s business grew exponentially and in 1926, his sons James Ellsworth (born 1907 in Gamaliel, Arkansas) and Artemus Darius (Born 1905 in Baxter County, Arkansas) dropped out of the University of Idaho and moved to Florida to help with the business which, as noted, was built upon the Skaggs model of never selling merchandise on credit, running as a self-service, cash & carry, low-margin, high-volume basis. William was also instrumental in bringing things like Idaho potatoes and the less expensive but high-quality western beef to the Florida market while sourcing produce and dairy products locally.
In 1927, after beginning to acquire additional stores William rebranded the business as Table Supply. To make a long story short, the rest is history. William and his four sons went on to create one of the first mega-supermarket chains in the southeast U.S., starting off with domination of the Florida market, before expanding further into the Southeast, overcoming marketing and even legal challenges at the local, state and federal level before and after the business changed hands in 1934.
26-Year-Old J.E. Davis Assumes Leadership of The Family Business & Continues to Expand
It was in November 1935 when William Davis suddenly fell ill and passed at the age of 54, with his four sons taking over the business and his second son, 26-year-old James Ellsworth, “J.E.,” assuming Table Supply’s position of CEO.
By 1939 the Davis brothers had 43 Table Supply stores throughout southeast Florida, the Heartland and the Tampa Bay area. Fellow entrepreneur William R. Lovett, president of Jacksonville-based Winn & Lovett Grocery chain with 73 stores in north Florida and South Georgia, offered J.D. and E.D. a 51% controlling interest in his larger retail chain, and A. D. moved to Jacksonville to take over as president of the company.
In 1944, the Davis brothers bought-out the remainder of the Winn-Lovett chain and merged the two companies, taking-on Winn & Lovett for the Corporation branding and relocating their headquarters to Jacksonville.
In 1945, with the purchase of Kentucky-based Steiden Stores and its 31 locations, the Davis brother’s Winn-Lovett now had 149 stores operated under their legacy names as Table Supply, Lovett’s, Steiden, Piggly Wiggly, and Economy Wholesale Grocery.
In 1949, the Davis Brothers acquired the 47 Margaret Ann New Era Markets for $5,000,000, and by 1952 Winn-Lovett owned and operated 178 stores, from Kentucky to Florida.
In 1952, Winn-Lovett applied for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol WIN and became the first publicly traded Florida corporation.
Between 1952 and 1957, Winn-Lovett added the “Kwik Check” brand to their portfolio and acquired the following, smaller grocery chains:
Wylie & Company, operating 8 Jitney Jungle stores in Alabama
Eden’s Food Stores in South Carolina, 33 stores
Ballentine Grocery Stores in South Carolina, 16 stores
Penny Stores in Mississippi, 8 stores
Ketner-Milner of North Carolina, 24 stores
Kings Outlet Stores of Georgia
H. G. Hill’s of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, 42 stores
Dossett’s in Mississippi
In 1955, Winn-Lovett with 271 stores and $260-million in annual revenue, merged with Dixie-Home Super Markets and its 117 stores with $80-million in annual revenue in a stock swap, adopting the combined corporation name of Winn-Dixie.
During 1957, Winn-Dixie began to rename all of their stores to the consolidated brand name, with the Kwik Chek name being the last during the late 1970s.
Someone Not Named Davis Assumes the President Role as Annual Revenue Exceeds $1-Billion
In 1965, the company promoted longtime Corporate Vice President, Bert Thomas to the role of president, the first time a Davis was not in charge. The Davis brothers continued to remain the corporation’s largest stockholders and held the top positions on the board of directors with J. E. Davis as Chairman and CEO.
By 1966, Winn-Dixie achieved the $1-billion in annual revenue milestone, now operating some 696 retail stores and 7 wholesale stores in an area that stretched south from Key West to Virginia, and east from Virginia to Indiana.
In 1967, after the FTC decided to invoke the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 with a 10-year cease-and-desist on mergers and acquisitions to “cool-down” Winn-Dixie’s expansion in the U.S., it acquired City Meat Market and its 11 stores in the Bahamas.
In 1976, after the FCC’s ten-year ban expired, Winn-Dixie expanded into Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico with the acquisition of the Kimbell Corporation, which operated 135 stores under the trade names Buddies, Foodway, and Hagee.
The Third Generation and Dan Davis Takes Over Winn-Dixie in 1982 through 2003
In September 1982, just days before the investor’s meeting, Winn-Dixie president Bert Thomas died suddenly at the age of 64. Thomas’ leadership had been lauded on Wall Street, having successfully navigated the FTC challenges, a changing market while expanding the chain to over 1000 stores with year-after-year of uninterrupted top and bottom-line revenue growth while posting dividends every year, a rarity for the New York Stock Exchange listed companies.
On 4 October 1982, A. Dano Davis, the 37-year-old son of Winn-Dixie co-founder J.E. Davis, then the current Chairman of the Board, was named president. As noted in the press-release:
Mr. Davis, 37, started with the company as a part-time bottle boy in 1962.
Winn-Dixie says it is the nation’s fourth-largest supermarket chain in terms of food sales.
The company got its start in 1925 in Lemon City, Fla., when the Davis family bought a store called the Rockmoor Grocery. The founding brothers – Artemis Darius Davis, James Ellsworth Davis, Milton Austin Davis and Tine Wayne Davis – built the chain into 1,228 stores in 13 states across the Sun Belt from headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.
Of the four founders, A.D. and J.E. Davis are still active as directors. The new president is the son of J.E. Davis, the board chairman.
In 1983, Robert D. Davis succeeded his uncle J. E. as chairman of the board. However, Robert’s tenure was relatively short-lived. After five years of flat growth, Dan replaced his cousin, Robert. While Robert remained on the board as vice chair, Dan served as President and CEO until 1999, and chairman of the board until he retired in 2004.
The Beginning of the End, the 1980’s and Emergence of “Big Box” and Walmart Stores
In 1987, the Winn-Dixie Corporation operated nearly 1300 stores with over $9 Billion in annual gross revenue, making it the fourth largest grocery chain in the country.
During the latter part of the 80’s and throughout the 90’s Winn-Dixie faced significant headwinds as the grocery and retail industry was redefined by the emergence of “Big Box” and discount stores such as Costco, Sam’s and Walmart at the large-scale end of the market, while convenience stores at gas stations like 7–11 were eating away at the small neighborhood store model. Moreover, it’s direct competitors in other regional markets grocers were entering the southeast.
At the high-end, a 20,000 square-foot store had been considered large, as with superstores the new normal became 45,000 – 55,000 square feet in just a decade. At the same time, this increased competition for market share created a race-to-the-bottom pricing model, where traditionally grocers ran on a small margin, high volume game of 2–3%, which were further reduced to unsustainable levels by the likes of Walmart.
This race to the bottom with fewer, bigger stores forced Winn-Dixie was in a constant cycle of remodeling and enlarging potentially profitable stores, while trying to close smaller and unprofitable ones were hampered by the long-standing Winn-Dixie prohibition on buying vs. establishing long-term leases on their retail stores.
In 2004, Dan Davis at 59-years-of-age, 4-years after his wife passed, retired as Winn-Dixie Chief Operating Officer, and taking his place was H. Jay Skelton, president and chief executive officer of DDI Inc., a diversified holding company owned by the Davis family. The Davis family continued to own approximately 40% of Winn-Dixie stock.
By 2005, all of these factors forced Winn-Dixie to file for Chapter 11 protection as the 80-year-old Davis era came to an end.
In 2006, Winn-Dixie emerged from Chapter 11 with half as many of stores as it had in 1987, and with their territory reduced to just Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and re-launched their publicly-traded status as WINN, operating far fewer, remodeled, cleaner and modernized stores.
In late 2011, Winn-Dixie was acquired by the parent company of Bi-Lo, taken private and the merged company was renamed Southeastern Grocers, which retained Winn-Dixie’s Jacksonville headquarters.
By 2017, Winn-Dixie was operating around 450 stores, mostly in Florida and the gulf coast.
As of October 2022, Southeastern now has 595 stores, of which 515 are Winn-Dixie with 494 of those in Florida.
In the early 1940’s, James R. Stockton, Sr. built a gentleman’s hideaway called “The Haunt of the Hermit” in the area northwest of Palm Valley and Twenty Mile.
In 1942, J.E. Davis acquired “The Haunt of the Hermit” and the 28,000 surrounding acres of natural, undeveloped land and renamed it Fort Davis. It was later named the Dee-Dot Ranch, after his children, Dano and Dorothy and subsequently expanded to a total of 51,000 acres of land in southeastern Duval County and northeastern St. Johns County. For context, that’s on par with the size of the Petrified Forest National Monument in Arizona established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, or the Acadia National Park in Maine established in 1916.
The original tract of land is still owned and managed by the Davis family as a timber operation with wildlife management being a big part of the overall plan for the property. The Dee-Dot Ranch rustic lodge made of cypress logs and chinked with concrete that had been enlarged in the 1960’s remains and overlooks Davis Lake.
1982, J. E. Davis spearheaded a $6 million corporate fund-raising drive and donated 140 acres of his Dee-Dot Ranch property to the clinic to help establish the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville campus in 1986. However, to hedge is bet, Davis made the land gift on the condition the Mayo had to commit to build on the property at Butler and San Pablo boulevards within five years, or the land would be turned over to another medical-related project.
The family has contributed tens of millions to fund business schools at Stetson and Jacksonville University.
Being lovers of social justice, they have also given millions to historically black colleges over the years and served on various boards.
In 2017. that generosity has continued, with a two-million-dollar donation to the Jacksonville Zoo.
So, how did we even know about this museum that only opened back in January 2020 — inauspicious timing, to say the least-– existed? While I’ve been a long time auto and motorcycle “enthusiast” and have a head filled with history from my 60+ years, I was certainly not a history buff, so-to-speak. Interestingly enough, it was because this past May we discovered yet another private automobile collection at The Savoy Automobile Museum, opened in Cartersville, Georgia, on 8 December 2021.
Like The Brumos Collection, The Savoy is more art museum than car museum, in that all of the exhibits feature interesting examples of automotive history that can be enjoyed in a look-but-don’t-touch, 360° perspective, instead of from behind stanchion and rope or belt barriers, often times only from a limited perspective. And, like The Savoy, The Brumos Collection offers guests a well-curated, interesting collection of exhibits with only 50-or-so vehicles on display at any one time, as well as other automotive-related art, images and other related collections of artifacts and memorabilia.
The Savoy also invites in guest speakers about every-other month, thus far related to at least one of the current exhibits. For example, when first opened one of the exhibits was “Orphans” featuring automobiles from automakers that are no longer going-concerns, having either been acquired or merged into other automaker brands or that simply failed to survive for a variety of reasons. One of the cars on display was the 44th of the 50-built, Tucker Motor Company Model ’48s, and the first speakers included Sean and Mike Tucker, great-grandsons of Preston Tucker and Tucker historians and preservationists, as well as Mark Lieberman, noted Tucker historian and preservationist.
Our introduction to The Brumos Collection came when I attended my first guest speaker event on 20 September when Brandon Starks, the Executive Director of The Brumos Collection and former General Manager Brumos Motor Cars, visited and gave an overview of the collection as well as a detailed history of the #14, 1963 Watson “Konstant Hot Special” Indy Roadster that was on loan from The Brumos Collection and displayed at The Savoy. Based on what I learned during Brandon’s presentation, I knew we’d be paying a visit to see The Brumos Collection, but didn’t have any date or time in mind at the time.
However, knowing we were way overdue for some time away from home, a desire to visit a beach area along the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico, and my recent interest in making a return visit to Jekyll Island, Georgia, where we spent our honeymoon back in July 1993, it was perhaps a few days later when I suggested the aforementioned 6-day get-away to Savannah, Jekyll Island and Jacksonville to Debbie and that set the wheels in motion.
Our only, potential major issue that surfaced with our plan to head down in early October was the devastating, Category 4 Hurricane Ian that decimated the Fort Myers, Naples and surrounding areas and barrier islands. Fortunately, all of the areas we planned to visit were spared by Hurricane Ian that had moved well off-shore after passing through Volusia and South Flagler Counties along Florida’s east coast.
Current & Past Exhibits at the Savoy Museum 