Horton classic car museum

The first stop on my North Texas car museum road trip was the Horton classic car museum in Norcona.    Nocona is about 90 minutes Northwest of Dallas.   The museum is located in a restored Oldsmobile dealership.   It’s not far from the rather nice looking main street of Norcona.    The museum also had a lot of period memorabilia on the walls which give it a nice atmosphere.

The highlight of the Horton classic car museum is the Corvette collection.   The museum has an example (and sometimes multiple) of practically every model year from 1953 to 1973.   They also have a couple of pace cars of the later years.

I’m only somewhat familiar with Corvettes so it was nice to see the evolution of the model over the years.   They even  have some of the rare early Corvettes with the six cylinder engine right up to low production performance models from later year.

The Corvette always seemed to the the place GM innovated the most, perhaps with the exception of the Corvair.   Certainly the Corvette was first with tech like independent rear suspension, fuel injection, disk brakes and so on for GM.  it was also very competitively priced for what you got.    This is continued in the unveiling of the new C8 corvette with its mid-engined layout and dual clutch transmission, all for $60k USD.   GM even went to the extreme where restrictions were placed on other divisions so they didn’t compete with the Corvette.

I have tried to arrange the photos chronologically.  I have also photographed the descriptions for the Corvettes.

The tour starts with the C1.    My favorite C1’s have always been the 1956-1957 models.   I still have a 1:18 model of a 1957 in aqua with white coves.   Looks great.     By then the manual transmission was standard, and late 57’s could even have a four speed.   A two speed powerglide is not exactly appealing in a sports car.     The later C1s wih the dual headlights and more bling are not as appealing for me, but they do have more options available and are cheaper to buy.

The C2 is my favorite generation of Corvette, in particular the coupe.   While the split window is cool, I would go with one of the later cars.   I don’t think it’s worth the quite large price premium.    I’ve heard they are not great for tall drivers, but the reviews say that too about S1 E-types, and I fit fine.     The C2 was really the birth of the Corvette as a true sports car with IRS, disc brakes, more powerful engines and the performance options like the Z06.

The C3, based on the Mako shark inspired concept car, introduced the T-Top.   The Horton Classic car museum actually has the first T-Top car from 1968.    They also have examples of the C3 right until 1973.

The rest of the front two rooms are Chevrolet products, mostly with a performance spin.    You can tell the owner is a big fan of Chevy performance products from the 60s in particular.     Somewhat out of place is a Donald Trump mannequin..   Its not a particularly good likeness, you wouldn’t really know except for the red tie and red baseball cap.

The second room has a more varied collection.   There is still somewhat of a performance bent, but there is also some American luxury.    My favorites in this room are the two pre-war Packards.   I’m a big fan of these cars.     There is an early 30s dual cowl Phaeton and a Packard 12 club sedan.    Outside the really expensive open toped cars, the Club Sedan is the one you want as most of the four door cars are big limo bodies.

The Horton classic car museum was a great place to spend two hours and now it was time for the next stop on the North Texas car museum road trip, The vintage car museum in Weatherford.