I had the opportunity to take my father to the Wheels Through Time Museum yesterday for Father's Day and I just had to share my experience with yall. If any of you are ever near Maggie Valley, NC then you absolutely have to stop here. The owner (Dale) collects vintage American motorcycles, mostly Harley's and Indian's, and has some of the rarest motorcycles ever produced. Almost all of them are in original, unrestored condition, and he claimes that almost every single bike in his collection will run too. This place is almost like a decorated warehouse with two floors of bikes. I'll describe more about them in the few pictures I took.
View from the second floor:
1942 Indian Army bike:
One of the four Excelsior bikes lining the wall:
More Harley's:
Dressed up to look like a junkyard:
Arguably the rarest bike in the museum, a 1913 Thor:
Harley hill climber:
Are you paying attention to this one? It's a freakin Indian Snowmobile!
He even has a couple cars too, here is V16 Caddy:
These two bikes had probably the coolest story. Dale and another guy participated in a cannonball endurance race that lasted over 3300 miles and was only open to bikes pre-1916. They mounted auxilliary gas tanks to these and hit the road!
The most valuable bikes in the place, made by Crocker. Of the 71 produced he had #8 and #22 sitting right there. I know he paid over 300k for the #22 bike.
I didn't get any pictures of the bikes upstairs, I was in too much amazement to think about it haha. He had 3 Harley XR750's just chilling in the corner, all surrounding one of the bikes Evel Knievel rode. All in all it was a great time and I had a blast looking around. Oh yeah, at the entrance he had just 1 japanese bike, one of the first Honda Dream's, to represent the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club or something. It was truly a great and friendly place to visit.
