Vintage Cars Ready for a Permanent Home-

Graffiti USA Museum takes another step toward 2023 Opening

This convertible is one of many vintage cars that will be on display when the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum opens in 2023. Photo: Steve Newvine

As a young adult in Modesto in the 1950s and early sixties, John Sanders loved working on cars.

He and his buddies liked showing off their hot rods on 10th and 11th Streets in this city about forty miles north of Merced.

“I fixed up a 1960 Aston Martin DB4,” Don laughs. “And my wife and I took it on our honeymoon.”

That love of fixing up and showing off classic cars is what has propelled Don and some of his fellow business owners to help start a museum that will open in 2023 along Ninth Street in the city.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will celebrate the heritage of classic cars as depicted in the iconic movie American Graffiti directed by Modesto native George Lucas.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will showcase vintage automobiles. Some of the cars are owned by the Museum, while others will be loaned for a defined period of time. Photo: Steve Newvine

A non-profit corporation was formed a few years ago to take the idea of a showcase for cars and the Modesto way of life during the American Graffiti era and turn it into a museum.

Over a million dollars in monetary and non-monetary donations have been received.

The museum will get a local government grant for another million dollars over the next two years while more fundraising continues.

The corporation has purchased two former seed and grain warehouses and has been working to get the museum showroom ready for a 2023 opening.

The buildings have over forty-thousand square feet for museum displays, a banquet hall, and office space.

“The banquet area is already being used by local non-profits as well as our organization,” Don says.

Another feature of the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will be a tribute to the Modesto way of life as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Photo: Steve Newvine

When the first phase of the museum opens, visitors will see an impressive collection of vintage automobiles. The main display area starts with a large mural showing the Modesto arch with a classic 1960s era convertible.

Beyond the classic car collection, phase two is planned as a recreation of the downtown area as it was back in the heyday of the cruising era of the fifties and sixties.

The Modesto Radio Museum hopes to occupy a spot in that section to salute local radio stations such as KBEE, better known at that time as the Bee.

The Bee played the rock-and-roll hits that might have been blaring on the AM radios in the cars cruising down 10th and 11th Streets.

The Radio Museum currently lives online (ModestoRadioMuseum.org)

“The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will celebrate cars, but it will also celebrate Modesto as it was back in the era of American Graffiti,” John says.

An artist rendering of the proposed front of the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum along with a look at how the museum looks in the spring of 2022.

Architectural sketches for the museum pay homage to the drive-in burger joint style popularized in the movie as well as television programs like Happy Days.

The museum site along Ninth Street connects to another big part of regional history.

Ninth Street was part of the old highway 99 that remains following the construction of the highway 99 most of us know now.

That historic link to Highway 99 is part of an effort to locate a California Rest Area at the site of the museum.

There’s a lot more work that needs to be done before that idea can come to fruition, but the museum leadership is encouraged by the progress made to date.

While the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum is not open officially, the gift shop serves customers two days a week (Friday and Saturday). Photo: Steve Newvine

In fact, there’s a lot to be proud of as the museum looks back on the effort to acquire the two buildings, oversee the preparation of the display space for the first phase, and look ahead to a grand opening in the near future.

The vision to celebrate Modesto’s car cruising history clouded over for a while when the pandemic hit in 2020.

“COVID just slowed things down,” John says. “But we are looking ahead to a 2023 opening.”

Fundraising will continue to be the primary focus as the museum moves forward.

A recent crab feed sold out with over 450 people in attendance. The museum gift shop is already open two days a week. Sales of tee-shirts, postcards, and even bottles of a specially labeled wine continue to bring in revenue.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum now has a business license to sell cars, making for a unique connection between selling cars to raise money to celebrate cars. Photo: Steve Newvine

The museum recently obtained a California business license to allow for selling cars as a way to raise funds for the effort.

They will sell cars and accept qualified vehicles for donation to the museum.

While it may sound a little unusual for a car museum to be in the car business, this group is actually borrowing the idea from another organization doing the same thing.

The group has reached out to native son George Lucas as well as to former Tonight Show host Jay Leno for support and encouragement.

In the meantime, car guys like John Sanders will continue to pour more time and sweat equity into the project.

Not all his time though.

He’s currently working on restoring another car.

To paraphrase an often used saying, you can take the man out of his car, but you cannot take the car out of the man.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book California Back Roads includes two stories of people who kept their vintage automobiles in near-perfect condition for fun and necessity.

The book is available at Lulu.com.

Four of his books are now available via author search on bookshop.org where each purchase helps independent book store owners.

For more information on the Graffiti USA Museum, visit: graffitiusamuseum.com