Even though this museum is on the main drag between Ogunquit and Kennebunkport, it is among our favorite "out of the way" places. The Wells Auto Museum is so much in plain sight that a lot of locals miss it. This is the best value for your Seacoast dollar. Your admission comes to about a dime per ancient car, and these are beauties, crammed into this busy parking lot of history.
Wells Auto Museum
Route 1, PO Box 196, Wells, Maine
Open Labor Day to Columbus Day, 10am-5pm
(207) 646-9064
We first visited the Wells Auto Museum while filming a video a few years back. It was one of those places you drive by and say – "I’ve got to go there someday!" But you forget. The building is an unassuming box, dropped below street level on the very busy Route 1 that stretches from Kittery north to Kennebunkport and beyond.
Turns out the antique car museum is one of those hidden tourist treasures. For just $5 visitors can wander endlessly among more than 80 classic old cars, crammed tightly into the unassuming space. It’s cars everywhere you look, the collection of the Gould family who started in 1946 with a Stanley Steamer (7.5 horsepower built in 1904), and haven’t stopped yet. There’s a Pierce Arrow, a Stutz Bearcat, Model T, runabouts from 1900, a 1908 Baker Electric with the original working Edison batteries, a Chrysler Town & Country, a sleek 1935 Lagonda, a tiny 1908 Renault, and names like Rolls Royce, Avanti, Maxwell, Stutz, Metz, Cadillac, plus all the standards.
In addition to motorcycles, old auto signs, model cars, vintage bicycles, there’s two things we love best. The Wells Museum has a great collection of nickelodeon machines that really work (for a dime or a quarter). You can see tame peep shows with early models in bathing suits or play some of the oldest arcade games ever. Old metal music boxes, forerunners of the juke box, lend the perfect sound effects, along with player pianos – including one automated violin playing machine.
This time we brought along our disposable camera to catch a few images of visitors – young and older – exploring this amazing collection. If you never stopped, now you must, car buff or not. It’s a gas! -- JDR
Meteors, Meteorites and Comets May 16, 2008 CONCORD -- Planetarium Educator Bob Veilleux will explain why you can collect meteorites - but not meteors or comets. Learn about these fascinating solar system interlopers, where they come from, how you can see them, and how they are related. See and...
Lighthouse Buffet Dinner May 16, 2008 The main event this evening will be the American Lighthouse Foundation's first “Lighthouse Trivia Challenge.” This will be a Jeopardy-style competition, complete with buzzers and sound effects. The winners of the early games will compete in a final roun...
Mother Courage May 16 - 17, 2008 Our mainstage season wraps up in May with the Senior Youth Repertory Company production of Bertolt Brecht’s epic masterpiece Mother Courage and Her Children. Through Brecht’s stark vision, the play relentlessly questions the distinctions between war, bu...
Remembering Oney Judge May 17, 2008 PORTSMOUTH -- In commemoration of the Bicentennial Anniversary Year that ended the legal U.S. Atlantic Slave Trade and Annual Spring Symposium From Saturday, May 17, 2008 - 9 am to 1 pm -
Keynote: Cheryl LaRoche describing him life at Presid...
Books & Blooms Sale May 17, 2008 BRENTWOOD -- Our Annual Books & Blooms Sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 17th from 9 - 11:30 am! Come to the Mary Bartlett Library, 22 Dalton Road in Brentwood, to purchase lots of books for little money - and purchase great plants at great prices. Pl...
Lighthouse Cruise May 17, 2008 Lighthouse cruise from Portsmouth aboard the Thomas Laighton, sponsored by the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company. This cruise will leave from the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock at 315 Market Street in Portsmouth, across from the Sheraton Harbors...
American Lighthouse Foundation Annual Dinner May 17, 2008 Portsmouth Elks Lodge, 500 Jones Ave., Portsmouth, NH. Buffet dinner featuring garden salad, baked stuffed haddock, chicken breast with fruit glaze, roast beef, and more. The featured speaker at the dinner will be Chris Mills, author, former lighthous...
2nd Portsmouth Peace Treaty Commemorative Concert May 17, 2008 Seacoast Wind Ensemble presents “Peace & The Presidency: Music for Washington, Lincoln & Theodore Roosevelt” featuring Aaron Copeland's "Lincoln Portrait" narrated by Phillips Exeter Chaplain Robert Thompson. At The Music Hall. In 1905, diplo...
Free Gaelic Football Clinic May 18, 2008 Gaelic Football is a FUN, fast moving high scoring game that incorporates the skills used in playing soccer and basketball.
When- Sunday, May 18th, 2008
Where- Stevens Field-Stratham, NH
Ages- 5-12-Boys & Girls
Cost- FREE!!
Prior Expe...
Mother Courage and Her Children May 18, 2008 Our mainstage season wraps up in May with the Senior Youth Repertory Company production of Bertolt Brecht’s epic masterpiece Mother Courage and Her Children. Through Brecht’s stark vision, the play relentlessly questions the distinctions between war, bu...
We first visited the Wells Auto Museum while filming a video a few years back. It was one of those places you drive by and say – "I’ve got to go there someday!" But you forget. The building is an unassuming box, dropped below street level on the very busy Route 1 that stretches from Kittery north to Kennebunkport and beyond.
