Thursday, February 2, 2006

Revere: Tucson losing special museum

City fails to act decisively to keep early auto jewels

C.T. REVERE

Tucson Citizen

Thomas Hubbard died 13 years ago, but his passion resides at the dusty Tucson compound where he lived most of his life.

His was a love affair with glorious machines from America's golden age of motoring that began when Hubbard was a small, sickly child in Oklahoma during the Great Depression.

His father, a geologist, owned a 1929 Franklin Convertible Coupe, the memory of which planted the seed that grew into one of the finest collections of that all-but-forgotten marque of luxury automobiles.

Before cancer ended his life in 1993, Hubbard set up an endowment that turned what had been a private collection into the Franklin Automobile Museum, 3420 N. Vine Ave.

Inside two buildings he put up behind his near North Side home are 20 of the air-cooled cars built by Herbert H. Franklin in Syracuse, N.Y., from 1902 to 1934.

Sadly, they won't be there much longer.

Related: Images: Franklin automobile museum Early record holder on display in Tucson

Two or three years from now, Hubbard's legacy will move to Cazenovia, N.Y., about 25 miles from where Franklin carved his niche in American automotive history.

While it's fitting that the museum be close to where Franklins were built, it's not what trustees of the H.H. Franklin Foundation wanted.

They wanted to expand the current facilities or find a new Tucson home for their ever-growing collection, said Frank Hantak, a trustee of the foundation and its treasurer.

"I wish the museum was staying here. I love visiting these cars," said Hantak, who was a close friend of Hubbard's.

To expand the museum, the foundation needed city officials to add language to zoning restrictions.

"The zoning allows for a museum, but it must be owned and operated by the government," he said. "In order to expand, we'd have to turn it over to the city."

Efforts to allow it to be operated by a nonprofit agency failed and the foundation began shopping for other locations.

At one point, land was offered on the grounds of the Pima Air & Space Museum, but that offer was revoked, Hantak said.

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