Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum

01 / The story of this place

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The building now housing the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum began in 1896 as the home of the Ypsilanti Electric Company before becoming a Dodge dealership in 1917. In 1927, Carl Miller opened a Hudson Motor Car Company sales and service franchise on the site; the dealership, later renamed Miller Motors, sold nearly 2,000 new Hudsons before the automaker merged into American Motors in 1954, and continued for two more decades afterward as a dedicated Hudson parts and used-car dealer, making it the last Hudson dealership in the world. In the mid-1990s, Jack Miller partnered with Paul “Skip” Ungrodt Jr. and Peter B. Fletcher to preserve the historic garage as the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum, with Miller staying on as curator until his retirement in 2013. The museum sits just a few blocks from where automaker Preston Tucker ran his own short-lived car business, and it displays a permanent exhibit on Tucker and his ill-fated 1948 Tucker 48 alongside its collection of Hudsons and other Michigan-built cars. It remains open to the public today.

1. Housed a Dodge dealership from 1917, then a Hudson dealership from 1927.
2. Became Miller Motors, the last Hudson dealership in the world.
3. Opened as a museum in the mid-1990s, with Jack Miller as curator.
4. Includes a permanent exhibit on automaker Preston Tucker.