Folks Of Interest Okay, you're rich and you like cars...

...so you start a collection. How about over 3,300 of 'em! Here's the collection of Harold Lemay. Posted on the Tbucketeers forum by Exjunk.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/...-affair-with-the-car-134569683.html?tab=video

 

Huh,.... isn't that something,.... huh,.... ahhh,.... Alright, it's official,... I think I'll go throw rocks at everything I own,..... How way cool,.. and discouraging all at the same time!

 

Damn I wish...........maybe I'll win the lottery.

 

Harold didn't just run out and get rich and buy a gajillion cars. He started out a Loooong time ago.

 

Harold had a whole lot of years as a poor old trash hauler.

 

Litterally, he was a garbage man! He owned a large waste removal company up in Tacoma I believe.

 

I had heard of him, but never knew the extent of his passion. Truly a blessed, hard workin' man.

 

I've been to the open house at his personal house and then you go to Marymount military academy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marymount_Military_Academy

the original home of the collection......all I have to say is the early Ford room at his house is amazing.....And the train at marymount and all the cars back in the woods.....I could go on forever....

 

Didn't someone named Bill Harrah (?) do the same thing. When he died most of the cars got auctioned off?

 

Well, after I win that $310M Powerball on Saturday....

 

He could have left it all to those grand kids and they would have had a fire sale. Instead, he left it all to us.

 

^^ Amen.

 

Wow, that is now on my bucket list! Can you see it all in one day?

 

Thank you harold!!!! How neat is that '

 

That looks amazing

 

Yee Haw!!!

 

no see it goes like this im paycheck to paycheck poor and i love cars.....help, please

 

holy shit...3300??? Wow. Taking out the trash indeed...

 

Amazing! How cool is it that he's going to share it with the world? Like metioned above, he could have just willed it all to the kids and had it liquidated. I might need to start planning a trip...

 

Mr Lemay was a kind man not only that but he loved anything with wheels. this collection is a fraction of what was there at his passing. the buick collection would make GM turn green or Walter P for that fact. was he rich yes. did he earn it also yes collecting trash. in the Northwest we are proud to call him a native.with much respect

 

No.

 

Incredible. Visiting that place is now on my bucket list.

 

oh my...

 

All I can say is WOW, and from trash.

 

For me, having a "collection" of cars makes about as much sense as having a "collection" of wives. I'm not saying that lots of guys don't do it, but I'm only capable of loving one at a time, the one that's right for me. More than that and it's just more hassle than it's worth.

 

Mr. Lemay's goal was to have one of every car from every year. It has also been said that he would give finders fees to his employee's who found cars for him to buy while on their garbage routes.

 

He had a lot more before the city made him get rid of many! Thanks to the city officials who demanded that LeMay Museum get rid of many of the cars that were outside in public view, I ended up with my '46 Austin. It was purchased by a dealer in Everett, Wa. and then sold to a local here near Portland, Or. He never got around to it, and later sold it to me.
I'm planning to drive it to the LeMay Museum this summer, just so the old gal can return for a visit now that it's done!

 

Now, you want to hear the story or not? I have a friend from Tacoma, Wa. His dad knew Harold very well. Harold and his wife got married in my friends house way back when. Now my friends dad liked to build old T's and the like. He talked Harold into going on some of the drives that his car club would go on. Harold loved it and started buying cars. Now Harold got out of the Army after WWII and bought a garbage truck. He bought a building and kept it in it and made a loft and slepted upstairs. He eventually got the contract for the city of Tacoma and made lots of money. My friend used to go with Harold when he would go across country looking for cars. One time he bought a car in the midwest and was already trailer full, so he said he would come back. He forgot about it. About 3 years later he remembered where it was and went back and the guy still had it. My friend worked with me down here in Ca for 25 years and when he retired he moved back up to Wa. He had 2 cars to get there, so i drove one for him. Now i usually take what most people say with a grain of salt, since people are mostly just full of themselves. I did this with his stories, since i figured this couldn't be true. 3000 cars indeed. Well, we get up there and he says to me, hey gary want to go and see Harold's car collection? I have never been so wrong in my entire life. WE went and talked to his daughter and she let us spend all day going to all his buildings. AND I MEAN ALL DAY. We got there about 8 am and didn't come home until about 6 that night. Harold died a few years before i went there, but every person i talked to said he was the epitome of a car guy. I would have loved to have met him. One thing that i thought was so cool at the academy was a room where he had all these small cars and on a shelf he had more above them., fiat topo's, metro's, izettas, austins, anglias. Went to his house in the woods and was told by his daughter that they had several more buildings that they didn't let anyone into. My friend went to work at the museum as a volunteer for awhile until he had to get a real job for the money. Now, as i said, take most of what people say with a grain of salt, but i got proof. I got a t shirt and a hat signed by his daughter at the gift shop. Oh ya, this was in 2004.

 

I have the title of selling the last car Harold Lemay ever bought before he died. A 1953 Willys Aerowing. He owned a lot of cars in the NW but he was a strange old guy that would never sell anythng he had. That's why he had so much. I hear that my old Willys is still in the collection. That's kind of cool. I wish I still had it. Neat little car. They had plans to build a great big museum in downtown Tacoma to house some of the collection but I have not heard how that is going. Anyone know if it will happen?

 

The museum is built next to the Tacoma Dome. I believe to open this year sometime in the summer. Here is the link: http://www.lemaymuseum.org/