Franklin Auto Museum

Congratulations 🎉 to our own trustee and board member Bill Boris on taking home Best of Show this year with his stunning 1927 Pierce-Arrow Model 80 Roadster!! (Tucson Classics Car Show 2024)

We are pleased to present our newest addition- a 1915 Saxon Runabout generously donated to the museum.

The Saxon was a well made small car, available for $395 with a sturdy 4-cylinder and standard 3-Speed transmission. Easily serviceable and nice to look at, the Saxon was a popular car in its time. Many preferred it over the Model-T, which employed a planetary transmission, and was similarly priced during Saxon production.

While our focus is on Franklins of course, we are glad to preserve and promote this fine example of early motoring for the public to see.

November 7, 1923- Shadwell Bowyer, proprietor of Bowyer Packard of Tucson, drove you to the Grand Canyon to deliver you to your proud new owners on their honeymoon- Mrs. Isabella Greenway & Gen. John Campbell Greenway. You’ve lived in Ajo during it’s formative years, and you accompanied Mrs. Greenway on her move to Tucson in 1927 where she established the Arizona Hut, and later the esteemed Arizona Inn in 1930. You’ve gracefully transported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt on their trips to Arizona. Perhaps some new deal legislation was discussed in your stately passenger compartment? If only you could talk!

After a rest at your garage in Ajo, you returned to Tucson in 1954 to be displayed at Bowyer Motorcars- a testament to new Packard buyers of the durability of their ensuing car purchase. In the 60’s, you moved to Tombstone to live with a Greenway cousin and continued to traverse our beautiful state. The 80’s found you home in Tucson, where your caring owner of more than 40 years gave you fresh paint and a motor rebuild.

The past decade has been spent at your forever home here at the Franklin Museum, where I am sincerely honored to be your caretaker every day. We’ll see that you’re around to celebrate 150 years… We ought to start planning!

But today, November 7, 2023, you’ve joined an elite few as a fully operational Centenarian. We tip our hats to you, our beautiful Packard, for there is not a vehicle more deeply rooted in our state’s history than you are. Poignantly, we can conclude that they don’t build them like they used to.

Stop by the Arizona Inn this Sunday 11/12 from 11A-2P to take great pictures and to see the car at it’s “home away from home”.

-Anthony Warren, Curator