IN THE NEWS
Ready to roar and roll Published: Monday, September 15, 1997 By RON HARTUNG, Tallahassee Democrat Antique car museum wheels and deals in history and art The shrine to the automobile has a range of exhibits. Hush now. You are about to enter what some would consider sacred space. Part shrine, part history lesson, part packrat's paradise, part garage and part art gallery -- except, in this case, the art has four spotless wheels and can go from 0 to 60 faster than a Cezanne can. Actually, the mirrored walls of the Tallahassee Antique Car Museum enclose more than cars. Baseball cards, antique golf balls and clubs, 100-year-old brass-bladed fans ("the air feels cooler, don't you think?"), art objects from Thailand, toy cars and trucks, children's riding toys, neon signs, knives, stained glass, a horse from a carousel, a children's barber chair shaped like an airplane. Without question, though, the automobile is god here. Those who come to worship leave with this tantalizing question: If DeVoe Moore let me drive away in one of his cars, from the Stanley Steamer to the Plymouth Prowler to the 81 others on display or in storage, which one would I choose? The choice keeps getting more challenging. Moore -- a self-made businessman also known for his Fort Knox office buildings, his nine-hole golf course, his $5 million gift to Florida State and his often ornery attitude toward government -- keeps enlarging his collection. Which one would I choose? The first Prowler in the neighborhood The newest arrival is no antique, but it's all auto: the '97 Prowler, reportedly the first one in the country that was delivered to the public. You've probably seen it in Chrysler ads, a growling purple tribute to yesteryear's hot rod. Chrysler had traded this Prowler to another man in return for an antique car that it wanted for its own museum. The man then took it to auction, where Moore bought it (and met Jay Leno). He declined to say how much he paid for it: "The factory price is $39,000. I paid more than that. It's the first one out." (Scott Higginbotham said Tallahassee Chrysler Plymouth hopes to get a Prowler within a month. About a dozen prospective buyers are lined up.) Among other recent arrivals at the Antique Car Museum: 1979 Ferrari. 1979 Trans Am, for "Smokey and the Bandit" fans. 1965 Corvette so immaculate inside, outside and underneath that he has it propped up at a 45-degree angle with mirrors below to reflect every square inch of sparkling innards. 1956 Corvette, "probably the finest '56 in the nation." breathtaking baby-blue '53 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. 1951-or-so Studebaker stunt car that masqueraded as a Tucker and rolled off a race track in the movie "Tucker." Moore already had the Tucker from that scene; now he has its stand-in, too. 1936 DeSoto Airstream Custom convertible. 1924 Peerless. 1920 Case, maybe the only one still in existence. 1907 International, so tall it barely fits beneath the museum's 8-foot ceiling. "If you look at this one," Moore said, looking at its jumbo red wagon wheels, "automatically your mind goes back in time." It reminds you that the Prowler, the Duesenberg, the Rolls-Royce, the '39 Lincoln, the T-birds, the Model A's are all just fancier descendants of horse-drawn wagons. A man had to be proud to produce one of these He's likely to walk you over to the 1913 Car-Nation. He'll invite you to bend down and admire the workmanship. Simple, clean, efficient, elegant. "Don't you know a man had to be proud to produce one of these? There he is, in the middle of 1913, no factory, no air conditioning, no environmental regulations." Regulations. Bureaucrats. Government. They're among the favorite targets of Moore's scorn. For example, he wonders why the tourism officials here aren't doing more to tell the world about his car museum. Orlando people say they'll pay him to move it down there, he said -- yet here, he can't even get a sign on the interstate. Those signs are hard to come by, said Charles Wright, with the Tallahassee Convention and Visitors Bureau. The feds have strict guidelines. Still, Wright is working on a plan for billboards east and west of town that proclaim: "Exit Now, Before You Put the Past Behind You" -- with four classy photos from Tallahassee museums. He hopes to have them up by the end of the year. Already, he said, the car museum is in the city's visitors' guide and on its Internet site. He looks ahead to the day Tallahassee opens its convention hotel, science center and art museum. He pictures visitors streaming in. "If (Moore) can hang on," Wright said, "he's going to be part of that." Meantime, Moore's cell phone keeps ringing with word of another auction to be attended, another deal to be made. "I think it was a politician that was in here who said, 'DeVoe, how did you come by all these cars?' And I told him, 'I've worked like hell. I don't go to the golf course, I don't go to the beer halls, you don't see me at a bar at night. I get up at 4 o'clock and I'm in the office. There's nights I don't get home till 9 or 10. "So naturally you have more time to get more earnings." And if you get more earnings, he told the man, you get more toys. Which one would I choose?