Best Attraction for Car Lovers (2019)

Even if you’re not in the market for a classic car, the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction is a must for car lovers who get to see some hundreds of high-end autos on the auction block at their events around the country each year. There’s a bit of everything, from prewar classics and American muscle cars to souped-up hot rods and exotic vehicles, and the bidding makes for excellent people-watching.
Photo courtesy of Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction

Car lovers get to see some of the world’s most coveted cars at the Mecum Auction. The company averages more than one auction per month (rotating between cities across the U.S.), giving auto enthusiasts plenty of opportunity to watch all the action of this collector car auction.
Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions

The Corvette, America's legendary sports car, is manufactured only in Bowling Green, and the city also plays host to the National Corvette Museum. Here automobile enthusiasts will find a collection of more than 80 Corvettes in period settings alongside numerous interactive exhibits. Visitors can even snap a selfie behind the wheel of a 2015 Stingray.
Photo courtesy of Kentucky Department of Travel

The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia celebrates “The Spirit of Competition” with a collection of more than 65 historically significant cars, ranging from Ferrari and Bugatti to Corvette and Ford, collected by Frederick A. Simeone over the course of five decades.
Photo courtesy of R. Kennedy for Visit Philadelphia

The AACA Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, celebrates the automobile through a series of vintage cars on display and interactive exhibits covering cars, motorcycles and other automobiles from the 1890s to the 1980s. The collection currently includes some 150 vehicles, with 85 to 100 on display at any given time.
Photo courtesy of AACA Museum

Housed within an art deco building that was once the Auburn Automotive Company, this museum specializes in early roadsters, including an Auburn 8-88 owned by Babe Ruth and an orange Cord L-29 that once belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Photo courtesy of Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum

Inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, guests find 35,000 square feet filled with dozens of Indy 500-winning cars covering 110 years of racing history, plus rare, vintage pace cars and passenger cars, trophies (including the Borg-Warner Trophy), original artwork and unique artifacts. Major exhibits change twice a year, each telling significant stories in the history of global motorsports. After touring the Museum, patrons can take a tour (depending on weather conditions and track availability) of the famed IMS oval, a National Historic Landmark.
Photo courtesy of IMS Museum

The automobiles showcased at the Revs Institute in Naples are among the most important and rarest built, almost all meticulously restored to peak operational condition. Visitors can see more than 100 vehicles from 1896 to 1995, including a 1939 Mercedes W154 Grand Prix, Panhard et Lavassor Wagonette and the first Porsche 550-01.
Photo courtesy of Olivia Vanni/Naples Daily News

Fans of Carroll Shelby’s high-performance cars should pay a visit to the Shelby Heritage Center in Las Vegas. The 10,000-square-foot space displays a variety of cars, including the first Shelby Cobra, a Dodge Shelby Dakota pickup, Shelby G.T. 350 and a Terlingua Mustang.
Photo courtesy of Bernard Spragg. NZ

At the BMW Performance Driving School, visitors can get behind the wheel of several BMW models and put the pedal to the metal, driving them fast on a high adrenaline lap around the track or tackling an off-road obstacle course. A wet skid pad lets drivers learn to skid on purpose to learn how to understeer and oversteer. 
Photo courtesy of BMW