Route 66 Car Museum slated to close next year

The Route 66 Car Museum will be closing in spring 2027.

Guy Mace, owner of the Route 66 Car Museum, confirmed this afternoon that he plans to close the Mother Road attraction next year.

He said that an exact closure date would be released in coming weeks. The museum, located at 1634 W. College St., is built around Mace’s personal collection of some 70 classic cars, itself purchased at auto auctions, with a few autos belonging to his family members, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

Breeann Poland, director of marketing and communications for Mecum Auctions, confirmed by email that Mecum would be auctioning off vehicles in the collection next spring.

Poland added, “We are honored to be a partner with the museum and Guy Mace. We can't disclose much at this point, but we can confirm the sale will be in the spring of 2027, and we will do our best to honor Guy and the legacy he has created.”

Mace said about 30%-40% of his visitors are from outside of the country, and a majority of visitors are from out of town.

“It’s been a nice attraction for Springfield,” he said.

The car museum is always busy, one museum official said to an SBJ reporter visiting on April 17. He showed a visitor log demonstrating that by 11 a.m. on that Friday,  just two hours after the museum’s opening, there had already been visitors from multiple states, including Maine and Alaska, and also multiple countries, including France, Italy, Hungary and Australia.

Social media posts by Route 66 travelers frequently tout the museum and its eclectic collection, which begins with a 1979 Gotham Cruiser – the Batmobile – right inside the door and has vehicles dating all the way back to a 1907 REO Runabout.

A 2023 SBJ article of the Route 66 Car Museum featured an interview with Mace, who owns the museum through G&D Cars LLC. Mace previously owned Turblex Inc., which made turbo compressors from 1990-2007 before selling to German company Siemens. He is also co-owns Baron Venture Capital LLC and bike rack company Kuat Innovations LLC.

“As I started getting disposable income, I put it into cars because you can’t drive and have fun with stocks and bonds,” he said in the 2023 interview. “I had no ultimate objective to open the museum through the 1990s. I just started buying cars that I liked, and I love going to auctions.”

Mace told SBJ he thought it would be interesting to open a museum on Route 66. He reported a 2022 visitation total of 12,000, up 40% from the previous year, but said only 10% hailed from Springfield. In contrast, 40% were international visitors.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, according to its website, and the managers said it will remain open for visitors until its spring 2027 closure.

The museum opened to the public in June 2016.

Executive Editor Christine Temple contributed to this report.