The Smith Collection Museum of American Speed

The Miller Room

The Indy collection starts with a 1914 Cornelian that Louis Chevrolet drove in the 1915 Indy 500. It includes both famous and nondescript Indy cars. The Smith claims it has the world’s largest collection of Miller racers from the 1930s. One is a rare rear-drive 1935 Miller that qualified on the outside of the front row. If there’s a decade unrepresented by a Smith Museum Indy car, I couldn’t figure out which one.


Engines are king at the Smith and the museum has a collection of Offenhauser engines that span from when Harry Miller started work on the design in the 1920s until the last Meyer-Drake tried to qualify for the 500. Other engines include the four-cam Ford with its bundle-of-snakes exhaust system that powered Jim Clark to victory in 1965.

Mercedes Pushrod

Other makes are well represented. The collection even has one of the infamous Ilmor-built Mercedes pushrod engines that slipped through a rules loophole to dominate the 1994 Indy 500. Certain key parts, such as the pushrods and rocker arms, are missing. (After the Penske-Mercedes team made Indy rules-makers look like fools and dominated the ’94 race, the sport’s best team failed to qualify in ’95. Coincidence?)


Fans of sprint and midget car racing from the 1920s to the 1970s will revel in at the sight of cars driven by Jan Opperman, Doug Wolfgang and many others. Smith’s No. 4X was a frequent sight in sprint car victory lanes.

Pearson Daytona Winner

Old-school NASCAR fans will marvel at the primitive nature of the Wood Brothers No. 21. David Pearson took that car to victory lane many times, including when he idled across the finish line after a last-lap crash with Richard Petty to the win the ’76 Daytona 500. A replica of one of Curtis “Pops” Turner’s NASCAR convertible division stockers is on display as is a replica of a Tiny Lund-driven stocker.