Welcome to the CAR & CARRIAGE CARAVAN MUSEUM at Luray Caverns, Virginia, the second transportation museum on the American East Coast.
This museum transports visitors through the fascinating story of roadway travel, featuring over 140 items related to transportation, from simple wagons and coaches to the elaborate and luxurious automobiles of the 1940s. With a total of 52 motor driven vehicles and 10 horse drawn vehicles.
Meticulously restored to their original splendor, these “antiques on wheels” are all in running condition and are beautifully displayed among period artifacts and costumes.
Your self-guided tour of the historic Car & Carriage Caravan Museum is included in your admission to the beautiful Luray Caverns.
Experience a slice of life from another time when a new top-of-the-line Cadillac Double Tulip Touring Car would set you back $950 (in, 1906). Mother-in-law seats came in handy when touring in a 1912 Metz Roadster. Milk was 5¢ a quart as originally painted on the 1914 Ford Model T Milk Truck. Fascinating to all is the elegant and extremely rare 1932 Rolls Royce Shooting Brake, with its mixed mahogany coachwork. Rudolph Valentino’s 1925 Silver Ghost Town Car, another Rolls, which was made in America, captures the spirit of the posh silent screen era.
See a Stanley Steamer, a Baker Electric, and one of the oldest, most important automobiles in operating condition on display in America-the 1892 Benz Vis-à-Vis. Let your imagination soar as you see the ways in which raw power has been created from raw materials in the construction of these exquisite vehicles.
The museum was built on one man’s fascination with antique transportation. Fired with his passion for history, H.T.N. Graves, former president of Luray Caverns Corporation, set out with his staff to locate and purchase a collection deemed important to the history of travel. This began in the early 1950s with the interest of sharing a new attraction with the hundreds of thousands of yearly visitors to Luray Caverns. These vehicles in post-World War II America were not considered by most to be of cultural or historic importance. They were, however, recognized by Graves and his staff to be objects of aesthetic beauty and cultural significance. This vision chartered a new appreciation and understanding of man’s transportation experience over a 200-year period.