Iconic motor museum for sale as McFeeters prepare to retire

After being open every day for 16 years, Bill and Jan McFeeters have decided the time has come to sell their beloved motor museum. Situated conveniently off the Newell Highway, the museum has attracted tourists from all over Australia. Mrs McFeeters said from the Parkes Elvis Festival to tennis competitions and Red Bend boarding families, everyone calls into the motor museum on their way through Forbes. "The Elvis festival is always good to us, it always brings a lot of people but it's not just the festival things, tennis competitions will bring people to town and they might come through," Mrs McFeeters said. "Red Bend parents with boarders come through too so it's not just your local festivals that bring people in, it's your everyday person." Jan McFeeters hopes to see the museum continue to bring people to Forbes but says she is still happy if someone has other plans for the property and building. The McFeeters have owned the property for 18 years: it took the family 15 months to build the iconic museum and they have been an operating business for 16 years, opening every day except for Christmas Day. "We've been collecting cars for over 60 years and we had them in our wool stores which we had down the street and about 18 years ago we sold some of that commercial real estate and we decided to give our cars a good home," Mrs McFeeters said. "So we purposely built the building to house our collection." The museum displays over 60 vehicles from veteran, vintage, classic and rod machines. Highlights include a 1923 Rolls Royce, Holden FJ, Ford Mainline, 1927 Chevrolet Truck, 1916 Buick USA, Ford A Models, Ford T Models, and the most modern car of the collection, a 2015 Holden Maloo. "The first car my husband brought 62 years ago was an old car, a local car," Mrs McFeeters said. "I was very nervous about it because I knew nothing about cars full stop virtually and then he kept buying old cars, getting them restored and after a little while I decided if you can't beat them you join them." Mrs McFeeters has added her own personal touch to the museum by incorporating mannequins to add to the style of each car. "I've tried to dress them (the mannequins) in the style of the cars and it just creates little scenes," Mrs McFeeters said. "When we opened the museum, my thoughts were with the ladies, because I know a lot of ladies come in to please their husbands and I thought dressing the mannequins to give the ladies something to look at but it's been amazing how many men have commented about them." Mrs McFeeters has dressed the mannequins in clothes she has picked up from op shops and even her own clothes. "There's a wedding couple upstairs, that's my wedding dress, and around the corner is our son's sheep collection," she said. "He is still in the wool industry and he's collected up all these sheep and when we closed our buildings downtown he was just going to put them under his bed in boxes so we brought some glass cabinets and put them down here and that's something else for people to look at." The McFeeters' daughter Jill is also a part of the museum. "Our daughter actually runs the place for us so she works very hard too," Mrs McFeeters said. Mrs McFeeters said having a motor museum in Forbes helps keep the motoring history alive in town. "It's quite interesting if you get school children in when they don't recognise radiator caps which are very different today to what they were 100 years ago," she said. "Quite a lot of our modern motoring is based on what happened 100 years ago so motoring has been an evolution and I think keeping that history in front of people is a good idea." The McFeeters have been to numerous car rallies, displaying their beloved cars on the open road. "One of the favourite events was the one or two cylinder car rallies. There very tiny little cars, they go very slowly and people came to Forbes and stayed for five days," she said. "We drove out somewhere each day and some of them were very excited because they got to Eugowra and back and that was a big trip in those old cars." Over the years McFeeters Motor Museum and their outstanding collection of vehicles has been featured on many television programs. The motor museum has featured on Sydney Weekender, Shannons Insurance Classic Restos series and most recently, Prime's Travel Oz series. The McFeeters have enjoyed working in their beloved motor museum. "It's a nice job because mainly people coming through are tourists who have got a little bit more time and they always enjoy a little chat, so it's always been very pleasant to come to work and talk to people," Mrs McFeeters said. "It would be nice if we could sell it so that people could keep it going but that's up to somebody else," Mrs Mcfeeters said. On average the museum gets around 12,000 visitors each year (excluding locals). "It's going to be a big loss to the town," Mr McFeeters said. - By Madeline Blackstock

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