“Oh, wow!” I exclaimed upon entering the Barber Motorsports Museum. It is gigantic! Five towering floors filled with the world’s largest motorcycle collection. It also contains racing automobiles and bikes, which adorn every nook and cranny.
There is even a racecar on top of the elevator!
A massive sculpture, “The Chase”, commissioned from California sculptor Ted Gall, greets visitors at the entrance of the museum. These three enormous statues of men with masked faces riding large wheels weigh between 3,500 and 3,800 pounds and fit in well with this vast complex.
Birmingham native, George Barber, Jr., son of Barber Dairies founder, George H. Barber, is the founder of the Motor Sports Museum. Barber Jr., who ran the dairy, was also a real estate developer. Barber had raced Porsches in the 1960s and began collecting motorcycles in the 1970s. In 1994, his motorcycle collection was established as the Barber Vintage Motorsport Museum. In 1998, Barber Jr. sold the dairy. In 2003, the museum moved to its present Birmingham location. Barber himself was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2014.
The nine hundred and thirty-acre sports complex contains the museum and a 2.38-mile, sixteen-turn world-class road racetrack. The track hosts the IndyCar Series Grand Prix of Alabama.
Of the fourteen hundred motorcycles in the Barber collection, some nine hundred are on display at any one time. The museum welcomes approximately 300,000 visitors annually, including approximately 3,000 foreign visitors.
Over the past 100 years, approximately 200 manufacturers from 20 countries have been represented in the museum. The Lotus 21 is featured in the world’s most extensive collection of Lotus cars.
One display drew particular interest: Jim Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old investment banker who, in 1990, with his girlfriend, motorcycled around the world. They traveled approximately 65,000 miles and set a world record for land travel. He wrote the book “Investment Biker” about the journey.
A lucrative segment of the Motorsports industry is the North American Porsche Driving School, where individuals can experience Porsche race cars on the track. Prices range from $ 1,800 per day to $ 9,600 for four days, depending on the level of experience you prefer.
The facility hosts the 14th Annual Barber Vintage Festival in October, which will feature the American Historical Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA).
This unique automotive museum should not be missed in Birmingham. Individuals who admire motorcycles and cars will flock to this bastion of automotive bliss.
