CoachMuseum1

Where The Fisher Body
Craftsman's Guild
Still Lives

Included in some 17 different articles of clothing are her performance gowns, (right) the sweater she wore for the cover photo on her book, awards, photos, scores of records as well as personal items.

   Also on exhibit are Chevrolet collectables,
all of Skip's original toys and his first car.
      When he was a boy, he wasn't interested in entering the Craftsman's Guild competion.
      Now, however, Skip has a different opinion of the Guild.   "As far as I am concerned, it was probably the best concept that GM and Fisher Body ever created and it has left a big impression on auto history years later."

As real as it gets is this Napoleonic coach on display.

The Amazing Story of a Life-Size Coach

   Skip Geear doesn't really know much about the man who built the full-scale, highly-detailed Fisher Body Napoleonic coach now found in his unique museum. The two men barely knew each other but only a month after their last face-to-face meeting, the craftsman died. And therein lies a fascinating story.
      The builder was Francis Londo, who recounted to Skip that during World War II he worked in a Fisher Body plant that manufactured tanks (probably Fisher Grand Blanc.)   As a boy, he had submitted a coach model in the 1934 Craftsman's Guild competition but was not a winner.   Since the family badly needed money during the Depression years, his mother raffled off the coach after it was returned.
                        A Retirement Project
     Some years after the war, Londo moved his family to Enumclaw, Washington.   According to Londo's narration, someone from Fisher Body in the late 1970's or early 1980's expressed interest in commissioning him to build a real, full-sized detailed coach. Londo said he was too busy at the time, but would do it when he retired.
       After retiring sometime in the late 1980's, he began work on the coach, starting with the wheels because they were the most difficult part. Using the scale coach plans of his youth, he worked on it the next three years, sometimes 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
       By the time the coach was completed in 1991, Fisher Body had already been disbanded for seven years and GM expressed no desire to own it.
       Londo somehow heard about Skip's collection of coach models and so in 1993 decided to drive to Eagle Point for a visit. Skip showed him his yet meager collection during a three-hour visit.   A year later, Londo and his wife stopped by for only 15 minutes while en route to Mexico where he hoped to find a cure for his cancer. A month later he died.
       A year later came the startling news that Londo's will stipulated that the coach be left to Skip!
                            A Shocking Find
      When Skip and his wife drove to Washington to pick up the coach from Londo's widow, they had no idea what they would find. Was it just a plywood likeness? "But I was shocked," Skip recalled. "It was kept in a private room off his garage with one-way glass. It was awesome! It was massive and a totally handcrafted work of art."    In addition, Londo had built a trailer tailored to haul just the coach.
       At its new home, the coach remained in the trailer until Skip finally took out a loan on his home to build the museum structure.    Londo had displayed it to the public for 17 days in Washington, but it has never left Skip's museum. Because the coach weighs one and a half tons and measures 16 feet long and 9 feet high, it's design calls for it to be pulled by four horses.
        Skip says he has no desire to sell the life-size coach.   With the coach housed in a room that is heated and air conditioned 24 hours a day. "It lives better than my wife and I do!"

More about the Guild Museum

   It's been over a half century since the last Napoleonic coach was constructed for the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild competition, but on a remote hilltop near Eagle Point, Oregon is a building that houses a mother lode of coach models, coach plans, Guild t-shirts, shipping crates and a huge assortment of other artifacts.
     But most amazing of all is a full-scale, highly-detailed coach weighing over a ton and a half!
     The "curator" of this unique museum is Skip Geear, who only 19 years ago started his
Craftsman's Guild collection that now includes 26 coach models from 1931 to 1947, nine model cars, "tons" of plans, photos, Guild literature, six coach shipping crates, plus much more.
     Among the prized exhibits is the original set of coach plans drwn by Frank Riess from which copies were made for the young contestants to follow.
     Skip's museum, which he unofficially calls the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild Foundation, is located in a 40 by 60 foot structure behind his house. And his house, as he puts it, "is located way back in the boondocks. We're kind of hard to find."   Eagle Point is 40 miles north of the California border near Medford, Ore.   But despite its remote location, some 700 people have visited his museum in the past six years with only word-of-mouth advertising.
                   Other Exhibits Included
    The jam-packed museum also has other extensive exhibits, including an entirely unrelated display of Connie Francis artifacts. Connie Francis?   Yes, the same singer who achieved fame as the Queen of Rock and Roll in the 1960's and 1970's. Her rendition of "Who's Sorry Now?" made her a major singing star overnight.