Wikipedia says about Barber:
“George Barber had a serious interest in vintage motorcycles and recognized that there was no museum that reflects the history of motorcycles around the world. He wanted to preserve motorcycle history in the United States in a way that represents an international aspect and to supply examples of motorcycles that until then could only have been seen in books and magazines.
The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum began in 1988 as Barber’s private collection. However, in 1994, he established the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum as a §501 nonprofit organization. It opened to the public in its original Southside Birmingham, Alabama location in 1995. In 1997 the Barber Museum sent 21 motorcycles to New York’s Guggenheim Museum for exhibit in The Art of the Motorcycle; the exhibit also traveled to Chicago and the Guggenheim Museum Bilboa. After the success of The Art of the Motorcycle, Barber set out to create a unique facility complete with a track. In designing the complex, Barber consulted with world champion racers John Surtees and Dan Gurney. In 2003, the Barber Museum was relocated to its permanent home in Barber Motorsports Park.
The museum contains more than 1,600 vintage and modern motorcycles and racing cars. It is considered the largest motorcycle museum in the world, as well as the largest collection of Lotus race cars. The motorcycle collection includes bikes dating from 1904 to present production. More than 900 motorcycles are on display. They come from 16 countries and represent over 140 different marques from as far away from the US as Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden.”
What Wikipedia misses, is that the Barber Collection also hosts the worldwide most interesting Buell Collection. Not only a 1984 RW 750, the early Square 4 2-stroke racer, a must have for a collection of that calibre, or all the Buell RR models catch the eye. For the Buell enthusiasts, the prototypes and development bikes are the most interesting collection pieces. Where else you can see a clay model of an 1125 or see live, for years only in myths existing, the Buell 450 Motocross Rotax Single prototype? Buell and EBR Road and race bikes of all years and provenience, even Bubba Blackwell’s and Craig Jones’ stunt bikes found their way into that amazing collection. Friends, it’s not getting better than that!
Maybe it can still improve? A bit…? How about the EBR 1190 RS Mark Miller raced on the Isle of Man, or the legendary FUN88 bike what carved the canyons of the Macau Guia Grand Prix Circuit. And to mark the final peak of V-Twin developments in East Troy, the 250.000$ EBR 1190 World Superbike.
No excuses, be part of it, help to bring the bikes home!
