Meet Blake: A fourth-grade boy crazy about cars

A private tour through the Martin Auto Museum’s 170-plus vehicles gave nine-year-old Blake a walk through automotive history — from an 1886 Benz to a Duesenberg once linked to Al Capone’s inner circle. Surrounded by that much irreplaceable history, it was still the modern muscle cars that held his attention longest. See what makes this Phoenix collection, and its youngest fans, stand out.

The good-humored fourth-grader is grinning ear-to-ear as he enjoys a private tour of the Martin Auto Museum in north Phoenix, a collection of more than 60 automobiles. While the vehicles on display include a 1922 Chevy Sport Roadster and a 1930 J-249 Duesenburg Boattail, itâ€™s the 21st Century muscle cars that draw Blake.

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Most museum tours end with kids checking their phones by the halfway mark — but Blake wasn’t most kids, and this wasn’t most museums. A private walk through more than a hundred vehicles spanning over a century of automotive history had plenty to hold a fourth-grader’s attention, from a horseless carriage predating his great-great-grandparents to a Prohibition-era Duesenberg once linked to Chicago’s underworld. And yet, surrounded by all that irreplaceable history, it wasn’t the oldest or rarest car in the building that lit him up. What actually pulled a nine-year-old’s attention away from a Duesenberg and toward something built decades later?

A Collection Built by One Man’s Obsession

The museum Blake toured traces back to real estate developer Mel Martin, who started collecting cars in the 1960s and never really stopped. What began as a personal hobby eventually grew into a formal collection in 2005, and by 2008 Martin had opened it to the public as the Martin Auto Museum. Today the collection has expanded well past 170 vehicles, alongside one of the largest assortments of automotive memorabilia, antique gas pumps, and vintage signage found anywhere in the Southwest.

History Old Enough to Predate the Automobile Industry Itself

The depth of the collection is what makes a tour like Blake’s possible in the first place. The oldest vehicle on display is an 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen — widely considered the first true automobile — alongside a 1930 Duesenberg J Boattail Speedster once owned by John Factor, an associate of Al Capone, and the actual 1963 Chrysler 300 that paced the 47th Indianapolis 500. It’s the kind of range that turns a museum visit into a genuine timeline of automotive history, not just a static car lineup.

Why the Muscle Cars Still Win

With all that history on display, it says something that the cars closest to Blake’s own era were the ones that held his attention longest. That’s not unusual, though — muscle cars have a visceral, immediate appeal that predates any appreciation for provenance or rarity, and it’s often the entry point that turns casual young visitors into lifelong car people. A century-old Duesenberg earns respect; a modern muscle car earns genuine excitement, and museums like this one get to watch that difference play out in real time.

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