Original Indy 500 Memories: A Step Back in Time at the 1965 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

SPEEDWAY — The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum reopened in May 1965 after a short time on air with WRTV, then WFBM. Host Bernie Herman took viewers inside the museum, joined by Speedway president Tony Hulman and Karl Kizer, the museum's first curator.

“It was the idea of Karl Kizer, Wilbur Shaw, and myself to assemble a number of old race cars before they got completely out of existence,” Hulman said. “In 1956, we finally got around to getting a building. We found a nice home for them out here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

The museum featured ten 500-mile race-winning cars, including the Marmon Wasp, the first car to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1911 with driver Ray Harroun.

“Karl, number 32, always gives me a tug of the heartstrings,” Herman said.

“It was quite a car in its day,” Kizer said. “It would certainly be terrible to take it out on the track and race it against present-day cars.”

The museum also housed Mauri Rose’s Blue Crown Spark Plug Special, which won back-to-back 500-Mile races in 1947 and 1948. Another back-to-back winner, Bill Vukovich’s Fuel Injection Offy, was also on display.

The original museum had a total of 70 cars in its collection, a number that has only grown through the years.