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Livonia Based Exhibit Works Brings History of Automotive Industry to Life

16 August 1997

Livonia Based Exhibit Works Brings History of Automotive Industry to Life

Interactive Multi-media Exhibit Experience Created by Livonia's Exhibit Works
  Ready for Public Consumption as Automotive Hall of Fame Opens Doors Today

    LIVONIA, Mich., Aug. 16 -- Today for the first time the
general public will enter the interactive multi-media history of the
automotive industry conceived, designed and created by Museum Works, a
division of Livonia's Exhibit Works, for the Automotive Hall of Fame.
    Responsible for hits like the "Motown Sound" exhibit, "National Corvette
Museum," "Arizona Science Center" and "Made In America" to name only a few of
their major exhibit projects of late, Museum Works has been quietly amassing
an impressive repertoire of museum design accomplishments and setting the
trend for exhibitry for the next century.
    Now, this museum dream team unveils one its most innovative and inspiring
exhibit experiences to date at the Automotive Hall of Fame located next to
Henry Ford Museum.  But you can forget the usual menu of lackluster displays
and bored faces.
    With Don Fee, Senior Vice President of Design for Exhibit Works, driving
the creative bus, visitors to the Hall of Fame find themselves swept along an
an "Edu-active Journey" through history that leaves the traditional artifact
and plaque modes of museums in the dust of a bygone era.
    Employing a barrage, of multi-sensory exhibits, Fee, the conceptual author
and lead designer of the Hall of Fame, has succeeded in blowing the dust off
the past and bringing to life the history and dynamism of the industry through
telling the stories of the individuals who made it go and exploring the
cultural impact of the automobile on our society.
    "This isn't another roundup of the usual industry suspects," Fee explains
of his creation.  "One of the first things we did was enlist several prominent
historians to brainstorm.  Before a single exhibit was conceived, hours were
spent mulling -- stirring the smoky cauldron of the past, dredging up the
infinite scraps of auto history minutia."
    The result is the AHF is a human story about the people who contributed to
the development of the automobile -- the obscure and the famous -- the
dreamers, tinkerers, flamboyant designers, grand promoters, financiers, labor
leaders, the winners and losers...  In fact, you'll find very few cars at the
Hall of Fame.
    What you will find is an interactive multimedia history of the past
100 years of the automobile that inspires innovation and fun.
    "The word museum," says Fee, "is traced to the Greek word muse and refers
to the divinities thought to be the source of inspiration, creativity and
innovation.  Unfortunately, the word museum all too often connotes dull one
dimensional displays and plaques and is almost never associated with
inspiration, innovation or most of all -- fun.  At Museum Works we want to put
the muse back into museums."

SOURCE  Automotive Hall of Fame