By Johnny McDonald | SDUN Reporter

For collector and owner of the J.A. Cooley Museum, Jim Cooley, it’s funny that more people are familiar with his automobile museum from other parts of the world than his University Heights neighbors.

He said it’s been that way for almost 60 years and that his 26-car collection, which includes cars from 1886 through 1933, is a magnetic attraction from afar.

“[I] had two fellows come in from Nova Scotia and said they read about us in an article and flew out to see for themselves,” Cooley said, “It’s generally been like that.”
Cooley said his car collection started several years ago as he had his own business, and the money to spend on cars. After his business fell into debt, Cooley kept the cars and went to Reno, Nev. to work for Bill Harrah and his famous car collection.

“I went to work for Harrah’s so I could pay off my debts,” he said, “I don’t believe in bankruptcies.”

As his financial status improved, Cooley purchased more cars.

He said the cars he acquired over the years were purchases of a couple thousand dollars at a time. “Some of these would be worth millions if they were placed in an auction,” he said.

For example, he said, “We have the 1910 Hunt, a car built in National City especially for a doctor in Ensenada, [I] got that for $60,” and estimated the car is now worth $2.4 million.

He said his rare cars represent the development of the automobile.

Of the many cars in his collection, Cooley has a three-wheeled 1886 Benz, which has a one-cylinder 3/4 horsepower engine and an 1895 Benz Velo, which is credited as the first mass-produced car in the world.

His 1907 Brush was the first to use coil springs and the first to use a counterbalanced crankshaft. A 1907 International Harvester was the 14th made and features a removable back seat so farmers could haul hay.

His 1914 Renaut was used in the film “Titanic.” Occasionally, he gets calls from film studios to use one of the cars in a film.
The massive 1918 Chevrolet Model F-40 was built to compete with Buick and Cadillac.

“I’ve bought cars from all over the world,” he said. “Years ago they weren’t worth much and you could get them for a couple hundred dollars.”

Adjoining the car collection is a shop of rails called Frank the Trainman, a room stacked high with cardboard boxes containing Lionel model trains. A small gate separates the two businesses that Cooley and his wife, Carmen, co-manage.

He acknowledged the model train business has slowed down and attributes it to the digital era.

“[There is] no one like me to speak of who has this many pre-war trains. [There] used to be 20,000 collectors of early trains; now maybe 20 of them around.”
The Trainman, he explained, was Frank Cox, a close friend who died in 1988. Cooley purchased the store from Cox and left it and its name relatively unchanged as a tribute.

When the place is empty, Cooley and his wife sit in two chairs near the front window on the Museum’s side, enjoy the cool San Diego breeze and watch cars go by on Park Boulevard.