American Bantam Collection displays Butler’s automotive history at Jeep Heritage Festival
John Pro, a member of the Butler Old Stone House Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America, said having interactive exhibits allows for visitors to see all of the history, rather than just a snapshot of it.
The club’s belief, he said, is if you can’t feel it, explore it and experience it, then you can’t know it’s real.
“You can go to a museum, and you can look at a picture. OK, is it real? I don’t know. You know, it’s there. I can see it, but you’re not allowed to touch it,” Pro said. “Can you show me the backside? ‘Oh no, we won’t take it off the wall,’ I mean, we’ll take ours off the wall.”
The Butler Old Stone House Region of the AACA is bringing Butler’s rich automobile history to the center stage for the 15th anniversary of the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival, with its Butler Built Garage collection of vehicles.
The American Bantam Collection is at the center of the exhibit, Cars from the 1930s and early ’40s are featured in this group, representing a different time period in the company’s legacy, leading to the creation of the Jeep.
The cars in the exhibit are a Bantam Roadster, a panel truck, a pickup truck, an early Bantam Renaissance car and an Austin-Bantam hybrid, called “popcorn truck.”
“We’re going to have a nice display out there this year,” Pro said.
Automobile history in Butler goes back to the early 1900s when the Standard Steel Car Company, originally a railroad car manufacturer, started producing cars.
Standard Steel eventually went out of business in 1923. The manufacturing plant sat empty for six years until Sir Herbert Austin made his journey from England to the United States, where he bought the plant in 1929, and the evolution of Bantam began.
“He wanted to build cars in the states,” Pro said. “He made five prototypes here in Butler, he took them up to New York World’s Fair and set up dealerships up there.”
Austin mass produced cars in Butler up until 1934, when the company went out of business. Pro noted they briefly called the cars “Austin Bantams” before transforming into Bantam in 1936.
“So they used the same facility. So now you have Standard Steel, Austin and Bantam all being built in the same place,” Pro said.
The Bantam Renaissance car came before the Jeep. Pro said the version they own is a prototype made in Butler in 1941. It’s the third generation of it’s kind, having been made prior to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The “popcorn truck” is a hybrid of an Austin front end, a Bantam drivetrain and a wooden body on the backside.
“Everybody likes it, I mean, that’s what we got it for, you know? We like this vehicle,” Pro said.
Bantam made a variety of vehicles in Butler, making for a diverse range of historic equipment in the area. Pro said Bantam made farm equipment for Jeeps, trailers for the military and even torpedo motors.
“Bantam and Austin manufactured their own motors and transmissions and all that, they manufactured all their own stuff. So all that stuff was made here in Butler,” Pro said.
The history is preserved by the Butler Old Stone House Region. Pro said many of the cars the club takes care of now were restored by those previously in the club. The role of the current members is to maintain what their predecessors left.
“We’re keeping the history alive and we enjoy driving what they built. What we’ve purchased in the past five or six years, we enjoy driving,” Pro said.
Club members also do upkeep on the cars, exploring and sustaining the antique mechanics. The group’s goal is to honor and support those who maintain the vehicles so they can be observed.
“We just like working on cars, finding the odd problems, you know, learning a little bit more about how they did things way back then,” Pro said.
Having the club members present at the event can provide further education, allowing them to answer questions and give insight into the details of the cars.
“We ask you to be kind to them because, you know, most of them are 80-plus years old. We’ll show you pretty much anything you want to see on them,” Pro said.
If someone has a particular interest in a certain car and the weather permits, Pro said they’ll even take guests for a ride.
“We don’t refuse anybody rides if the weather is decent,” Pro said. “There’s some vehicles we won’t take out in bad weather, but there’s some that we will take out in a little worse weather.”
It’s not the first year the Butler Old Stone House Region will bring cars to the festival, though the number displayed has varied. Members look forward to bringing their collection of cars to the event, he said.
