A car collection like no other sits in a giant garage in Livonia and is open to the public

Tucked away in an industrial section of Livonia, near Plymouth and Levan roads, sits a massive garage that houses about 115 classic cars, many of which are priceless family heirlooms, that hold historic relevance to one of the most famous men in NASCAR racing and the auto industry.

In the center of the display, known as the Roush Automotive Collection , is a silver Mustang with a bright red spoiler on the rear and yellow on the front bumper. The car is called "Old Crow," a wink to Brig. Gen. Bud Anderson, the famous flying ace who flew four different P-51 Mustang airplanes in World War II, all but one of them named Old Crow, according to the National Air and Space Museum website . Anderson, who died in May at age 102, autographed the car.

“This is a car we built for EEA AirVenture Oshkosh. It’s a one-off car we designed from a clay model," said Dale McClenaghan. "Dad is an avid P-51 pilot, which is a P-51 Mustang, an airplane in World War II. Dad built this to honor Bud.”

"Dad" is Jack Roush, McClenaghan's father-in-law. This collection is aptly named after him, the owner of most of the cars here. Each vehicle has a unique history, including a car Roush built, raced and sold in 1971 to raise the money he needed to start what would become his empire.

Dad who gave a daughter opportunities

Roush, 82, is the founder and co-owner of NASCAR team RFK (Roush Fenway Keselowski) Racing. Famous for donning a Panama hat, Roush was inducted to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019. He is also chairman of Roush, a global supplier of product development services related to design, engineering, prototyping, testing and manufacturing. His company serves the auto, aerospace, defense and theme park industries.

Roush also oversees Roush Performance Products, which is a supplier of aftermarket performance parts, and Roush CleanTech, a manufacturer of alternative fuel systems.

The empire employs about 3,500 people globally and its revenue last year was approximately $600 million, Maureen Crowley, director of Roush's Public Affairs & Sustainability, told the Detroit Free Press.

Despite Jack Roush's entrepreneurial success and notoriety, he is just Dad to his oldest child of three, Susan Roush McClenaghan, of Livonia. She is the program manager at the Roush Automotive Collection.

"It provided for some very unique opportunities, I will admit that, but I don’t see him as all that different from any other dad," Susan said of Roush. "He was pretty hard on us kids with high expectations, but he’s very generous and, at a time when girls weren’t really all that involved in the industry or motorsports, he allowed me to grow a sense of independence and self-sufficiency.”

Susan is a six-time national championship drag racer, having won two titles with the National Muscle Car Association and four titles with the National Mustang Racing Association.

“The fastest I’ve ever been was in a borrowed car," Susan said. "To be able to race a certain speed and elapsed time you have to qualify. So to get my license I used a friend’s car and it was 170 mph … a quarter mile.”

In her race car, which runs on propane, her best time was 9.07 seconds in a quarter mile at 154 mph.

A collection for the fans and to preserve history

In the 1980s, Roush's car collection consisted of retired race cars and show vehicles scattershot across various locations. He wanted to organize the collection under one roof to preserve the company's history, which is connected to these unique cars, said Tyler Wolfe, archivist and curatorial associate at Roush Automotive Collection.

So, in 1988, Roush asked Susan to manage the collection. In the 1990s, the collection sat in display areas in a couple of different Roush buildings, Wolfe said. But the areas were small and not open regularly to the public. In 2000, Susan moved the collection to its current 30,000-square foot location.

"It was a response to the realization that, if not preserved, as is common with old race cars, things would not be taken care of mechanically, or in some cases be sold (or grow legs and disappear)," Wolfe said in an email to the Detroit Free Press.

Plus, as Roush entered into NASCAR racing in 1988 and quickly became a championship-contending team, with driver Mark Martin finishing second in the Cup Series in 1990, there was, "the realization that there is actually a fan base that would likely appreciate somewhere to go see those cars," Wolfe said.

Nearly the entire front section of the collection consists of about 40 retired NASCAR race cars, many with Martin's name on them.

Also, in NASCAR, to get sponsorships requires hosting events that offer unique experiences to sponsors and their employees. The Roush Automotive Collection is a venue for that and for hosting other corporate events for Roush Industries, Wolfe said.

A shared love of fast cars

Susan and Dale met each other in 1979 at a roller skating rink that is half a mile from the Roush Automotive Collection, which is located on Market Street northwest of Plymouth and Levan roads. In fact, if you step out the front door and look right, you'll see it: Riverside Arena roller skating rink on Plymouth Road. They were 15 years old at the time.

The two shared a love of cool cars, and would cruise Telegraph in cars that Roush let Susan drive. Dale is a diesel mechanic by training, and Susan married in 1985 and embarked on a career racing cars in between working for Roush.

“That’s Susan’s California Roadster and that’s her ’68 Cougar that she’s building for her racing program," Dale said, before pointing to a white 1960 Ford Falcon with "Big Thunder" painted on the hood. "That’s my Falcon that I raced.”

The Falcon, signed by Jack Roush, has an engine that produces 1,013 horsepower, Dale said. He has raced it in National Mustang Racing Association and National Muscle Car Association races from Michigan to Florida over the years.

Near "Big Thunder" sits another racer dubbed “Sudden Death." It is a 1975 Mustang II that Roush built for customer Joe Rugirello, a street racer in the 1970s, Wolfe said.

"He wanted a car that would beat everybody on Woodward," Dale said. "Jack built this car for him so he’d kill all the competitors."

The car has a 505-cubic inch engine and makes 550 horsepower, capable of running about a 10-second quarter mile, which would push it to about 150 mph. That's not far off from the times of pro stock cars in that era. Wolfe said the car was one of the top three or four most notorious cars in the street racing scene back in the day. It was featured in many magazines including a 1977 write-up in Hot Rod magazine. That's how it got its name, Sudden Death, Wolfe said. In the article, the car was photographed amongst tombstones at Livonia Cemetery.

And, of course, the museum contains Dale's prized possession: His replica of the 1966 Batmobile from the Adam West television show "Batman."

A somber reminder of near death

But it's not just beautiful cars with interesting backstories inside this garage. If you look up, you'll see the wreckage of a small aircraft on the wall with an amazing story behind it.

"That’s Dad’s first airplane crash,” Dale said. “He’s wrecked two planes,” Susan adds.

The crumpled wreckage is that of a twin-engine Lockwood AirCam, a plane that is built to fly low and slow. Roush, an accomplished pilot, mastered it quickly, Dale said.

In April 2002, Roush and some friends took their airplanes, including this one, which belonged to Roush's friend, up over a lake near Troy, Alabama. As it got near dusk, Roush lowered the AirCam to fly it at treetop height, but with the fading light he did not see high-tension power lines. The lines chopped off a wing, sending his aircraft into the lake.

“He was unconscious, upside down in the water, strapped in," Susan said. As luck would have it that day, "The local DNR guy, who was a retired Marine, was at home recovering from cancer treatment. His specialtiy was retrieving downed aircraft.”

That man was Larry Hicks and, fortunately, his brother had just put in a boat at Hicks' dock the night before.

"It’s a flock of angels that had to orchestrate this deal," Dale said of how Hicks saved Roush. "(Hicks) had enough strength that he was able to get to the boat, get out to where Dad was and dive down to the wreckage … it was about 8 feet deep. There’s fuel all over the top of the water. It took him two dives, and on the second dive, he kicked his foot off the bottom and it brushed Dad’s arm and he said, ‘I know where he is now.’ So he went up and got another gasp of air, went back down, figured out where the belt was, released him, pulled him up and flopped him on the wing.”

Hicks performed chest compressions, but worried he'd been too late to save Roush. On the third compression, "Dad came gasping for life, spitting out water," Dale said.

"He had a collapsed lung, a shattered femur. The neurologist in the ICU said that the reason why he didn’t drown was because he was upside down and the air couldn’t escape," Susan added.

Hicks and Roush became friends, turkey hunting together until Hicks passed away from sinus cancer in 2019, Susan said. To honor Hicks, Roush’s NASCAR Cup cars carried a commemorative “Thanks Larry” sticker in the Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan International Speedway after Hicks died that year, according to a 2019 article in the Macomb Daily .

"There’s lots of stories like that throughout this place,” Dale said.

One car, one race and an empire is born

Take the blue 1969 Mustang convertible with "Gapp & Roush" etched on the door: It is a significant car that helped launch Roush's empire.

In 1971, Roush started a racing partnership with drag racer Wayne Gapp . But within a few years, the two were not getting along and Roush wanted to dissolve the partnership, Dale said. So Roush built this 1969 Mustang race car and entered it into the National Hot Rod Association U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 1971. Roush drove it in a Super Stock class drag race and won. He sold the car that same week at the track for $5,000, Susan said. He then used the money to fund the pro-stock efforts for the following race season, which eventually produced enough profits for Roush to separate from Gapp in 1976 and start Roush Enterprises in the early 1980s.

But this famous car then disappeared for a long time.

“There was a fella who bought the car, he was in Louisiana, he raced it for a very short period of time and blew up the engine. So he parked it in his barn," Susan said.

Eventually, the car ended up with another owner who knew something of the history of Roush racing it in Indianapolis. He had it for sale, but it wasn’t really getting any traction so, he gave Susan a call.

“He said, ‘I've got one of your dad’s old drag cars.’ He gave me some information, I went back to Dad and said, ‘Is this real?’ Because we get calls a lot from people wanting us to buy cars," Susan said. "Dad looked over the photographs and the description and said, ‘Yeah, that’s my car. That’s the one I won Indy in.’ ”

“I called the man back and said, ‘OK, we’re interested but how much do you want?’ He said, ‘Honestly, I really just want this car to end up in the right hands and be restored,' " Susan said. "So he sold it to me for $5,000.”

All electric in the early 1900s

The oldest car in the collection happens to be an EV. A 1913 model Rauch & Lang electric Brougham. The vehicle was built in 1918 and originally sold for $4,500. It was driven in Sacramento, California, until 1937, its historical placard said. Right next to it is the original electric charging station.

The collection got the EV from Exide Batteries, which had owned it and was a sponsor of Roush's No. 99 NASCAR Winston Cup team. Roush bought it from Exide for an undisclosed price.

Across from it, is a row of classic old cars including a red 1951 Ford F-1 pickup once owned by the Oak Ridge Boys, who painted it orange to use in a music video, Susan said. Roush traded a retired NASCAR car for it, she said.

Then there's "Frank," a 1940 Ford F-1 pickup in Forrest Green that Roush bought off a ranch in New Mexico. Originally, it had a hole in the door from a longhorn steer. Next to Frank, is "Lucy," a 1939 Ford four-door convertible in red, next to that is "Georgetta," a 1939 Ford two-door convertible with a rumble seat that Dale and Susan drove in, tying for first place in 2004's Great Race. The Great Race is America's oldest and longest-running motorsports event. It is a transcontinental time-speed-distance-road rally.

Georgetta carried the late actor Tony Curtis (father of Jamie Lee Curtis) in the Great Race parade on July 4, 2004. Curtis autographed the car just above the sun visor writing, "Susan Dale, what a race! Tony Curtis."

The cars don't often leave the collection, which is open to the public daily Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., but Dale and Susan did take Old Crow out recently, driving her in this year's Woodward Dream Cruise. Old Crow is a family favorite, in part because it has never left Roush's hands.

“We took it to (Oshkosh) auction with Ford to raise money for the charities they were supporting that year," Dale said. "Dad wanted to make sure he got good money for it because one of his best friends was Col. Anderson, so Dad started bidding it up. Everybody saw that Dad was bidding it up, so they said, ‘Jack really wants this car, we better let him get this car.’ He paid way too much for it. We could have built three of these for what he paid for it.”

Dale declined to say how much Roush paid for his own car, but it is now a priceless car that they will never sell.

“This is a family heirloom," Dale said.

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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com . Follow her on Twitter @ jlareauan . Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: A car collection like no other sits in a giant garage in Livonia and is open to the public