The Boulevard Drive-in closed in the 1980s, after about 40 years in operation. But visitors to the site today will notice signs of automotive life. Its hilly landscape has been paved with miles of narrow, curving roads and there is now an old-timey Sinclair Oil gas station on the premises, complete with a glass-tank pump and a sign that flashes the company\u2019s dinosaur logo<\/a>.<\/p>\n The infrastructure supports what the old drive-in has become: a temple to American cars from the early to mid 1900s.<\/p>\n Called the NB Center for American Automotive Heritage, the private museum was founded about a decade ago by Nicola Bulgari, the 84-year-old vice chairman of Bulgari, the Italian luxury brand that his grandfather started in Rome in 1884. (In 2011, the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy conglomerate took control of Bulgari in a multi-billion-dollar deal<\/a>; in 2023, Mr. Bulgari was convicted of insider trading<\/a> with LVMH stock in France and fined about $1.4 million.)<\/p>\n Vehicles are kept in temperature-controlled facilities and fueled at an old-timey Sinclair Oil gas station that was transplanted to the premises.<\/p>\n The NB Center<\/a>, in which Mr. Bulgari has invested at least $10 million, has about 200 vintage cars from his collection (another 100 are in storage in Italy). Nearly all of the vehicles were built between the 1920s and the mid-1950s, in the middle of America, for the middle of the market. There are Chryslers, Chevrolets, Nashes, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers and, most abundantly, Buicks.<\/p>\n Mr. Bulgari knows each of the vehicles by make, year, specification \u2014 and often by purchase date and location, too. He rattled off the bona fides of several cars on a recent tour of the center: They included a 1934 Buick 96S with \u201ca smooth reliable engine that is unparalleled,\u201d as he put it; a 1941 Nash with a rear seat that converts into a bed; a 1948 Buick \u201cwoody\u201d station wagon with an ash-and-mahogany body.<\/p>\n There was also a 1934 Chrysler Airflow Coupe, a model emblematic of the aviation-inspired trend toward <\/a>streamlined automobile design<\/a>. (Its developers included <\/a>Orville Wright<\/a>.) \u201cFrom 1930 to 1934, a huge change occurred in design, when cars went from being a box, to smoothing down,\u201d Mr. Bulgari said.<\/p>\n He has purchased most of the cars from sellers around the world. But Mr. Bulgari has also received some from donors who share his passion for a genre of automobiles that is prized less by collectors than cars from luxury European brands like Bugatti or Rolls-Royce.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople ask me, \u2018Why don\u2019t you collect Ferraris?\u2019\u201d Mr. Bulgari said, noting that his older brother Gianni <\/a>used to race<\/a> a Ferrari 250 GTO in the mid 1960s. \u201cMy answer is there are too many Ferrari collectors already. They don\u2019t need me.\u201d<\/p>\n He feels that the cars he collects do. Mr. Bulgari sees his automotive center as preserving what he calls \u201cthe history of the greatest era of the American automobile.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicola Bulgari in a 1935 Buick 96S Sport Coupe, one of his favorite cars in his collection.<\/p>\n While not currently open to the public, the center has hosted car clubs, philanthropic organizations, researchers and students for tours and events. Like other museums, it will loan out its contents. A 1934 Nash Ambassador from Mr. Bulgari\u2019s collection recently appeared in the <\/a>Pebble Beach Concours d\u2019Elegance<\/a> auto show, where the car won a second-in-class ribbon. Other cars or components have been borrowed by the Museum of Modern Art and the Frick Collection.<\/p>\n Though the types of vehicles Mr. Bulgari collects are from a time when automakers in the United States made significant design and engineering advancements, they have little material value today. They generally sell for mid-five-figure prices (about the average cost of a new car) and restoring one can easily cost five times as much.<\/p>\n That\u2019s largely why \u201cthe survivability of those cars is very low\u201d compared with that of blue-chip models preferred by collectors, said Jonathan Klinger, 43, a vintage automobile specialist who spent years working with classic cars at the insurance company <\/a>Hagerty<\/a> before becoming the NB Center\u2019s executive director last year.<\/p>\n Mr. Bulgari\u2019s car collection may be less famous than <\/a>Jay Leno\u2019s<\/a> and less rarefied than <\/a>Ralph Lauren\u2019s<\/a>, but it has a distinct theme, something that Ken Gross, an automotive historian, author and curator, said is essential to any good collection.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally think what Bulgari has done is wonderful because many of those cars were, if not neglected by collectors, just not paid much attention to,\u201d Mr. Gross added. \u201cTheir restoration gives you a glimpse into some cars that you might not necessarily see anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n A speedometer calibration machine, top left, is used to adjust the accuracy of analog dashboard gauges at one of the center\u2019s workshops.<\/p>\n Mr. Bulgari\u2019s fascination with American cars started in childhood, around the time the Boulevard Drive-In opened in Allentown. \u201cI first saw American cars in 1946 in Lugano, Switzerland,\u201d he said. He was five years old and World War II had just ended. \u201cI don\u2019t have to describe what Rome was like in 1946, after the war,\u201d Mr. Bulgari continued. \u201cIt was scary. So it was a bit of a shock to see these magnificent cars.\u201d<\/p>\n He purchased his first Buick \u2014 a toy car \u2014 that same year. Not long after, in 1953, he went to watch the <\/a>Mille Miglia<\/a>, a 1,000-mile semiregular road race in Italy that first took place in 1927. He was 12, and although the race featured Porsches, Jaguars, Mercedes-Benzes, Aston Martins, Ferraris and Maseratis, Mr. Bulgari recalled dreaming only of seeing a 1953 Chrysler, one of the few American cars in the race.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican cars had something style-wise that European cars never had,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd because of strong competition and a growing market, their engines, transmissions and suspensions were so advanced,\u201d he continued, almost breathlessly. \u201cAnd the metallurgy \u2014 they were constantly working on finding better materials, higher quality, longer lasting.\u201d<\/p>\n To maintain his cars, Mr. Bulgari has brought a handful of small car-restoration businesses to the center, acquiring them in deals that included their equipment and employees (no jobs were lost in the process). The businesses include the former Hyde Villa Machine Shop, which operated in Reading, Pa., for more than 50 years before its owner, Rich Olsen, sold it to Mr. Bulgari two years ago. \u201cWe brought in everything \u2014 boring machine, crankshaft grinder, milling machine,\u201d Mr. Olsen, 72, said.<\/p>\n A so-called three-olives machine, bottom left, named for the martini garnish it resembles, is used to fabricate fenders and trunk lids.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bulgari-cars-16358-articleLarge.jpg\")
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