Step inside Dick’s Classic Garage in San Marcos and it looks like the biggest, brightest, cleanest garage you’ve ever seen. But what it is, is a museum. A museum displaying all those old cars you wish you had owned or wish you’d never gotten rid of.

The museum displays classic cars from 1929 to 1959 in several large rooms, along with antique oil and gas pumps. A television on one wall runs old automobile commercials like the one touting the Edsel’s “Teletouch Drive.”

The museum opened in 2009, featuring restored vehicles from the collection of founder Dick Burdick.

Burdick, who founded Thermon Industries in San Marcos, has been collecting classic cars for more than 40 years and wanted to share them with the public, says Museum Director Greg Verret.

“We have about 300 vehicles and about 80 are on display at any one time,” Greg says. “We rotate them every quarter.”

Although the museum does some restoration work, the vast majority of the cars were purchased fully restored, most to a pristine condition. Some even have the original paint and all gleam under the lights.

Roam around listening to music from the Fifties and you’ll see a 1931 Avalon Boat Trail Speedster, a ’29 Ford Speedster with the rumble seat, a gorgeous ’39 Chrysler Imperial Parade Phaeton, Packards, LaSalles, Cords, Marmons, Stutzs, DeSotos, Kaisers, Studebakers, Hudsons, Nashes, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Jeeps, Mercurys, Cadillacs, Lincolns, Fords, Chevrolets, and several Duesenberg’s including one custom built for gangster Matt Kolb who was killed by rival Al Capone.

But the crown jewel of the collection is the 1948 Tucker, one of only 51 ever made.

“It’s the most rare Tucker that exists,” Greg explains. “This is the last one ever produced and has just five-tenths of a mile on the odometer. We’ve been offered $2 million for it, but it’s not for sale.”

And that Tucker may not be the most valuable car here. Someone offered $4 million for one of those spiffy ...

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