Otto Rosenbusch

["Wayne Graefen" <wgraefen@xxxx>]

Auto World Loses Rosenbusch

Automotive history lost one of its heroes February 7 when Otto Rosenbusch died. Otto, 75, retired in 1990 from Chrysler Corporation as Director of Special Events, where he also had charge of both the company's archives and its collection of vintage Chrysler and American Motors vehicles.

He was best known around Detroit and among auto historians, however, as theman who saved Chrysler's incomparable collection of its vintage cars, foundation of the relatively new and official Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Mich.  

The story is that, in the dark days of Chrysler before the Federal government loan guarantee that at the time saved the corporation, Otto got wind that accountants were looking for everything of value that could be sold for cash.  

He craftily ­and secretly, not telling his bosses, ­ shifted the historic vehicles to an abandoned garage at the far side of the Chrysler grounds,literally on the other side of the tracks and not likely to be stumbled across by beady-eyed bean-counters. Likewise he is credited with preventing corporate archives from being tossed. His camouflage was successful and thecars survived the dual threat of private collectors or scrap-yard crushers.

After retirement he served as a volunteer and trustee of the National Automotive History Collection at the Detroit Public Library. -Mike Davis

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