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 the
man 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 the cars 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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