Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum and Seward Johnson statues

Between Ft Wayne and Kendallville, Indiana is a town called Auburn.  The famous car of the same name was manufactured here as well as a number of others.  There are a dozen museums in this town, but my husband has always wanted to go to the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg museum so we did.

I'm not really into cars so the only thing I know about Auburns is that Remington Steele drove one (my favorite tv show of all time, by the way.)  And I know Jay Leno collects Duesenbergs because my husband made me watch a show on it once.  Never heard of Cords before this trip, though.

Currently there are 14 Seward Johnson bronze statues scattered around the downtown area of Auburn, Indiana.  Johnson is a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson, co-founder of Johnson & Johnson.  His life-size bronze statues are castings of living people of all ages depicted in everyday activities.  One statue we saw was that of a window washer.  You really did have to look twice to make sure it was a statue and not a real person.  He has also used public domain photos and art, sometimes adding a twist. 

Evidently there is some controversy surrounding the above statue, Unconditional Surrender, as the public domain photo upon which this statue is supposedly based Kissing the War Goodbye by Victor Jorgensen doesn't show the lower legs and shoes, only Alfred Eisenstaedt's non-public domain famous photograph V-J Day in Times Square shows does.   I'm sure you wanted to know that.  I found it interesting. 

This one's a little larger than life which made it hard to miss.  We didn't take the time to see all the statues, but enjoyed seeing the ones we happened by.