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Our next stop was to a hidden-away establishment of Phil Derrig in an industrial area of Barrington to view his interesting studio of manufactured signs and his facility/museum. There wasn’t even a sign on the building indicating the business. Once inside the view of thousands of manufactured signs were shelved in an organization fashion. There were oil company signs, train memorabilia signs, car insignia signs, vintage advertisement signs; signs of almost anything imaginable. Of course there were MG signs and I had to have one for my own.


Phil’s museum was in adjacent room with a vintage replica of a repair garage complete with a running TD replica and a vintage Land Rover – complete with safari hat on the drivers’ seat. (See Driveline front cover) The museum also sported a vintage rural post office complete with a PO box wall and teller window. Across the walkway was a replica of a rural general store complete with pot-bellied stove. Phil said that he is not sure why he has all this stuff – it kind of appeared after a number of years of collecting ‘interesting stuff’ and had to devise a way to display it all.


Phil Wydra corralled the group together again for our next venue – Ray’s Picnic. The group caravanned through Lake county enjoying the scenery ending up at Ray’s house in Gurnee. Cars were parked on the lawn and ventured to the backyard where food and refreshments were available for all. Ray manned the grill cooking up hamburgers, hot dogs and barbeque pork. Plenty of food and drink to go around.

After a leisurely afternoon of talking cars and memorabilia we had seen (and other stuff) the crowd slowly thinned out and we said our goodbye’s and ventured home. It had been a great day for a drive.

~~ Victor L’Heureux