Volo Auto Museum – website

Location: 27582 Volo Village Road, Volo, IL

Phone: 815-385-3644

Hours: Open 7 days a week, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Admission:
Adults – $9.95
Children 5-12 – $5.95 (children under 5 free) – use their online coupon for 1/2 off a child’s admission with an adult’s admission.
Seniors (65 and older) – $7.95
Veterans and military with ID – $7.95
Military in uniform – FREE

Memberships are available. Family memberships are $70 and include free admission for 2 adults and 4 children, discounted admission for guests of members, and 10% discount on food and gift purchases.

Parking: Free parking

Bathrooms: Bathrooms are in the food area (the main entrance), Showroom 1, Showroom 4, as well as in the Mercantile Mall and Mall 1 of the antique mall. There are changing tables in the bathrooms.

Nursing: There is no designated nursing area, but there are places to sit in the food court area.

Handicapped/stroller accessibility: The Volo Auto Museum is accessible. There are ramps between buildings. There are some areas that might be a little difficult to maneuver, such as the Armed Forces exhibit.

Other amenities:

• Group tours and school groups can be arranged.
• There is a gift shop located at the main entrance (which is currently having a liquidation sale with most items 50% off).

• Historical trolley tours, where you’ll see the Treasures of the Vault, are available starting in March at an additional cost. Trolley tours are NOT handicapped accessible.
• The Haunted Barn is open around Halloween.
• Events can be scheduled at Volo and a party room will be opening soon.
• Five antique malls with 300 dealers.
• Hollywood Star Cars are available for rent.
• Cars can be purchased and sold at Volo.

Food: The Betty Boop Burger Bar is located at the museum entrance and is open daily from 11 am – 4 pm. A full menu is available online. There is ample seating inside, and outdoor seating is available for warmer weather. The Betty Boop Grill and Beer Garden is open during all events and offers outdoor shaded seating for 250.

Special events: A calendar of events is available online. The Family Fun/Disney Day is scheduled in June.

Activities/exhibits:

– Military Experience – a variety of military vehicles and military memorabilia, and a combat zone with battle scenes and sound effects.

– TV & Movie Car Collection – Cars from Batman, Cars, Risky Business, The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, The Beverly Hillbillies, and more.

– Kids Attractions – Rides for kids and vehicles from Cat in the Hat, Spongebob Squarepants, the Flintstones, Cinderella, and more.

– Hall of Fame Car Collection – the World’s Most Expensive Car, Michael Andretti’s Indy 500 car (that you can sit in), and cars designed as tributes to Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

– Vintage Cars

We paid: $14 on deal site Tippr for admission for two adults and trolley tour tickets (although the trolley was not operating on the day we visited). Regular price for admission for me and John would have been $19.90 ($28 with the trolley tour). Both boys are under 5 so they are free.

Our experience:

Volo Auto Museum has 5 showrooms of custom cars, famous Hollywood and tv cars, and over 300 classic cars, as well as 5 antique malls with 300 dealers.

We visited Volo on a cold Saturday afternoon.Volo’s property is huge (30 acres) with plenty of space for parking, veral buildings and a large park. The food court is located on the west side of the park and the building also holds the ticket counter, gift/souvenir shop, and Kids’ Hollywood Showroom. Just outside of the food court area, there is a giant Truckasaurus, a Jurassic Park truck with an equally large dinosaur head. There are plants around it and sound effects. Cooper and Dexter seemed really curious about the truck, but were a little concerned about the sound effects and kept some distance.

The Trolley Tour wasn’t available the day we visited, but there was still plenty to see. We started at the Kids’ Hollywood Showroom and the kids were really excited about the Spongebob boat and the rides; John and I loved seeing some “classic” rides (ones we rode when we were kids!). I was also pretty excited to see the Cat in the Hat car. We climbed into the Flintstones car and got some pictures, and the boys took a couple of rides on toy cars and horses.

Volo has four auto showrooms, plus an armed forces exhibit. The auto show rooms were pretty incredible – huge and packed with amazing cars. I was a little paranoid about the boys accidentally scratching a car with a coat zipper or something, but the aisles were pretty wide so it was easy enough to keep them from getting too close.

The boys were very excited to see Lightning McQueen and Doc Hudson. They aren’t old enough to recognize some of the great cars there, like the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Bluesmobile, and Ecto-1 (Ghostbusters), but they thought they looked “cool” anyway. We got to sit in Mario Andretti’s Indy 500 car and the boys loved that; we finally had to drag them away so other people could have a turn.

We went into the armed forces exhibit, but if you have sensitive kids I would suggest skipping it. It’s dark and there are lifelike battle scenes with sound effects and movie scenes playing on tvs. Both boys were a little nervous, but calmed down a lot when they realized none of it was real. We walked through pretty quickly, partly because they were nervous about the sounds and partly because I was nervous about them seeing something upsetting either on the tvs or the battle scenes (such as dummies as injured soldiers).

Volo also has a ton of antique shopping, but we didn’t even browse any of the malls; I knew that would be a bad idea with the kids. There is a large park with picnic areas and things for kids to play on, but it was too cold for us to enjoy that when we visited. We had a very nice afternoon at Volo. I would definitely return, although I think I’d prefer to visit in warmer weather. Just about everything is inside (there are a few military vehicles outside in tented areas), but the boys did get a little antsy by the end, and they were tired of being told to slow down and not to touch anything. I think if we had the chance to picnic, play, or run around outside in between showrooms or even at the end it would have been even more enjoyable.