A newly combined Fairbanks museum bringing together vintage cars and historic aircraft under one roof continues to expand its displays following a soft opening at the end of July. The merged Fountainhead Auto Museum and Pioneer Aviation Museum now occupies 90,000 square feet on Airport Way — triple the space the auto collection had at its former College Road location.

The expanded footprint currently holds around 120 vehicles and six aircraft on the display floor, with more pieces from both collections still being added as the museum settles into its new home. Fountainhead Development President Tim Cerny said pairing the automobiles with vintage planes lets the museum tell a fuller story of how Alaskans actually got around the state in earlier decades, tying transportation history together rather than treating cars and planes as separate exhibits.

Getting there wasn’t simple. The aircraft arrived in pieces and had to be reassembled once on-site, a process Cerny said took considerable manpower to pull off without damaging planes that are, in some cases, decades old. Talks to merge the two collections first began back in 2020, with the physical move itself stretching across roughly four months.

Cerny said the long-term goal is establishing the combined museum as a serious destination in its own right — one that covers antique cars, early aircraft and vintage clothing with enough depth that visitors travel to Fairbanks specifically to see it, rather than stopping in as an afterthought.