Our Story

This building has been making things since 1872 — first carriages, then truck bodies, now history. What began as a small carriage shop grew, over five decades, into the Boyertown Auto Body Works. In 1965, Paul and Erminie Hafer set aside the company's old paint shop to start something new: a collection honoring Pennsylvania's transportation heritage. Six decades later, that collection has grown into one of the region's most complete records of Pennsylvania-built vehicles — housed, fittingly, inside the very building where much of that history was made.

And once those vehicles rolled out of these doors, they didn't stay close to home. They reached kitchens, schoolyards, and city streets far beyond Pennsylvania's borders — proof that what's built here doesn't stop here.

The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles educates visitors by highlighting the evolution of transportation and roadside culture through preserving and displaying innovative Pennsylvania-built and significantly interesting, and alternative propulsion vehicles.

BMHV isn't one building anymore — it's becoming a campus. These buildings once housed different departments of the Body Works itself, and some still carry that history in their bones — the Jeremiah Sweinhart Carriage Factory still has its original floor, and our blacksmith fires the same forge that once served the works. Gallery 1 houses Highway as Habitat: the diner, the camper, the roadside cabin, the cars that made the journey worth taking. Gallery 2, opening November 13, 2026, expands that story further — new space, new exhibits, decades of pieces that have been waiting for their moment.

None of this happens without the people behind it — our staff, our Board of Directors, and the volunteers who've given thousands of hours to keep this history alive and accessible. This museum belongs to this community, and it's cared for by it too.

Even the parking lot has history in it — a restored turnpike toll booth sits right there, and our own 1921 Sun Oil Station gas station is just at the edge of it. The visit starts before you even walk in the door.

Yes — take a look at Book Your Event.

This museum runs on the belief that history is worth protecting — not just for collectors, but for the next generation of Pennsylvanians who deserve to know where they came from. Your membership makes that possible.