Automobile Quarterly: The Ultimate Photography Collection
the Automobile Quarterly Collection
The photographs made available by America’s Packard Museum come from its Automobile Quarterly (AQ) collection. AQ was a hardbound, advertising-free periodical, published from 1962-2012, which focused on everything relating to automobiles.
The AQ collection is huge! 28 lateral filing cabinets contain 12,856 folders, with about 728,000 images of 5,500 car models!
Curator Stu Morris discusses the scanning of the AQ collection, and funding from the State of Ohio Library Services and Technology grant, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Historic Publications and Records Commission. THANK YOU for their support.
About AQ: You will find all available information about the provenance, organization, and processing of the AQ collection in the finding aid. The finding aid is in PDF format, free to download, and contains 593 pages with 12,856 rows of data. The AQ staff organized their photographs and research into file folders, and each row duplicates the folder names.
About 5,500 car models are documented in the collection. There are about 728,000 photographic slides and negatives consisting of images taken during the magazine’s history. Professional photographers shot all the images, and while AQ published some, only their staff saw the rest. Most of the images are color negative transparencies taken with 35mm cameras.
What Images are Available: The Museum staff is currently digitizing original negatives of a variety of brands and models, and the numbers will continue to grow. As owners of the Automobile Quarterly collection, the Museum is committed to digitizing the images of all represented brands, not just Packard. About 10,000 images are currently online.
How Images are Selected: By necessity, the online images are a small selection of the entire collection. They represent
domestic and foreign brands
small and large manufacturers
brass era/classic era/post-WW2 era
Are the Online Images Free? Yes, you are free to use the images in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to their use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). America’s Packard Museum makes no warranties about the images and cannot guarantee the accuracy of this Rights Statement. You are responsible for your own use. America’s Packard Museum recommends trying to contact the individual photographer or their estate. Any images used should be credited, using the complete citation found on the bottom of the item page. All images reproduced are for one-time use only. Images may not be copied, modified, or altered without prior written permission.
Brands and Models Currently Available Online
(check back often, as more are added on a regular basis)
Need more cars? See the complete list of 5,500 models in the collection finding aid.
More information on the Automobile Quarterly collection is found on the Museum’s Omeka image site.
Email info@americaspackardmuseum.org if you have any questions or wish to obtain high resolution digital copies.
Please note that the images are protected by copyright and/or related rights.
IMLS Grant: In August 2026, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded America's Packard Museum a one-year grant to digitize 6,150 images from Automobile Quarterly. This project is ongoing. IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation's libraries and museums. We thank the NHPRC for their support!
NHPRC Grant: The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) awarded the Museum a one-year grant to process the Automobile Quarterly records. The project was completed in September 2025. The NHPRC, located within the National Archives, provides opportunities for the American people to discover and use records to broaden public understanding of our democracy, history, and culture. We thank the NHPRC for their support!
Ohio LSTA Grant: The Ohio Library Services and Technology Grant awarded the Museum a one-year grant funding for an Epson Expression 12000XL Photo Scanner, Epson A3 Transparency Unit, and an Epson V600 Perfection Photo Scanner. The staff nearly tripled the planned number of 1,500 digitized images, loaded them into Omeka, and worked with the Ohio Digital Network (ODN) to export a sample image from each set into the Digital Public Library of America. The project was completed in September 2024. We thank the LSTA for their support!
Society of Automotive Historians: In September 2025, the SAH presented the James J. Bradley Award for historic preservation to America’s Packard Museum for the conservation of the Automobile Quarterly Collection and Archive. This is the second time APM has received this prestigious award, having accepted it for the preservation of the museum’s collection itself in 2004. We join The Henry Ford as the only other museum in the world to receive this award twice. We encourage you to reach out to our staff with your automotive research projects and questions! Also, consider supporting our archive by donating your books, periodicals and research materials either now or in your estate. The Automobile Quarterly Collection is ready for your use!