About THE Bay State Motor Festival
Framingham will be the setting for the inaugural Bay State Motor Festival on Sunday June 8, 2025. This unique car show at historic Cushing Memorial Park, will include an expected display of vehicles of many eras from around Massachusetts. The Festival also will include vintage and classic cars from around the world, including MG, Jaguar, Triumph, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari and more.
There will be a visual exhibit of the rich history of vehicles "Made in Massachusetts" and a special exhibit by the Framingham History Center on the long history of automobile manufacturing in Framingham, and other special exhibitors.
On display will be Framingham-built Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Buicks and Chevys, built at the General Motors plant in Framingham from 1947-1989. The lesser-known Bay State Manufacturing Company built 2500 cars in Framingham from 1922-1925 and the only surviving Bay State sedan will be on display.
Also displayed will be other vehicles made in Massachusetts -- Springfield-built Rolls-Royces, Brewsters, and Indian motorcycles; a Boston 1792 Thayer Hand Pumper; a Waltham-built Metz, a Stanley Steamer and Orient bike and buckboard; Natick-built Northway trucks; Amesbury-built Bailey Electrics; and others.
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The Festival will offer food trucks, vendors, and car club gatherings.
For advance vehicle registrations, sponsorships, exhibitor space, and volunteer sign-up please visit website pages or contact us at baystatemotorfestival@gmail.com
about one of the SPECIAL EXHIBITors
Presented by License Plate Historian, Alan Young
Alan Young, license plate collector and historian of early plates and
registrations, welcomes you to explore his display of the earliest license
plates issued in Massachusetts and associated historical information.
For over 35 years, Alan has built a library of research material and registration listing books that unlock the mysteries of the earliest registrants in Massachusetts cities and towns, including what automobiles they drove and where they lived.
Do you know who the first person was to register an automobile in Framingham or in your town? What year? What street they lived on? You will learn this and more within this interactive display with questions and discussions welcome. As a long-standing member and Colonial Region Director of the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association (ALPCA), if Alan doesn’t have the answer, he'll try to find it for you.
about the festival logo
The Bay State Motor Festival logo gets its heart design from the grille badge on Bay State motor cars manufactured in Framingham from 1922-1925 by the R.H. Long Motor Company. Only one original badge (see below) still exists and it is at the Smithsonian, and a replica was made possible by the Smithsonian taking exacting measurements and photos of the last remaining badge. That reproduction badge is on the 1924 Bay State Model One Sedan pictured above and will be on display at the Festival.
The smaller heart inside the outline of Massachusetts recognizes Framingham as the center of automobile manufacturing in Massachusetts and as the home of the world-renowned Framingham Heart Study.
