ABOUT THE MARCONI

Our Story

In the late 1950s, Dick Marconi moved to California from Gary, Indiana with his wife, Dorothy and their 18-month old son, John, driving a 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air pulling a retired U-Haul trailer. Armed with an MBA and $500 to his name, he set out to create a better life for his growing family. He was passionate about health and fitness and believed that preventative medicine and nutrition was the way of the future and boy was he right. In his career, together with John, they built one of the largest nutritional manufacturing companies in the world providing vitamins and food supplements for the nation.

John always had the need for speed starting as early as 6 years old racing go-karts and minibikes and driving anything with wheels or a motor. As the manufacturing companies grew, so did the ability to race more classes, which sparked the start of the Marconi Racing team. John was well known in the racing circuit and won many a battle in Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, Formula 5000, GTP, GTU and Ferrari. John soon convinced Dick to join him in racing and Dick joined the SCCA at 57 and was the oldest driver to ever race in the Long Beach Grand Prix.

As passionate collectors of all things automotive, they started purchasing cars and motorcycles that reflected their unique taste over the course of 40 years. In order to house their collection and race team, they purchased our now museum building in Tustin, California in the early 1990s. The building was a former salad oil manufacturing plant that needed quite a bit of work. Together, they cleaned it up and renovated it to suit their needs and moved in the collection and race team.

After a few years, the manufacturing business was really taking off and they lost the time for racing and opted to retire, leaving a big building full of cars and motorcycles that weren’t being shared with anyone. Dick and John decided to turn it into an automotive museum and donate the building and collection to start the Marconi Foundation for Kids. Now the building is home to a collection of over 100 vehicles worth approximately $70 million, growing every year, consisting of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, muscle cars, race cars, motorcycles and memorabilia.

The Marconi Automotive Museum and Foundation for Kids is an auto museum, event venue, and a nonprofit for children. Our mission is to help raise awareness for at-risk youth in our community. The Marconi Foundation for Kids is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that donates a portion of net proceeds from hosted events and museum visitors to children’s charities and organizations. We host fundraisers, toy drives, car events, educational tours and more, all to benefit charities throughout Orange County. Thanks for helping us help kids!