The Brundage family made its way from central Pennsylvania to Pleasant Valley at the southern tip of Keuka, one of New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes, in 1803 to begin many generations of family farmers. An early member was born in Pennsylvania in 1794 moved with his family and fought in the War of 1812. Upon his return he expanded his farm to 600 acres. That family homestead is now a substantial part of Urbana, further south in the valley. Several generations of the Brundage homestead families attained a remarkable degree of education and went on to public service. Concurrently, while a blight was destroying European vineyards, the family joined with American vintners and planted a section of the property in vines. Orson Brundage (1858-1946) left farming to join a grocery store in Penn Yan at the north end of the lake before purchasing the Rose Grocery in 1894 in the village of Hammondsport on the tip of Keuka Lake and launching a new line of Brundage
entrepreneurs.

One of the clever local boys began playing the engines, frameworks and wheels shortly after the turn of the century. By 1907 Glenn Hammond Curtiss went 136.3 mph on a V-8 motorcycle of his own creation while he was preparing his flying machine for its July 4, 1907 debut, and the first public flight of over 1 kilometer. Noise and speed continued through the Curtiss experimentation around the lake until November 1914. A contract for light 2-man training aircraft and the demand that began as the U.S. joined the war in Europe, Curtiss moved his manufacturing to an abandoned auto manufacturing plant in Buffalo, with experimentation to a facility in Garden City, NJ.
By 1920 Curtiss was finished the airplane business, cashed out and followed a fellow motorist and high achiever to the Atlantic coast of Florida. Carl Fisher had opened his Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1911, offered a detailed map book to his recently completed east-west route across America as the Lincoln Highway in 1912, repeated the challenge with his north-south route as the Dixie Highway, and — at its terminus — created a vacation village on a small island off the coast of Florida he called Miami Beach. Curtiss purchased a 2.9 square-miles of property inland from the island and began developing Miami Springs.

After WWII, Ira Brundage followed the Hammondsport celebrity and settled in his family in Curtiss’s, now thriving, country club community. Ira entered his prewar ARCA Ford V8-powered boat-tailed Duesenberg roadster in the 1950 Palm Beach road races in his inspiring the family’s future. Son Hubert built a VW special racing roadster and with his brother Jack, finished eleventh in the 1952 Sebring 12-hour race. By 1953 Hubert partnered with Glenn Curtiss to establish a “hobby-shop of imported cars” and secured a VW dealership that was soon called Brundage Motors Inc. in Miami Springs. He relocated his franchise to Jacksonville in 1955 while his son Jan was racing the first Porsche Carrera Speedster in competition outside Europe at Nassau that year. Hubert was offered the Porsche distributorship for three states; he responded with a new name: Brumos Porsche, using the business Telex address: BRUndage MOtorS. The following year Jan co-drove the first Brumos Racing Porsche Spyder in the 12 Hours of Sebring. Porsche awarded him its distributorship for the southeastern United States in 1959 and BMI was established in the Jacksonville location.
Hubert Brundage was killed in a road accident in 1964. His friend Peter Gregg purchased the company retaining the Brumos Porsche name and adding to its legacy — while creating a new one: dealership chief executives who race — with conviction. After his death in 1980 Gregg’s wife selected Bob Snodgrass, President of Brumos Racing, and trusted team member, to lead the dealership as President and CEO as well. Brumos Porsche has logged 8 wins in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Snodgrass was a team driver for 3.

From 1990 to 2015 Dan Davis was owner of Brumos Motor cars and Brumos Racing and — not incidentally, chairman of Winn-Dixie supermarket chain of 495 locations in the southeastern United States. Both of these are now under new management and Davis is happily retired with a fantastic collection of cars and beautiful new Museum to share with Brumos fans from across motor racing world.
“My proudest moment was our overall win in the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona in 2009 (repeated in 2010). It’s a long way from driving a 1950 Mercury dirt track car in 1964 to owning a team that wins the Daytona 24. It’s a tribute to first rate drivers and dedicated team members.”
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