Roger Penske may open racing museum in downtown Detroit

Automotive industry mogul Roger Penske is exploring opening an auto racing museum in downtown Detroit, where he is already a booster of major projects, including donating for M-1 Rail construction and purchases of police cars and ambulances and staging car races on Belle Isle.

"We're looking at a building downtown," Penske said in a Free Press interview today, "and our thoughts are, 'Can we put an office downtown and maybe put in a museum where we would bring in race cars?'

"We have a number of racing artifacts around the country," Penske added, "but being able to have something downtown might very interesting. I'm not stating that that's going to happen, but that's on the radar."

Asked about the timing for that decision, he replied, "I would say in the next couple months."

Penske, 78, a billionaire whose far-flung business interests include his Team Penske racing operation, the Penske Automotive Group (PAG) of more than 300 dealerships worldwide, and truck leasing and logistics firms, doesn't have any of those entities based in Detroit. The racing team is based in North Carolina, while most of his other business are run from a headquarters office in Bloomfield Hills, not far from his home.

He also has a small Penske Racing Museum with race cars, trophies and memorabilia, located in an automotive dealership mall in Arizona.

In an interview on Belle Isle where the 2015 Chevrolet Belle Isle Grand Prix will take place at the end of this month, Penske said sales and sponsorships for the event are running well ahead of previous years. A charity gala on May 29 is on track to raise more than $800,000, he said, up from $650,000 last year, and revenues from corporate sponsor chalets at trackside are running 10% ahead of last year.

It's all part of the city gaining momentum as a place to invest and do business, he said.

"People have contacted me from across the country wanting to invest," he said. "An individual I know from California bought the Holiday Inn next to the (Westin) Book-Cadillac."

Penske credits collaboration between philanthropic foundations and private sector leaders such as the Ilitch family, Quicken Loans chairman Dan Gilbert and Compuware cofounder Peter Karmanos with driving Detroit's comeback, also helped by cooperation between Mayor Mike Duggan's administration and the Detroit City Council.

"There's rational thinking going on now. There are tough decisions still to be made," he added, "but since I've lived here in the mid-1960s, I've never seen such cooperation."

Penske even reflected briefly on the $240,000 in loans that he, Gilbert, Karmanos and PVS Chemicals chairman James Nicholson had provided to disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to help his family after he resigned from office in 2008 and later served jail time.

"There's was no question that's what we wanted to do," Penske said, "knowing that he was not the man for the job and what he had to face in the future ...The fact was he had a family, a wife and kids and our goal was specifically to support that."

The four businessmen took some public criticism when their roles in Kilpatrick's exit were later revealed. "Obviously, when you read about it in the paper it sounded like a different activity, but it was focused on his family," Penske said.

Penske also praised former Mayor Dave Bing, elected in 2009 after Kilpatrick's exit, for restoring integrity to the office.

"You've got to give Mayor Bing a lot of credit. He came in and actually had to pickup the the ball and run with it," Penske said. "it was a tough time. The city had no capital ... There was not confidence in the mayor's office and the city council. And I think the good news is that Bing was really someone who, during that period of transition, was simply an honest individual who cared about the city, and probably doesn't get the credit he should for taking on the role. Because we needed someone, and we needed someone fast to take on the the mayor's job."

At 78, Penske showed no indication of being ready to step back from his hands-on role as leader of a vast business and sports empire.

"I'm still in the game," he said. "I have fun every day going to work, We have a great company, 50,000 employees now. To me that's a nice thing -- when you have your own organization, they don't kick you out."

Contact Tom Walsh: twalsh@freepress.com, also follow him on Twitter @TomWalsh_freep.