WARREN — An actor whose most famous line is, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,’ helped make audiences give one about the National Packard Museum’s annual Motorcycle Exhibit.

The museum’s 25th Motorcycle Exhibit opens Saturday and among the 38 vehicles on display will be at least one motorcycle from each of the 24 previous shows.

This should be the 26th edition. Mary Ann Porinchak, then the new director of the museum, proposed a monthlong bicycle and motorcycle exhibition in the spring of 2000. She was able to get some vintage bicycles, but there were no motorcycles.

“I had two strikes against me,” Porinchak said. “I did it in the spring, when everybody’s riding, and I didn’t know anybody who owned motorcycles. So yeah, you know, for that four weeks, it was like, ‘Oh, man, this just didn’t fly.'”

One of the people who showed up that first year hoping to see motorcycles was Daryl Timko. He told Porinchak if she wanted to try again, he could easily find some vintage motorcycles for her from his and his friends’ collections.

The second year was much more successful, and in the third year Porinchak won over the skeptics who questioned the logic of a motorcycle show at a museum devoted to automobiles. The 2002 show included a vintage Harley-Davidson once owned by actor Clark Gable (1901-1960), a Cadiz, Ohio, native whose films included “Gone with the Wind,” “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “It Happened One Night.”

A line of about 150 people was waiting for the doors to open that first day, and the crowds kept coming throughout the run of the show.

“It was amazing,” Porinichak said. “That’s when one of the board members said, ‘I was wrong. This is a good idea,’ and we never looked back. You still have some staunch Packard people who just don’t believe anything besides the Packard automobiles should be in the museum. But you know, there are always going to be those purists, and that’s okay, but we have operating expenses, and we’ve got to figure that out any way we can.”

While many museums struggle for visitors in the first quarter of the year, particularly those with snowy, wintry weather, the first three months of the year often are the National Packard Museum’s best attendance-wise. It also attracts a younger demographic. Most of the year, the museum sells two discounted senior citizens admissions for every full-priced adult ticket purchased. Those numbers are reversed during the Motorcycle Exhibit.

Jim Iacozilli, chairman of the 25th Motorcycle Exhibit, said they decided early on to bring back motorcycles from those past exhibitions. They also were able to bring back a 1948 motor-equipped Schwinn Whizzer from that first attempt in 2000.

“We have 25 years of history at the Packard Museum, plus we have 25 different manufacturers,” Iacozilli said, 26 counting the 1951 Vincent Black Shadow on display year-round at the museum. “We’ve had over 650 different motorcycles in here over the 25 years. We’ve had some duplicates, but we’ve had over 650 bikes, different bikes, and from collectors from coast to coast.”

Bruce Williams, who’s been involved with the show for decades, said, “People come out of the woodwork asking to put things in.”

And they keep making their motorcycles available because of the care with which they are handled. Iacozilli said one major collector who participated last year for the first time was very cautious and wouldn’t leave until his motorcycle was placed where it would be displayed and tied down.

“This year he comes in a week early, rolls it back and says, ‘Do with it what you want,'” Iacozilli said. “It’s a trust issue.”

For the bikes that have been there before, the signage will contain the logo from that year’s exhibition. Banners also will be hung that give details about each year’s show, including how many visitors came to the museum and how much money was made through admission fees.

“There used to be a lull in our income for the first quarter,” Porinchak said. “Now, the first quarter tends to be the best quarter in terms of admission.”

The National Packard Museum received the Antique Motorcycle Foundation’s Award of Excellence, its highest honor, for its motorcycle event, and it won three consecutive first place awards in the interpretive exhibits category from the National Association of Automobile Museums.

However, the biggest sign of its success may be the number of museums that have tried to duplicate Packard by programming their own motorcycle exhibits.

“It’s amazing how many car museums picked up the idea after we did it and have continued on,” Porinchak said. “25 years later, we’re still going strong, and it has proven to be one of the best special exhibits we’ve done. So I’m really pleased with that, and I’m most especially pleased with the number of volunteers and motorcycle enthusiasts and collectors who are loyal to us and come out every year at their own expense.

“It’s not convenient to come out in January. It’s not convenient to dig your bike out of the garage and clean it up and make it ready for display, but they do it, and we couldn’t be more happy with the results.”

Motorcycle list

Here are the motorcycles featured for the 25th anniversary. In parentheses is the year the bike first appeared:

1948 Whizzer (2000)

1915 Austro-Omega 400-cc V-twin (2001)

1968 Lemon Peeler Schwinn Bicycle (2001)

1950 BMW R51 Twin Cam (2002)

1957 NSU Maxi 175 (2003)

1926 Harley-Davidson Peashooter (2004)

1998 Ducati 748 (2005)

1967 Triumph 500 (2006)

1938 Brough Superior SS-80 (2007)

1984 Yamaha RZ-350 (2008)

1902 Sylvester & Jones (2009)

1951 Ariel Red Hunter (2010)

1936 Nimbus Sport (2011)

1975 MZ 250 (2012)

1939 Indian Scout (2013)

1937 BSA Y-13 V-Twin (2014)

1962 BMW R-27 ISDT (2015)

1965 Vespa 165 (2016)

1970 BSA Victor (2017)

1947 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead (2018)

1975 Penton KTM 250 ISDT (2019)

1912 Indian Single Racer (2020)

Riddle Thor (2021)

1955 Norton Dominator 88 (2022)

1974 Kawasaki H1 500cc (2023)

1936 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead (2024)

Motorcycles being shown for the first time are:

1928 German Standard BS-500

1977 Yamaha IT 250E

1973 BMW R75/5

2000 Harley-Davidson FXR4

2001 Honda RC 51

1971 Honda Z50

1950 Riedel Imme R-100

1976 Husqvarna 250 WR

1954 Simplex 1/4 ton truck

1913 Pope over head valve

1948 Harley-Davidson Servicar

1951 Vincent Black Shadow

If you go …

WHAT: 25th Motorcycle Exhibit

WHEN: Saturday through May 31. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

WHERE: National Packard Museum, 1899 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren

HOW MUCH: Admission is $10 for adults, $9 for military, $8 for senior citizens, $5 for children ages 7 to 12 and free for children 6 and younger. For more information, go to packardmuseum.org or call 330-394-1899.