They later widened the Sports Car Club of America's focus to race promotion and preservation. While Collier closed his Automotive Museum in 1994, in 2010, he opened the REVS Institute for Automotive Research in its place -- complete with a million piece automotive history library.

And, now, by teaming up with Stanford University, researchers are examining those vintage vehicles while also learning directly from racing’s top drivers to make cars smarter. Their ultimate goal is to create a safer and more enjoyable driving experience for consumers.

Three mechanical engineering students first placed sensors in the engine of a 1966 Ford GT40 racecar a month ago, at the REVS Institute. They’ll take the car to the Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida at the end of February to test how it handles and how drivers interact with it.

Stanford research associate and neuroscientist Lena Harbott will get involved at the track where she’ll place electrodes onto the driver’s scalp. She’s already studying the brain waves of a Porshe driver she watched at California’s Laguna Seca track last spring to gather a variety of data including how a driver responds to the car. What does it actually mean if a driver loves to drive a particular car?

“What does that actually mean in terms of how hard they have to work mentally, how stressed they are mentally and so on,” she questions. “When they’re concentrating and starting to go into a turn do those brain activity patterns really look like what they do in a more theoretical environment?”

The partnership between REVS - or Research into the Evolution of the Vehicle in Society and Stanford began last spring when Collier, a Naples philanthropist and businessman, gave a large donation to Stanford to highlight the automobile as the single most important technological device of the 20^th and 21^st century. 

“It’s our civilization, our culture, our society made into an object. And the tale of the automobile since 1886 is really the tale of the western developed world and from that standpoint is one of the most fascinating objects ever made,” said Collier.

The plans are for Collier to allow REVS Institute at Stanford students to study the vintage cars – beginning with the Ford GT40 race car, to digitize the vast library collection, and to create an interdisciplinary approach to the automobile at the university. For example, Stanford mechanical engineering professor and director for automotive research Chris Gerdes is teaching a class on mechanical systems design this quarter.

Other classes include one in art history on the car in film and urban studies on the impact of the car on the development of cities. Harbott is thrilled to be working at the REVS Institute at Stanford. Her enthusiasm comes from marrying her neuroscience background with her love for classic cars.

“Where I grew up in England we’re not far from Silverstone which of course is home of the British grand prix,” she said. “And, we used to go very frequently in the summers to watch the vintage car meets there ever since I was small and it was just such a treat because it was something that my sister and I did with our dad.”

We can learn a lot from vintage cars especially through racing, said Gerdes.

“Some of these cars that we’re studying have reputations of being the best handling cars ever. These are things that drivers rave about. And the question is why? If they sit in a museum you don’t get answers to that,” he said. “You can look at them and see, well alright, that’s a nice looking car but unless it’s out on the track and you’re testing it you really don’t get the sort of insight into what was so special about that car.”

Gerdes said their industry partners are curious if they can use what the REVS research discovers to help design safer cars that are more fun and more helpful.  For example, said Harbott, what if a new car is no longer a challenge for you to drive?

“So perhaps the car, if it had access to these brain data that tells the car “oh I’m finding this less challenging” for example the car could adjust some of its mechanics to make it a little bit more challenging again,” she said. “If the car had access to brain data that we find shows frustration or whatever perhaps the car would put some soothing music on or tone down some of the mechanical aspects.”

The only similar work Harbott said she knows of concentrates on drowsy drivers. This work will create vehicles wired to help drivers in bad weather, or a driver who is not confident, or one apt to lose focus according to Harbott, “and the car knew that the focus was drifting then absolutely. Play a beep, say wake up, look at the road ahead.” 

Meanwhile, Gerdes said he believes their work with the vintage cars and racing drivers will pay off in the near future by putting intelligent cars on the road. He said he’s thrilled with the new focus.  After all, when he’s not teaching at Stanford he’s a race car owner, crew chief and driving coach – albeit for his 10-year-old son’s quarter midgets race car.