Anderson, the wife of R.E. Olds’ oldest grandson, was too pleased to worry and smiled as a bit of her family’s heritage rolled slowly down a southeastern ramp from its Spartan Stadium storage room. The 109-year-old car was ceremoniously moved from its home at MSU to the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum, 240 Museum Drive, in Lansing, on Tuesday on loan from the MSU Museum.

R.E. Olds has been called the founder of both the Lansing and the U.S. auto industry and has strong ties to MSU.

“It’s wonderful that they’re bringing (the car) back (out),” Anderson said. “They need publicity on it because it’s a rare thing to have.”

Anderson, who is one of several of Olds’ relatives, was among about 20 other people who came out to see his personal Oldsmobile loaded into a trailer and delivered to the Transportation Museum in a caravan, along with multiple other antique Oldsmobiles.

She said her husband would have loved the chance to see the car.

“The Olds family is kind of like the royalty of the automobile industry,” Mike Nila, a member of the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum board of directors and an MSU technician, said. “It’s a very cool thing to have them here.”

But for MSU Museum Curator of History Val Berryman, the excitement went beyond the family’s and the auto maker’s prestige.

“Other than an antique car rally, you’re not going to see four Oldsmobiles from around 1901 to 1903 in the same place, so that’s pretty neat,” Berryman said. “For me, it’s (exciting) that I get to ride in a Curved Dash Oldsmobile.”

Berryman was one of few able to ride in one of the Oldsmobiles in the caravan. Anderson was allowed to ride in the car that helped guide the Curved Dash down the ramp, and her grandson, Gregg Stephens, helped push the car down the more difficult parts of the ramp. The antique car does not run and has very old, and perhaps not reliable, breaks, according to those orchestrating the move.

Debbie Stephens, the great-granddaughter of Olds, said she was not surprised by the condition of the car because of how long it had been in storage, but is excited to not only have the car on display again, but to have it under the museum’s “tender, love and care.”

“I feel great about this — that my son and I are here to represent the family and that this is something that we can help Lansing be proud of, with its automotive history, and bring it to light so that people don’t forget,” Debbie Stephens said.

For her son, Gregg Stephens, not only did the move bring light to a piece of automotive history, but it brought him a feeling of closeness to his great-great-grandfather, R.E. Olds.

“Here I am, well over 100 years later, and I’m still helping to push his legacy forward, whether that be actually forward or down a ramp,” Gregg Stephens said. “It’s really terrific that we can still have this much interest this far later after he’s passed … It means a lot for myself and for the family.”