It was a case of old-fashioned community engagement writ large, in a huge project driven by car enthusiasts with a remarkable vision.
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The new Cooma Car Museum, which opened this weekend in Bolaro Street, is more than just a collection of beautiful, rare vehicles and automobilia; it's also a bigger story about a group of people and their combined drive and determination over 12 long years.
Back in 2009, some members of the Cooma Car Club noticed a local indoor cricket stadium was coming up for sale.
The steel building was pretty much perfect for a museum: a huge, roofed area unfettered by internal stanchions or support posts, with an upstairs gymnasium and a huge downstairs area which now is the main display floor with a reproduced 1950s style service station - Montague Motors, named a former life member who has now passed away - at one end.
But at the time of purchase, it was looking the worst for wear and needed gutting completely to even fulfil the basic requirements of a museum.
As projects go, this was as ambitious as it gets.
What happened next was Cooma's car-loving residents' equivalent of a local men's shed, but on a much, much bigger scale.
Rogan Corbett, the president of the Cooma Car Club, said the entire club membership - from teenagers to the men in their 90s - pulled together to make it happen and injected their own cash and time. Ross Johnson is the oldest club member at 94.
"We are truly blessed down here. We have 178 family memberships and they are just a great bunch of people; they are really engaged and motivated," Mr Corbett said.
"We've got people in the club with so many different skillsets and every one who could contribute did so. We've got engineers, IT specialists. You name it and they can do it.
"The first big effort was borrowing the money to buy the building but we paid it off in five years and after that, it was just a matter of everyone pitching in with working bees and doing what they could."
The Cooma area is steeped in car history dating back to the turn of the century, with the first car introduced to the town in 1908.
One of the most interesting pewter trophies held at the museum is from a local hillclimb in 1913, when cars raced from the centre of town and up a winding dirt track - now the Monaro Highway - past Flynn's wrecking yard and finishing at the old Traveller's Rest hotel just over the hill. Staged as as fundraiser for the local Presbyterian Church, the race was won by an aero-engined Napier.
The new museum is already attracting huge interest from all around the region, including the ACT and the NSW South Coast, with its large downstairs area already attracting bookings for events and dinners. Much of the funds raised from events will go to local charities.
"Cooma is really undergoing a resurgence at the moment with the Snowy Hydro project happening and lots of other projects underway," Mr Corbett said.
"It's wonderful to see the community spirit back in the town and the museum has created a great focus for that."