It's not a classic car or parts, but it's a significant element of the auto culture.

The diner -- with its polished aluminum walls, chrome stools and Formica counters -- is as vital to car enthusiasts as gasoline, and soon Hershey's Antique Auto Museum will have one within its walls.

The restored Floinn Cafe will reopen inside the museum April 24 during a ceremony that begins at 2 p.m. Doughnuts and coffee will be served.

The Floinn is named for Florence Fortney, who bought the tiny (eight stools) Valentine Diner in Wichita, Kan., in 1948. Over the next 30 years, the Floinn became a local landmark. It eventually closed in 1984.

A decade later the aluminum building was trucked to San Diego, where it was supposed to become the entrance to a new restaurant, but the plans fell through, leaving the Floinn stranded in southern California.

Car collector Richard Ullman came to the rescue, bought the building and had it shipped to Pennsylvania. He donated the structure to the museum in 2002.

Since then, museum volunteers have been restoring the diner to its 1984 appearance, removing years of caked-on cooking grease and reinstalling the original equipment and dishes.

Patrick Foltz, the museum's executive director, said the restored Floinn is "a time capsule that preserves a piece of post-World War II America. [It] will take visitors back to a time when you could get a hamburger for 15 cents, and talk about how President Eisenhower was handling the Korean Conflict."

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