A visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum

The largest city in California is probably the last place you would expect to celebrate the past. But bright and shiny downtown Los Angeles has a thriving museum district — Museum Row — situated on the famed Wilshire Boulevard.

Across the road from the LA County Museum of Art and the George C Page Museum of Tar Pit Discoveries is the Petersen Automotive Museum. Perhaps it's less cohesive than the Henry Ford Museum, over on the other side of the country, but as a showcase for American car culture, it's important and relevant — and as a facility that has only been operating since 1994, the Petersen is pretty well conceived. It's a living, breathing work in progress, thanks to its benefactor, Robert E. Petersen. Petersen and his wife Margie, have sunk US $30 million into the facility.

Open to the public every day except Monday, the museum dedicates one whole level to the May Discovery Centre, which aims to educate kids about things automotive. Our child education specialist on the trip gave the Discovery Centre and its interactive exhibits the thumbs up for being interesting and easily understood, rating it 8 out of 10.

But if you gave up rolling 1:64 die-cast cars across hardwood floors years ago, the museum's real point of distinction is its diverse range of exhibits, including dioramas from the early years of the 20th Century, a Supercars collection, Hollywood cars and alternative energy vehicles.

The dioramas include a typical home with a 1927 Willys-Knight parked in the driveway and a southern Californian Chevrolet dealer from the same period, with Fords and Chevs parked in the street. It's from a later period, but the museum also displays a hot-rodder's garage from the 50s.

You have to go a long way to see a collection of Supercars worth quite as much as Petersen's. Among the exotics there you'll find a Jaguar XJ220, a Bugatti Veyron, Maserati MC12, Ferraris F40 and F50, Lamborghini Countach — and even a Bizzarrini Manta from the early 1970s.

Petersen wouldn't be an American museum without some tribute to hot rods and drag racing. Among the best were one of customiser Boyd Coddington's creations, which resembles a 30s-era rod finished in yellow, but built by hand with modern mechanicals underneath. There were all sorts of cars to tickle the fancy of rodders, including an early 32 Ford in black built by Doane Spencer, contributor to Rod and Custom Magazine. A startling T-Bucket was powered by a V16 engine – essentially two 5.0-litre Chevy V8s in tandem.

A prominent drag racing exhibit featured rails, pro-stock and funny cars from decades past. The museum also provided an interactive display that allowed you the driver to find out how fast your reaction times were when the christmas tree changed to green.

Street machines included a lowered 1958 Oldsmobile in bronze and Billy Gibbons' 1962 Chev. Gibbons, guitarist for ZZ Top and occasional actor, is what the Americans call a 'gearhead' and has a sizeable collection of cars in his own right. His Chevy is on loan to the museum.

In the alternative fuel section of the museum, there's everything to see, from a Chrysler gas-turbine prototype to a charcoal-burning Chevy truck. Ford's electric Focus is already on display there.

Mattel has a Hot Wheels exhibit within the museum, promoting the toy maker's long history manufacturing die-cast model cars – even incorporating a display illustrating the process of taking a design from scale model to production reality.

Hollywood cars included the Hannibal 8, which was hand-built for the Blake Edwards comedy, 'The Great Race'. Forget Doc Brown's Delorean, the Hannibal 8 is the quintessential automotive oddity on film. Driven by Jack Lemon (playing villainous Professor Fate) and his sidekick Max (Peter Falk), the Hannibal 8 featured its own on-board cannon and an electrically heated prong to melt snow in colder climes, and could lay down a smokescreen — a couple of years before similar ideas (machine guns and oil slicks) were floated for James Bond's Aston-Martin in 'Goldfinger'.

Of the other Hollywood cars on display, Clark Gable's 1941 Cadillac, the Batmobile (the one from the 1989 Tim Burton film), Speed Racer's Mk 5 from the eponymous film and Lindsay Lohan's 'Herbie' respectively took pride of place.

Cars that, like Gibbons' Chev and Gable's Caddy, are famous for their owners rather than in themselves, were the 1939 Packard convertible of Juan and Evita Peron, and Elton John's 1948 Delahaye.

And finally, there were cars (vehicles?) that defied easy categorisation. Consider, for instance, the Green Monster — Art Arfons' world land-speed record-setting jet car from the 1960s. There isn't enough room for it inside the building, so it's placed in the undercover car park outside, roped off from the other parking spots! What a fate for a record-breaker.

Also out in the car park is a custom-built 1938 REO truck chassis with a cab-forward body. It's a relatively short-wheelbase truck employing the first known instance of a fifth wheel and an articulated 'Vagabond' trailer to provide accommodation. We would describe it as a caravan... Unlike modern fifth-wheel rigs, the REO could not be disconnected from the trailer; it was a permanent coupling.

Both a Ghia design concept — the Explorer, which is based on a 1954 Plymouth — and a Type 57 Bugatti somehow seem slightly out of place among the Americana...

Complementing the exhibits throughout the museum, there's a merchandise store on the first floor of the Museum and naturally it sells Hot Wheels — plus a range of intriguing books and must-have memorabilia. And should hunger hit hard, visitors can always retire to the Johnny Rockets hamburger café on the same floor.

For more information, check out the museum's website: http://www.petersen.org/default.cfm?docid=1316

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