Driving through the Little Ethiopia neighborhood of Los Angeles, you’ll find the Petersen. One of the greatest auutomotive museums in the world, the museum was founded on in 1994, by magazine publisher Robert Petersen, and in 2015, the Petersen moved to its current location. The building on Wilshire Blvd has a distinctive facade of 100 tons of stainless-steel ribbons. The interior of the building accommodates changing exhibits, and during a recent visit, Demaras Racing observed the following:
EXOTICS
A vast collection of exotics (many of Italian origin) were on display including the one of a kind Ferrari Monza, plus cars from Pagani, Bugatti and the KODE 57 by designer Ken Okuyama (who helped design the legendary Ferrari Enzo).
TV and MOVIE CARS
A real flux-capacitor can be seen inside a ‘Back to the Future‘ DeLorean, a 90’s era Batmobile from the Tim Burton films, and a Torpedo from ‘Tucker: The Man and His Dream‘ represent the Hollywood side of the car world.
RACE CARS
A special room displaying historic McLaren F1, Can-Am and sports cars was a real highlight. The top car, of course, was Fernando Alonso’s No. 14 McLaren Renault grand prix car.
CLASSIC CARS
A nod to the past with displays of classics like Jaguar E-Type, an Alpine racer based on the A100 produced from 1963 to 1977, and a special section showing various DeTomaso cars from the 1970s
HOT RODS
The late Robert E. Petersen (born in east L.A., but of Danish descent) built a publishing empire on car magazines including Car Craft, Motor Trend, and Hot Rod Magazine. This was his museum, and many of the cars from his personal collection are housed here. A special section of the museum is dedicated to early hot rods, and the importance of Hot Rod Magazine to California car culture.
To many gearheads, California my seem like a kind of “Xanadu” or the centre of car culture. One trip to the Petersen will convince you that it is all true. If you find yourself in southern California, make sure to visit the Petersen Automotive Museum at 6060 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, USA.