Petersen vault a time capsule of classic cars
Sun journalist gets rare chance to see and shoot photos of the L. A. museum’s hidden treasures
‘ S o, where exactly did Elvis shoot this thing?”
“Right here.” AJ Gordon, digital content manager for the Petersen Automotive Museum points to the interior of a custard- yellow 1971 DeTomaso Pantera. There, sure enough, is a bullet groove in the top of the steering wheel.
One day, so the story goes, The King jumped in this low- slung Pantera after a fight with Linda Thompson, whom he’d bought the car for. Intending to leave the scene in a massive, emphatic burnout, Presley’s tantrum was foiled when the car wouldn’t start. Enraged, he leaped out and blasted it with his revolver.
We’re deep below the level of the Los Angeles streets, far from the faded compact sedans and shiny crossovers jockeying for position. Here, in what’s essentially a concrete parking garage, the Petersen museum keeps about half of its 300 vehicles, sometimes held in limbo between exhibits, sometimes simply preserved for posterity.
If you’re a gearhead, this glimpse at the Petersen’s hidden collection is like getting access to the warehouse seen at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s a peek behind the curtain now provided to members of the public, with several guided tours a day for very small groups.
Photography is not ordinarily allowed, and there are areas still tantalizingly out of reach, with open doors leading to rooms filled with cars shrouded in protective coverings. However, I did get permission to shoot a few examples of these tucked- away classics — with a Canon, not a Smith & Wesson.
The Petersen museum sits on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, one end of the Miracle Mile. Formerly a 1960s Japanese department store, it’s a huge, windowless, concrete building.
After it sat dormant for years, Robert E. Petersen hit upon the site as a possible location for the headquarters of his publishing group. The son of a mechanic, Petersen had founded Hot Rod magazine in the winter of 1947 and built a vast magazine empire that grew to include Car Craft, Motorcyclist, and Motor Trend.
While the bunker- like construction of the former department store didn’t lend itself well to an office, it was perfect for a museum. Petersen and his wife, noted philanthropists, put forward the lion’s share of the funds necessary to get an automotive museum up and running at the site. After just three years of construction, the Petersen opened its doors in 1994 as a non- profit organization devoted to car culture and the classic automobile.
The regular collection is well worth the trip alone, and features many unique vehicles along its “Streetscape” display. Conceived as a way to display cars in something other than a roped- off parking lot, the Streetscape shows early tanker trucks refilling a gas station, or a 1930s showroom filled with Packards and Dusenbergs. It is, quite literally, a walk down memory lane.
Upstairs, a number of rotating collections show various automotive themes — at the time of visiting, the Petersen featured displays on Hot Wheels, the culture of the open- topped Town Car, and pickup trucks. A small group of schoolchildren were sitting rapt as a mustachioed docent talked them through the history of the electric car, saying, “What’s old, is new again.” A free bus service is offered to schools to encourage kids to engage in the various educational programs run by the Petersen.
Entrance to the vault will set you back $ 25 on top of the regular entrance fee, and it includes a 90- minute tour of whatever happens to be accessible at the moment. The cars are tidied up to be presentable, but some aren’t restored, and some are, in fact, brittle relics.
Compared to the polish of the upper- storey displays, it’s even a bit more interesting, and the machines themselves are scarcely to be believed. Sitting next to Elvis’ Pantera is the red Ferrari 308 GTS that was used by Tom Selleck in the TV show Magnum, P. I.
As Selleck was so tall, the Ferrari had its seat removed from the frame rails and bolted directly to the floor. This car is clean on the outside, but the interior looks untouched.
Other movie cars include a convertible VW Beetle used in the second Austin Powers movie. Painted in shagadelic swirls, the car actually predates production convertible Beetles and had to be custom- made.
There are numerous other custom machines on display, all representing the unique car culture of Southern California. SoCal hot rods produced by Big Daddy Ed Roth sit alongside George Barris movie cars, including a ’ 48 Ford Coupe that John Travolta fans will recognize.
It’s not just show- business either. Also tucked away is a custommade Cadillac Pope- mobile ( unused as it had an open top), as well as a pair of MercedesBenz 600 limousines. The brown, short wheelbase version belonged to Jack Nicholson. The black version with jutting footpegs for bodyguards belonged to Saddam Hussein, and was smuggled through Jordan.
Back around the corner, past endless rows of shop manuals and spare parts, is the Petersen’s maintenance workshop. Two cars are undergoing servicing, one of them a bright blue little Michelotti Shellette with wicker seats. It is one of only 10 remaining.
Naturally, you’d have a hard time seeing past the stunning black 1925 Rolls- Royce that’s occupying centre stage. Brought back from the brink after being found in a junkyard in the 1950s, the round- doored car was a favourite of Robert E. Petersen, and its custom Jonckheere aerodynamic styling is menacing. One of Tim Burton’s Batmobiles is upstairs, but park it next to this thing and the movie car would look like a Yugo.
The sound of banging and hammering interrupts too much further chat, as behind a partition construction is well underway on the next era for the museum. A massive renovation is planned in this 20th anniversary year, and to raise funds, some of the collection has been sold off.
Raising the ire of some classic car enthusiasts, the selling of vehicles like an early Bugatti Veyron and a Ferrari F40 and F50 has nonetheless provided some of the funds to expand and refine the museum. The new exterior will be breathtaking, a flame- surfaced design that’s part hot- rod paint job and part mesh grille.
While the new space will include an expanded number of vehicles on permanent display, some of these will be on loan from other museums like the nearby Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard.
With even more rotating exhibits planned, and people calling up with cars to donate every day, space to store part of the collection will still be required. The vault will remain a feature of the new Petersen, and for now at least, they’ll let you have a peek.