A Shared Passion
An automotive museum and a prestigious car show have a great deal in common. They are both places where enthusiasts gather to admire the objects of their technical and aesthetic admiration. They are both places where enthusiasts can take away lessons from the past even as they derive inspiration for the future. And they are both places where dreamers can let their imaginations soar. And while they most often provide a combination of all of these intangibles, they do so in strikingly different ways and leave the public with strikingly different experiences.
An automotive museum and a prestigious car show have a great deal in common. They are both places where enthusiasts gather to admire the objects of their technical and aesthetic admiration. They are both places where enthusiasts can take away lessons from the past even as they derive inspiration for the future. And they are both places where dreamers can let their imaginations soar. And while they most often provide a combination of all of these intangibles, they do so in strikingly different ways and leave the public with strikingly different experiences.
Temporary and ephemeral, prestigious car shows are movable feasts of automotive confections spread out like a Sunday brunch buffet at a yacht club. Attendees at such events are invited to stroll by and partake visually of whatever captures their attention, “consuming” as much as they desire. And while attendees at other, less formal events share the same enthusiasm for the vehicles they have gathered to celebrate, those at gatherings such as The Quail have a different approach to enjoyment that is augmented by their desire to transcend the ordinary. And like with the traditional car shows of the classic era, attendees manifest their exuberance vividly with their choice of apparel.
In dire contrast to a prestigious car show, a museum is a permanent entity with an enduring, explicit mandate to collect, preserve, and interpret in a way that has more to do with a time and place in history than with the tastes and preferences of a single collector or panel of experts. Yet even among museums, those that pursue automotive history stand alone. Whereas most other cultural artifacts like impressionist paintings and Art Deco sculptures can be enjoyed simply by being viewed, automobiles have a functional dimension that can only be understood when they are operated. To do so responsibly, automobile museums regularly seize the opportunity to participate in concours around the world where their vehicles can be driven in controlled environments in the company of individuals with a manifest respect for their place in history.
The partnership between The Quail and the Petersen Automotive Museum is an outgrowth of such a shared approach to automobile connoisseurship and a desire to meet the appropriately high expectations of participants and visitors. It is a symbiotic relationship that formed naturally over the course of a few short years and now resonates with aficionados from all walks of life. And as expanding public tastes have prompted the Petersen Automotive Museum to explore roadgoing history beyond traditional boundaries, The Quail has also embraced present day public tastes by welcoming categories of vehicles often shunned at more traditional gatherings.
Today a philosophy of inclusiveness prevails at many high profile automotive museums and at important gatherings such as The Quail. And the Petersen Automotive Museum is delighted once again to collaborate with The Quail, which has embraced the ideals of inclusiveness this year by presenting an important grouping of vehicles relating to Hollywood history, both those that appeared on camera and those that were used by the celebrities themselves in their daily lives. Such a fresh approach is destined to inspire organizers of other events to expand their reach into the community and reawaken our excitement for motoring that, whether we realize it or not, is shared by virtually everyone.