Week 132: Petersen Automotive Museum
- elenalilamartin
- Jul 14, 2025
- 4 min read
Week 132: July 6th-12th, 2025
This week, we celebrated my boyfriend’s birthday by visiting Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. He is the biggest car lover I know, and for his birthday present, I got us tickets. I went all out with the VIP experience and our tickets included a Vault tour, a Shop tour, and all-day museum access.
Since the Vault tour started at 9:30am, we left San Diego by 7am to make sure we got there on time. Thankfully, there wasn’t any traffic on the way up. The Petersen Automotive Museum building is on Fairfax, right by LACMA and Miracle Mile. The building was hard to miss, because it is bright red with silver wavy designs.
We checked in at the front desk at 9:20am, and had some time to check out the lobby before the tour started. They even validated our parking (it ended up being free instead of $25!) and handed us our badges.
Our footsteps echoed as we walked around the massive lobby and peered into the gift shop. They had a couple cars scattered around the lobby, ranging from a multi-million dollar F-1 winner's car to futuristic concept cars and milestone inventions.
Our tour guide was named Bill. Bill was an older guy with an affinity for old Chevrolets. We spent a lot longer in the Vault around the 1920s-50s cars because Bill had so much to share with us. It was fun to hear a bunch of fun facts about Enzo Ferrari and the Dodge Brothers, and how Ford made a fortune at the beginning of the combustion engine era.
There were hundreds of cars in the Vault, and I found myself pointing and going "Ooh, look at that one!" quite often. I especially enjoyed seeing the Popemobile, and some really cool custom interiors on some convertibles.
After a while, the tour of the Vault felt like it was dragging on, and I could tell everyone else in the tour group was getting a bit antsy. People were wandering off a bit further and looking at other cars while Bill presented. Despite my waning ability to stand still and listen, I tried to stay close to the front of the group, so Bill would not feel discouraged by the shortening attention span of the other adults around us. I've included some of my favorite cars that we saw in the Vault below.
After we wrapped up in the Vault, we quickly checked out the new BMW exhibit before heading to the Shop. Bill said BMW, like many other car companies, sent their own guys out to educate the docents and set up the BMW exhibit, which was cool.
Compared to the Vault tour, the tour of the Shop was shorter than expected because they were hosting a workshop for detailing. This one was sponsored by Sonax, but Bill told us that they have all sorts of companies come and partner with Petersen to promote automotive education. He mentioned that the high cost of our tour tickets went back into the community, as the museum does a lot of outreach to underprivileged communities in LA County.
We didn't want to get in their way, and it was a bit loud in there, so after a brief blurb from Bill and a peek at their detailing class, the Shop tour ended and we all were free to explore the rest of the museum.
Apart from the Vault and the Shop, there are three floors of the museum itself. The third floor, where we started our self-guided tour, was about History. The second floor was about Industry, and the first floor was about Artistry. There were exhibits about tires, self-driving car technology, and the culture of car customization. It was a well-curated space, and I kept thinking about how crazy it was to have so many iconic (and expensive!) cars in one building. I hope they have insurance!
Some more iconic cars that mean a lot to me specifically, get a special shoutout: Sharpay Evans' pink Honda convertible from High School Musical, the Chevy truck Bella drives in Twilight, and America's beloved Lightning McQueen, from Cars.
I loved all of the exhibits, but especially the Totally Awesome! one. It explored cars from the 80s and 90s and highlighted the intersection between popular culture, personal expression, and automobiles. They also had the famous DMC DeLorean that Marty McFly drives in Back to the Future, as well as Ferris Bueller's dad's iconic red 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder.
The museum didn't just have cars on display. There were motorbikes, tires, racecar drivers' suits, and an entire exhibit for racing icon Ken Block. They also had a small room full of art inspired by cars, which was a fun addition.
Bonus: I even made a car-themed birthday card for my boyfriend, featuring one of his favorite Corvette models, the C6.
I love museums, especially ones that are different like Petersen. Even though it took us almost four hours to get home (I love traffic, don't you!?), I plan to venture back up to LA to explore some more when I get a chance.
See you next week.
Comments