Petersen Automotive Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Petersen Automotive Museum

Northwestern elevation, 2015
Established	June 11, 1994; 31 years ago (1994-06-11)
Location	6060 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, California United States
Type	Automotive museum

The Petersen Automotive Museum is a super cool place in Los Angeles, California. It's one of the biggest museums in the world dedicated to cars! You can find it on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile neighborhood. This museum is a non-profit organization. It teaches people all about the history of cars and how they work.

History of the Museum

The Petersen Automotive Museum opened its doors on June 11, 1994. It was started by a magazine publisher named Robert E. Petersen and his wife, Margie. They spent $40 million to create this amazing museum.

The museum first started inside the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Later, it moved to a special building. This building was designed by Welton Becket and opened in 1962. It used to be a department store. Robert Petersen chose this building because it had very few windows. This was perfect for a museum. It meant that the old and valuable cars would not be damaged by direct sunlight.

In 2014 and 2015, the museum got a huge makeover. It cost $125 million to make it look new and exciting. The outside of the building was completely changed. It now has cool stainless-steel ribbons. These ribbons are made from 100 tons of steel! The inside was also updated to make space for new themes and exhibits. The newly designed museum opened to the public on December 7, 2015.

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  The museum before its big makeover in 2015

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  A Porsche Carrera GT concept car at the museum

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  A classic Boss Ampm Monster Truck hanging from the wall

What You Can See: Exhibits and Collection

The Petersen Automotive Museum has more than 100 vehicles on display. These cars are spread out in 25 different galleries. The museum also has a special "vault" in the basement. This vault holds even more cars! You need to be a certain age and pay a bit extra to see the vault collection.

The ground floor of the museum is all about car art. It shows off many fancy and beautiful cars. The second floor focuses on how cars are made. You can learn about car design and how they perform. There are also fun, interactive exhibits to help you learn. This floor also has special displays about racing, motorcycles, and custom cars. The third floor tells the story of cars through history. It especially focuses on the car culture in Southern California.

Cool Exhibits You Might See

Some of the awesome exhibits the museum has shown include:

• A big Porsche exhibit, which featured one of only two 1939 Porsche 64s ever made.
• An exhibit about the history of Japanese cars. Many cars came from collections in Japan.
• A display of small, powered racecars made for children.
• A year-long exhibit to celebrate 75 years of the carmaker Porsche.
• A large Tesla motors exhibit from 2022 to 2024. It showed many Tesla vehicles. It also had other cool items, like space suits worn by NASA astronauts. These astronauts were the first to go to space in a rocket and capsule made by SpaceX.

Amazing Cars in the Collection

The museum's collection has many famous and unique vehicles, such as:

• The 1963 "NASCAR Herbie" Volkswagen Beetle from the movie Herbie: Fully Loaded.

A life-sized model of Lightning McQueen

• A life-sized model of Lightning McQueen from the Cars movies.
• A 1964 Chevrolet Impala lowrider called Gypsy Rose.
• A 1967 Ford GT40 Mk III.
• A 1956 Jaguar XKSS that used to belong to actor Steve McQueen.
• A 1958 Plymouth Belvedere from the movie Christine.
• A 1992 Batmobile from the movie Batman Returns.
• A 2001 Honda S2000 used in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious.
• A 2001 Jaguar XKR from the movie Die Another Day.
• A Ferrari 308 GTSi used by Tom Selleck in the TV show Magnum, P.I..
• A De Tomaso Pantera that belonged to Elvis Presley.
• One of the DeLorean time machines from the movie Back to the Future.
• Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from Star Wars.
• The Plymouth XNR replica built by Gotham Garage on the show Car Masters: Rust to Riches.
• The Corwin Getaway, a unique car designed by photographer Cliff Hall.
• A 1998 Cadillac Popemobile.
• A 1978 Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulet.
• An armored 1984 Mercedes-Benz 500SEL.
• A Lotus 99T race car driven by Ayrton Senna.
• A McLaren MCL33 race car driven by Fernando Alonso.

How the Museum is Supported

In April 2011, Margie Petersen and the Margie & Robert E. Petersen Foundation gave a huge gift to the museum. It was $100 million! This gift included money, the land the museum was on, and many cars from the Petersens' own collection. This generous gift helps the museum continue its important work.

See also

In Spanish: Petersen Automotive Museum para niños