Petersen Automotive Museum
Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard
May 3, 2014
We went to the Petersen on “Mustang Weekend,” a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Ford’s introducing the Mustang. Meredith is a big Mustang fan, and Margaret loves old cars, so this outing was a natural.
The Mustang exhibit (May 3, 2014 – October 18, 2014) featured Mustangs of all five “generations,” with a bonus viewing of the brand new 2015 model. We timed our visit to take a guided tour through the Mustang exhibit, then walked back through it on our own. The cars on display spanned all 50 years. It was amusing to find out that the Petersen had trouble finding a Mustang II to display, from the second generation, because it is not popular with collectors. The museum finally bought one through Craigslist just a few weeks before the exhibit opened. We particularly liked seeing the light blue convertible Mustang Ronald Reagan used to tour California on the campaign trail, when he ran for governor of California in 1966. Period TV ads for Mustangs were running on a loop in a back corner of the exhibit.
We went on to another special exhibit, this one of town cars (February 15, 2014- February 8, 2015). We had not known that is a technical term. According to the museum website, “from the early 1900s to the mid-1960s, the term ‘town car’ referred to a body style distinguished by an open chauffeur’s compartment and an enclosed passenger area.” There were many beautiful old cars on display, some with handcrafted, one-of-a-kind coaches.
We finished our visit with a tour through the Streetscape area, a permanent exhibition of various cars and contemporaneous artifacts in the setting of Southern California throughout the span of the 20th century.
We were unhappy with one thing, namely that there are no elevators in the parking structure next to the museum. There are handicapped spots on the ground floor of that garage, of course, but we do not have a disabled placard. We make do with regular parking on our outings even though Margaret is in a wheelchair. A parking attendant directed us to the upper floor when we drove in, and it was only after we were up there that we found there were no elevators to get down, just stairs. Since there had not been any regular parking available on the ground floor, we left the car up there and walked down the (steep) ramp to get to the museum. When Meredith spoke to the attendant who had sent us upstairs, he shrugged off her complaint. We did get an apology from the ticket seller inside, though, and the security guards inside the museum were friendly and helpful.
We had eaten lunch at Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria (several blocks east, at 5757 Wilshire) before we went to the museum. It is not the closest place to eat – for convenience there is a Johnny Rockets hamburger restaurant inside the Petersen – but Johnnie’s Pizzeria is our favorite whenever we visit any of the museums in the Wilshire / Hancock Park area. We always enjoy the food and service there. The first time we visited we did not realize it was a chain restaurant; it was only when we looked it up online afterwards that we found out that fact.