I’ve been to a lot of automotive museums. And there are a ton of them that are incredibly bitchin. But when my brother and his family came to town last weekend and said they wanted to go to the Petersen I was super stoked. So was Daphne and my dad, because none of us had made it there to take a tour yet. But boy were we glad to go! This place is awesome. And I had been to the previous Petersen multiple times, so I know how different it is. It’s not a hot rod museum, although it has some awesome hot rods. It’s not a modern car museum, although it has some really bad ass modern cars. It’s a museum that celebrates the automobile and motorcycle in a variety of ways, and all of them are cool. The building itself is a work of art. The displays are all about the cars, not their surroundings.

And one of the coolest things to us was the fact that while there are several digital displays, that range from videos to interactive tours to slide shows, all but one of them is completely passive and doesn’t distract you from what you are there to see. The cars.

And lets talk about the cars. We’ve got several galleries, with a total of over 400 photos, and if we weren’t drooling and admiring so many of the cars we could have shot twice that much. If you are a true car enthusiast, you’ll love this place. And the way the display areas are setup to follow a theme or era or movement is perfect for appreciating everything you’ll see. Our first gallery below is “generic” in that it is 95 photos of cars you’ll see throughout the museum. We’ll have another generic gallery and then a few others that include the Precious Metals, all silver cars section, Rolling Sculpture which features some of the sexiest hand formed bodies you can imagine, and of course the hot rods. It’s a very special place, and we want you to enjoy the photos, but you can’t possibly get the feel of this without visiting yourself.

Don’t live in California? Bring the kids to Disneyland for a vacation and make sure you visit The Petersen.

One thing to note. We were at the museum for over 3 hours and saw all the regular displays, but we did not see the Vault. Why? Well, our out of town family had to get going back home, and we are glad to have an excuse to go back. We’ll gladly visit again and are excited about the Vault tour. Don’t know what that is? Visit Petersen.org and you’ll find out. I’m drooling already.