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Crawling around behind-the-curtains at The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, one of the first cars I noticed was a bright yellow De Tomaso Pantera. But this wasn't any Italo-American exotic. It was Elvis Presley's Pantera and it has the bullet holes from The King's revolver to prove it. Here's how they got there. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5859519&view=rss&microfeed=true Today, the Petersen Automotive Museum Foundation was given the gift of… the Petersen Automotive Museum. The 300,000-sf LA building and its cars/exhibits were officially transferred from Margie Petersen/Petersen Foundation to the museum. Estimated value: $100,000,000. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5795911&view=rss&microfeed=true Tedoro Nguema Obiang Mangue's the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator and has been using the country's oil wealth to live it up in Malibu, including keeping his Rolls Royces and Bugatti Veyrons at L.A.'s Petersen Museum. More »
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You know it's a true Cadillac when it makes you hear Patsy Cline and dream about long, oak-lined boulevards. Housed at the wonderful Petersen Musem. [Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk] More »
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As we first reported, the $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron used on the Tonight Show was actually loaned to Conan O'Brien for free. According to the museum, it's now so famous they may move it to their Hollywood wing. More »
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Our theory about where Conan O'Brien got the Bugatti for his crazy expensive sketch was correct. We now have confirmation from the Petersen Automotive Museum that they did loan the car to the Tonight Show for last night's sketch. More »
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NBC pulled Conan O'Brien's devious Bugatti Veyron Mouse sketch from last night's "full episode" replay of the Tonight Show on NBC.com and Hulu — apparently unwilling to pay royalties for Conan's "crazy expensive" car-starring sketch. Video evidence below. More »
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Bugatti only built and delivered a couple hundred $1.5 million-and-up Veyrons and there's only a handful in California. So when Conan O'Brien trotted out the Bugatti Veyron Mouse on last night's Tonight Show, we wondered: where'd he get it? UPDATED! More »
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The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles is hosting a selection of the city denizen's automotive creations that defy the soulless mechanicals of modern commuter boxes by proudly representing the culture and families that crafted the machines. While one group of post WW2 hooligan Angelenos were seeking higher velocity out on SoCal dry lakebeds, another was going slower - and lower, on the streets of the basin. The exhibition marks the second time the museum has scraped a group of Lowriders into its halls. Cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and even a few baby carriages have been chosen based on historical significance and sheer hypnotizing power of metalflake and chrome. The show opens tomorrow and runs through June 8th. [La Vida Lowrider via Petersen.org] More »
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After a short battle with cancer Robert E. Petersen has passed away. If not for Petersen and his crazy idea for a magazine full of gow jobs called Hot Rod we wouldn't have beans for jobs. More »
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It looks like a harmless 1966 GMC Handivan hiding a whiskey still, but it's really a 40-year-old antecedent to modern fuel-cell vehicles. It's the GM Electrovan, one of the first experiments in using hydrogen to propel a car — a swashbuckling exercise marked by exploding storage tanks, leaking electrolytes producing brilliant sparks and strange orders to GM's purchasing department for fire retardant and a horse trough big enough "for a man to lie down in." It was based on a similar system used in Gemini spacecraft, which produced drinking water for astronauts in addition to electrical current. Unfortunately it required lots of precious metals as well as highly pressurized hydrogen and oxygen (modern systems can use outside air), and the space of a van to install, and the project was abandoned. Now, the ominous-looking prototype is on display as part of the Petersen Museum's "Propulsion after Petroleum" exhibit as a long-forgotten artifact that allows GM bragging rights as the first developer of hydrogen cars. More »
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It began with the first neanderthal who lit his mammoth-bone pipe over a methane vent in LaBrea and rocketed himself into Laguna Hills: Human propulson. After that, man developed more advanced forms of transport propelled by steam, electricity, coal, wombat feces, petroleum, turbines, french-fry oil and hydrogen — and hybrid-drive combinations of those sources. Now, two centuries of man's propulsive experiments will be on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles starting later this week. The exhibition will feature an array of electric, hydrogen and turbine vehicles from history, and new propulsion technologies that may emerge in the future. Sadly, the Laguna Hills Express didn't survive the ice age. More »
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Commenter Danny Boy, who'll come back when summer's in the meadow, went and checked out the Steve McQueen exhibit going on at the Pete until April 9th and now we've got Sheryl Crow stuck in our heads again. Gah! Featured are McQueen's legendary XKSS, his Fuelie '57 Chevy convertible, his Porsche from Le Mans (repainted beige after the film to make it stealthier). Danny checked it and says it's the business, but he didn't tell us whether they managed to snare a pair of Ali McGraw's panties. More »
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Opening tomorrow at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Fabulous Los Angeles, California is a redux of an exhibit they ran a few years back featuring significant cars of rock 'n' roll, including the Pantera Elvis shot full o' holes, a Nancy Sinatra movie Mustang and Snoop's golf cart from his Chrysler spot with Lido last year. It's all more "Stairway to Heaven" than Hairway to Steven though apparently, the legendary Chevy Nova with the rear seat ripped out and the barbed-wire grille the Butthole Surfers drove on a 1980s tour couldn't be located. More »
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