Chesapeake Region
We Are Porsche: Petersen Museum
By: Ellen Beck
The Petersen Museum in Los Angeles is architecturally stunning, both inside and out, especially with this year’s We Are Porsche exhibit, sponsored by Porsche Cars North America. No stranger to fabulous Porsche exhibits over the years, this one is uniquely interpreted through the stories of 40 special cars, beautifully told in images, video interviews and text. Of course, the rest of the museum is also insanely cool, with current exhibits on the Cars of Film and TV, Splendor and Speed (treasures from the collection), Inside Tesla (featuring an exploded 3-D view of a real car) and the history of tires (strangely fascinating).
Right before the holidays, I flew to San Diego with my mom, bringing her out to visit for 3 weeks with my brother Bill and his family. I stayed for a long weekend and one of our planned activities was a trip to LA to see an art gallery exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s early works, followed by a birthday dinner for my niece. Our tickets were for 4:15 pm on Saturday, and while we were figuring out who was going in what cars (8 of us including a 2-year-old), I mentioned that it was too bad there wouldn’t be time for the Petersen…. Well, my brother is not really a car guy, but he was instantly alert and up for the adventure! Long adventure, short version: Jane dropped Bill and I off at the Amtrack station at 10:15am and we took the 2-hour train trip to LA’s Union Station (quite a scenic ride right along the ocean), then got a Lyft to the Petersen. The whole trip being based on making all of the very unpredictable travel times work, we determined upon arrival that we had exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes to see the whole museum! After our whirlwind tour, we took another Lyft across LA to the art show, which was also amazing, then had a spectacular dinner after which Jane drove my mom, Bill and I back to San Diego. A wild and exciting 12+ hours! Arriving at the Petersen Museum, I hardly knew what to look at first. The first floor was filled with gorgeous Porsches, and the gift shop of course, because everyone needs another T-shirt and the stunning poster. Our eyes were popping, but we followed their directions to start on the 3 rd floor and work our way down (the 4th floor is special event space). We Are Porsche was primarily on the second floor, but Bill and I were mesmerized by the collections on the 3 rd floor. The exhibits were arranged not in rooms, but such that you could flow around the space. I’m sure there was a correct way to do it, but we were like hummingbirds darting between brightly colored flowers - to the next, and the next beautiful new work of art. Look at this! What about that? There was so much to read about each vehicle that I just took photos of the placards too, so we could read about them later. I never missed an episode of Batman as a kid, and the Batmobile was there! Herbie from 2005’s Herbie Fully Loaded is a real race car under the cute beetle body. And for the first time since the movies, Sally Carrera and Lightning McQueen were in the same location (Sally normally parks in Europe). And not surprisingly, the inside of the Time Machine looks exactly like it did in Back to the Fu-
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