Muscle, chrome & ZZ Top’s Cadzilla

The museum features three floors of automobiles, from the antique-looking cars of the 1900s on the first floor to the breathtaking cars of the ’50s and ’60s found on the second floor. Children can get a hands-on experience with cars on the third floor, called the May Family Discovery Center.

The Petersen Automotive Museum is like no other museum I’ve been to. The key difference is that you aren’t overwhelmed by a sea of art and mazes of endless hallways, since there are only three floors. So basically you won’t get lost and end up on the other side of the planet, like you would when visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art.

However, for car enthusiasts like me, that can be disappointing. People like me want to see more cars and would not mind getting lost.

The second floor, my favorite, contains most of the cool cars. All the cars featured either have muscle-car inspiration or are the bulky, chromed out, heavy metal cars that can’t fit in most garages. What makes these cars so appealing to me, besides their obvious good looks, is that you rarely see them on the road. If you’re lucky, perhaps you own one or know someone who does. For the rest of us, we rely on museums like this or classic auto shows to see these awesome cars.

There’s a section on the second floor that has rotating exhibits. Currently it is presented by the Guitar Center and is called the Cars and Guitars exhibit.There’s a car used in the Monkees TV show, a red car from Van Halen’s "Hot for Teacher" video and a psychedelic Porsche owned by Janis Joplin. There was Elton John’s long white 1986 Lincoln Excelerator Limo, and Cher’s huge black Ford F-100 pick-up truck!