Peterson Auto Museum

[kevinpreston8]

For something completely different....

My oldest son made a day of it at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. This is one of the finest car museums in the world. It is housed, believe it or not, in what used to be the old Orbach's departnment store, so central escalators are still there!

Do many here know what this gem is?

 

[kevinpreston8]

It's one of the few...

...surviving Chrysler Gas Turbine Cars!

Several dozen were made, given to people for 90 day periods to evaluate, and then they were all supposed to be destroyed (idiotic thinking for cars so nicely crafted, with bodies by Ghia no less). 9 survived, and I think most all of them run! I believe most are owned by Chrysler. They probably didn't want the hassle of servicing them, so they had most of them destroyed.

Testers loved the car, although almost everyone complained about the car's sluggishness. 0-60 times in 9 or 10 seconds could be accomplished if you let the turbine "spin up", but people weren't doing that, and I can't imagine them wanting to.

I always thought it looked like part Dodge Dart, and part 1963 Landau T-Bird. Of course, if memory serves me, the Dick Tracy Copmobile too. (From Ideal).

 

[westytoploader]

Is that an experimental Chrysler turbine-powered car from the 1960's?

And inquiring minds want to know if this museum houses a 1948 Tucker Torpedo as well! ;-)

 

[appliguy]

That is a 1963 Chrysler Experimental Turtbine Car

One of about 500 (if memory serves correctly) that was loaned out to certain consumers for a year long trial to gage public reaction to using a turbine car as a daily driver. This was one of a long line of Chryslers experimental turbine cars (they started experimenting with turbine power in the early 50's if memory serves) but what makes this different from the ones made up until 1963 is the fact that unlike previous turbine models Chrysler made, this one had its own styling where the previous ones were put into production Chysler Corp. bodies that were modified to take the turbine engine. AM I remembering right or not? PATRICK COFFEY

 

[kevinpreston8]

Remember your Hot Wheels?!

There was a nice exhibit around Hot Wheels. Kind of mind blowing from an art direction perspective.

Huge wall prints of the original, "Red Line" Hot Wheels box art made up backgrounds for an outrageously good exhibit. There were boxed versions of every single original Hot Wheel car. There were track and accessory displays.

The most amazing part: Remember the age of the "Funny Car" dragster, especially the "Snake and Mongoose" funny cars? Mattel made versions of both, sold special sets around them. At this exhibit, an original Snake Hot Wheel is in a glass case, next to, unbelievably, the original Snake Funny Car. This was the first time this has ever happened. The Mongoose is right next to it also.

 

[kevinpreston8]

Anyone who collected...

Hot Wheels in the first season had a Deora. The Deora was that futuristic cab forward pickup with the removable surfboards in back. I still have my original, slightly damaged purple one. So I look at a car on display and think, wow, that looks like a Deora. It's the Deora II!

Get a load of the wall print behind it...a replication of the Loop Accessory Pak.

 

[kevinpreston8]

Outside the Hot Wheels

Hall of Fame,

Lies Richard Carpenter's 1971 Plymouth Road Runner, with 426 Hemi and Air Grabber hood. This model is also outfitted with the black "Strobe Stripe", and orange and black interior. If a 1971 Schwinn Orange Krate bicycle grew up into a car, it would have been this one.

 

[kevinpreston8]

Westy....

When I went to this museum about 6 years ago (how time flies) they DID have a Tucker. This was the first one I had seen. You could get right up to it. It was very nice, although it was not perfect.

They rotate the cars in and out, and have storage in the basement. This building is 4 floors but the basement, so it was such a wild and great idea to put a museum into it.

Art Arfonz's Green Monster land speed car is in the (covered) parking lot! Also is an extremely bizarre 40s vintage "5th wheel" trailer and super bizarre "puller" car/truck that I had seen in books before and could not believe it was on display...like all 40 feet of it!

 

[scott55405]

Kevin, where is this place? I must visit sometime. I've heard of May, Robinson, Broadway, Bullocks, and Buffums, but not Orbach's.

 

[scott55405]

Not *that* Richard Carpenter... ?

 

[maytagbear]

Scott-

Yes, "that" Richard Carpenter, as in the brother of the late, lamented (at least by me- loved her voice!) Karen, is indeed a "car guy."

Sometimes I am a car guy, sometimes not.

Also, the Chrysler Turbine was said to get really lousy milage.

(When I had a car, I always had a Chrysler product.)

Thanks for sharing the pictures, Kevin.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[whirlcool]

Orbach's

Was the place that supplied Donna Reed her clothing for "The Donna Reed Show". It was a LA Department store that rivaled Bullocks. Check the credits at the end of the show.

 

[ironrite]

Saw it...

My father took my brother and me to see the turbine car when it was in Phoenix. The spokesman went through all the details of the car. Including balancing a dime, on its edge, on the air intake, then reving the engine. The dime didn't move. He took a silver dollar and tried to balance it on the air cleaner of a new Imperial, the dollar wouldn't stay balanced. I recall him saying the car could run on kerosene, or in an emergency, if say you were perfume salesman, just dump your samples in the tank and it would run on that.

We all got a chance to put our hands under the exhaust and it was cool, not hot like the Imperials. The engine used two spinning discs to capture the heat from the exhaust and heat the incoming air to the engine.

Also, check your local hobby shops and the web, you can still get models of this car of the future!

 

[joeekaitis]

The personal reminiscences of. . .

. . . a Turbine Car kid.

 

[veg-o-matic]

Who cares what kind of mileage it gets--that turbine car is coooooooool!

Life-size Hot Wheels? Man, I gotta go there. Whenever I think of the classic Red Line HWs, the Deora is always the first to spring to mind. My favorite was the one in "antifreeze". Loved the Beatnik Bandit, too.

Mattel has reissued some of the original Hot Wheels sets, called Hot Wheels Classics. I snagged a near duplicate of the one I got for Christmas '68. They changed the launcher and the finish gate, but I can deal with that. Mattel committed an absolutely heinous sin, though:

The track connectors are WHITE!

I can't begin to explain just how wrong that is.

veg

 

[Cybrvanr]

The Chrysler turbine car was demonstrated INSIDE a shopping mall here. The engine burned so clean that there was little risk of filling the place with fumes. My Father saw the car at the mall when it was on demo, and saw many of the tricks you speak of, like the dime trick and such.

I wonder how good turbine engines would work today with the advent of computer controls, and more importantly, continuously variable automatic transmissions. With a CVT, turbine speed could stay constant, while the vehicle speed varies

 

[Cybrvanr]

Chrysler turbines & Saturn EV1

Sounds like the same fate occured with the Chrysler turbine cars that happened with the Saturn EV1. GM did not outright sell the EV1 to customers, but instead only leased them. They just recently cancelled all leases and took the cars back. Instead of offering them for sale to the users, they scrapped all of the vehicles except for a handful. It was well over 5000 vehicles with state of the art electric technology!

 

[kevinpreston8]

Misc Notes

Carpenter is an outstanding collector, and has been profiled in "Collectible Automobile".

Carpenter has every model of the Chrysler 300 Letter Series cars (and he loves the "F" the most, which is my favorite) and a number of Hemi vehicles.

Scott---The museum is write on the "Miracle Mile" area of Los Angeles, on Wilshire, I think they are calling it Museum Square now. The super moderne, gorgeous May Company building was spared demolition and turned into an art museum! It is right across the street.

Joe--Amazing link. I have NEVER seen this site before. Many thanks, I am just starting to dig into it.

 

[sudsmaster]

I've actually heard a Chrysler Turbine car running. It was up at Pebble Beach about five years ago. It sounded much like you'd expect - a big vacuum cleaner, but not as loud as some .