Video: The world's greatest collection of cars | Petersen Museum | Goodwood Masters

05th July 2024

Simon Ostler

If you’ve ever looked at a picture of an extremely valuable or rare car, something that perhaps you didn’t even know existed, or that you’ve only ever seen illustrated in a history book and wondered: “Where could I go to see that in person?”, chances are you’ll have to travel to the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles, California.

If the Promised Land did exist, we think it would look like this. A near-endless collection of many of the world’s coolest, most valuable, most spectacular and rarest cars carefully curated by a collaboration of collectors.

We went for a visit to discover just how broad the collection at the Petersen Museum is, and we were astounded by what we found. A list of exhibits includes the original Ferrari, countless Porsches from the very earliest 356s to racing prototypes, and a fantastic collection of original cars from films like Batman, James Bond, Transformers and even Scooby Doo.

There is of course a whole section dedicated to Formula 1 cars, while the array of vintage models from the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bugatti is equally exciting.

They aren’t just for looking at though. In this video we learn that several of the exhibits are driven when they aren’t on display. A pre-production Dodge Viper for example had a day out drag-racing, while a very lucky Marketing Director, Luna Bondesan had the chance to test drive her dream car, a 2005 Ford GT.

If you ever get the chance to travel to California, you simply have to put the Petersen Museum on your list of destinations. It’s a veritable dreamland for car fans like us.