I like mine moving, thanks...04:20:38 PMI arrived in Los Angeles Saturday, two days ago; a day before the start of the Advisor Summit conference in Anaheim. With time on my 
hands in one of the great car cities of the world, I took the opportunity to visit the Petersen Automotive Museum.
The Petersen, if you've never heard of it, was created by Robert Petersen, the Chairman of Petersen Publishing Company, the publisher of Hot Rod Magazine, among many others, as a tribute to the automobile. It's a place I've wanted to visit for a decade or more so Saturday I finally went.
It is very well done. They have beautiful and interesting cars there. Everyone visiting--men, women and children--seem truly happy to be there (it is LA, after all). But here's the thing: It left me flat. I love cars (as my regular reader can easily tell) but I don't think I like them in museums. Not here in LA, not in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, not at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, not at the Indianapolis Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, not in...well...not in any static collection I can think of.
Don't get me wrong; I love seeing them, but I guess I think of cars as...cars...not as objects d'art meant to be admired only in clean rooms with perfect lighting. I want to see them move and hear their engines. I want to see them outside in the real world, in the world they were built to be in.
Cars in museums seem dusty and old, even if they're spotless and new. Old, dusty cars outdoors seems spotless and.... Hm. Maybe the problem is cars in museums seem sad. Cars out in the real world are living their lives, doing their things. Museum cars are kinda living in the old folks' home, waiting to wither and die, or being propped up by their caretakers.
I'm sure I'll keep going to automotive museums, but I'd rather see those old guys running around in a rally or bar-hopping or taking a turn on the track like they were built to do.
