April 16, 2015 • 42 mins
The Petersen Automotive Museum is filled to the brim with historic and unique cars -- and that's just the stuff on display. Join Scott and Ben as they take a closer look at the Petersen Museum vault.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I Ben Ben. Today's
topic is one that we just kind of stumbled across. Uh,
not too long ago. We were looking through online articles
and we discovered and because we're not from the West coast,
(00:24):
we're down here in the southeast, right, we discovered that
the Peterson Museum is offering volt tours now. Yes, and
this is a huge deal for longtime listeners. You've heard
us mentioned the Peterson Museum before, relatively new founded in
nine by the publisher Robert E. Peterson. Uh, this is
(00:48):
a enormous, amazing thing. It's one of the world's largest
auto museums. We've talked about the Peterson Museum many, many
times because you know, famous cars will end up their
movie car is that you know. Um, they have twenty
two galleries. I don't know a total number of vehicles
that are on display, but it's a it's a huge,
beautiful museum. I know when we talked about um, I
think it was low Riders. We've we've specifically talked about
(01:11):
the Peterson because I think that originally that museum was
supposed to um convey the idea of the southern California
car culture scene. Yeah, yeah, and okay, so there there
are some recent events too that we should catch people up.
All right. So on October nine, the museum went in
(01:32):
for remodeling, right, yeah, and that's gonna last for a
long time, right, more than a year. Yeah, it's gonna
reopen a little bit more than a year later, December one,
that this year. It's as we record this. Around that time,
before it went into remodeling, they had a hundred and
fifty vehicles or so on display in the main galleries.
(01:53):
All right, So going back to the vaults, you guys
when um, I don't know if you've ever been to
the Smithsonian up there when DC or one of the Smithsonian's, right,
So they have these vaults of things that get rotated
in and out of displays or in some cases never
see the proverbial light of day. Essentially, we're talking about
(02:14):
the basement. They do right them into the basement. Now
it's a drive in basement obviously because there's a bunch
of cars down there. And the thing is that prior
to very recently, I don't know when they started this exactly.
But um, it was big news when they allowed when
they finally had official vault tours, because prior to that
you either had to work there, no somebody were sneak in,
and some people did sneak in, I think from what
(02:35):
I hear. Um, there's some funny tales online about that.
But um, once they offer these vault tours, now I
think the tours last I want to say an hour
hour and a half something like that. It's a it's
they're over an hour long. They say it's kind of
cold down there, and apparently no photos are allowed on
the tours, but I don't know how that's possible, because
we see photos from the vault. Yeah right, I there
(02:57):
there have to be a certain amount of promo photos
right when they have a professional photographer take uh take
supervised photographs on the conditions. But there are a lot
of photos to where you can tell somebody quote unquote
got a text on their phone, Oh yeah, you know,
snap something really quick, and let's let's be honest there
there are reasons that a museum would not want that
(03:19):
kind of photography. Sure, there's exclusivity right in in an
art museum, I guess there's concern about the damage done
to the paint over time by flash photography. Yeah, maybe
the same applies to old paint shops. I don't know. Yeah,
that's what I was gonna ask. Could be. I mean,
I'm sure that you know that it's climate control down there.
That's why they keep it cool. They probably keep it
(03:40):
at the right humidity and all that. You know, everything
is adjusted down there for a specific reason to you know,
preserve what's there. But what's interesting to me about this
ben are most interesting to me is that these cars
are are not in what you call museum quality when
you see them. There are their cars that you know,
there'll be a puddle of oil underneath it on the
ground below it. Still four flat tires, yeah, yeah, four
(04:01):
flat tires on some of the cars. I mean they'll
be dust covered. Um, you know, just a shop manual
laying on the passenger seat, you know, where they're still
trying to work things out, figure out the electrical system
of the car. There's there's some amazing stuff down there,
and that's this kind of all goes back to, Uh,
I don't know, my grudge peeping problem that I had
for I like to look inside people's gardges when they're
open or whatever. It's like you just never know what
(04:22):
you're gonna see in there. And it's interesting to see
the kind of I don't know, clutter and the um,
the the stuff that people have a massed over over time,
and and this is kind of like what the museum
is a mass over time. Now. I know that some
of these are on their way up to the main floor,
you know, for the show, so they're gonna get those
ready little faster, but they rotate them in and out
of this place. So it's cars that you rarely see UM.
(04:45):
Just to give you an example, I think they have UM.
They have a a Steve McQueen Jaguar x KSS down there.
They have a Ferrari that was given to Henry Ford
the second by Enzel Ferrari as a gift down there.
And you know what's interesting about that. I I find
that fascinating because you remember there's that whole Ford Ferrari
battle that was going on right around the time of
(05:06):
UM with the late nineteen sixties early nineteen sixties, and
that was the the birth of the four G T forty.
Remember they were trying to bet I think it was
the Ford was trying to buy Ferrari and they refused
the sale. So so what's the deal with, you know,
them giving him a gift Ferrari. I mean it's a
strange I think there's an interesting story behind it. Yes,
it sounds a little bit like an olive branch. Yeah,
(05:26):
it kind of does. It really does. There there's also
a gold plated deloreate, which interesting. That's weird. I thought
it was pretty weird. There are some one of a
kind cars that you will never see again. You know,
if you're familiar with the Peterson Museum then you already
know that that's You can see some movie cars there,
like the Bug from Herbie, right, but in the vault
(05:48):
they also have cars that played a role in history
outside of the cinema, like the uh, what was the
Mercedes that Saddam Hussein d Oh? Yeah, that's one of
the us on the list, right, Yeah. Yeah, and that's
parked right next to somebody else's Mercedes that looks almost well,
it's nearly identical, isn't it very close? Yeah? Jack Nicholson's
(06:10):
seventy two Mercedes Bend six hundred girl sale. Yeah, it's
funny to see them next each other. Like that. It's like, well,
here's Jack Nicholson's, there's Saddam Hussein's. Looks very very similar.
These are interesting cars, by the way, they're pretty beautiful. Yeah,
I mean, I guess a lot of a lot of
features way ahead of their time on those on those
particular models. But okay, we'll get into those, I promise totally,
because there's a there's a whole long list of these things. Now.
(06:31):
They're they're antique cars, their their cars, um, you know,
like you said, from heads of state, their hot rods,
their celebrity cars, Hollywood cars, muscle cars, race cars, exotics, motorcycles. Uh, pamphlets. Oh,
that's one thing that um this article that we're gonna
kind of go through here with the with just ten examples. Um,
there's other stuff down there too. And one thing that
(06:52):
I thought was really curious was that they have just
bookshelf after bookshelf lined with you know, the old Chilton's
manuals are the Haynes manuals are the shop manuals from
the manufacturers for every single one of these cars that's
either on display or not on display, that's down in
the vault, and all of them are in like you
know they're in they're in good shape. It's just but
they've been used. I mean they're they're they're greasy, they've
(07:13):
got thumb prints all over them. They've got bookmarks, you know,
in them for for you know, the mechanics to come
back and take a look at. I find that stuff fascinating,
Like the behind the scenes museum stuff me too. Because
they have a warning at the at the top, or
maybe we should just say a sign. They have a
sign at the at the entrance where you know, it
says something like, welcome to the Vaults. You were about
(07:34):
to enter an exclusive, unparalleled collection beautiful and historically significant vehicles.
This is a working garage and storage facility, right, This
isn't supposed to be pretty. This is supposed to be
a working service center. And it's not pretty. I mean
that's the thing. And I kind of like that about
it's a little bit gritty, it's a little bit greasy.
I like that. I like that, you know, some of
(07:55):
the cars have flat tires and they've got dry rock
and alos a parking deck. Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting,
it's it's it's pretty fascinating and be able to take
a peek behind the curtain, I guess on this and
and and see what's down there. And I found in
Popular Mechanics a short list of ten what they said,
we're strange and notorious cars from the Peterson Museum vault.
But then there's there's countless photos online of other vehicles
(08:17):
down there, so you can kind of comb through those.
Because when these vault tours were happening, you know, prior
to October of last year, a lot of people went
down there and took advantage and said, you know, I'm
going to make a little list of what's there. If
even if they didn't photograph it, they at least you know,
marked it somehow wrote about it in a blog or whatever.
There's a lot of information out there about what's there.
I'm kind of excited about, you know, December, when they reopen,
(08:38):
what's gonna happen because if they're renovating the top part
of the museum, the main the main part of the galleries,
I wonder if they're going to do any renovation in
the vault area to make more space. Possibly, I don't know,
maybe that's not in the works, but it would be
interesting if they did and kind of made that part
of the museum. But then does that take away some
of the the excitement of going into the vault? There's that, yeah,
(08:59):
I mean, but it's nice to, you know, clean up
the work area. I guess if that's what they're gonna do.
But I also kind of like a little gritty. Yeah,
I like it too. Let's let's make it real. So
we're gonna talk about it's just ten of the cars
that are in the vault, and let's let's hop right
into it. Let's start with number ten, the nineteen seven. Yeah,
(09:22):
this is weird. This is a guy, the Marquis de Pedroso,
who is a wealthy Spaniard who lived in France, somewhere
in France, decided that he wanted to build his own
sports car. And in order to build this car, he
had to find a unique supercharge straight eight engine, which
is by the way, it looks like a museum piece alone.
It's an amazing engine two thirds of the car. It
(09:43):
really is. It's a it's a gorgeous engine, and they've
had it on you know, they've got it opened up
and displayed in that way. I mean the car is
a little bit you know, rough, but anyways, Um, a
couple of interesting things that this thing has. I mean,
it's got ignition timing. There was adjustable from the dash.
Now you had to like, okay, so think about very
of valve timing, right, you're you know, that's all electronic.
Now you're adjusting the variable valve timing on the dash
(10:06):
while you're driving this thing in a car from n
that's pretty revolutionary. Yeah, and that's not all. It also
had a smart chassis underslung in the rear portion. So
this was all to bring the passenger compartment closer to
the ground so you could really feel the road when
you're driving. Yeah, and when he finished it, he was
kind of in a hurry day to get out and
drive it. Of course he was right, he wanted to drive.
(10:26):
So so he decided that he's going to take a
couple of wicker chairs from his patio and fit them
to the car, and then later, much later, had them
covered so that they look like, you know, while regular
seats that would be in a sportster like this um
but there's still the wicker seats underneath there. Those are
the original seats that were in the car that that
he put in there. And only two of these vehicles
were ever built. This is the only one around today,
(10:50):
but there's a little bit of light at the end
of the tunnel. Yeah, there's a twist. He The car
was also delivered the museum with blueprints, so there's a
complete set of blueprints for this car. You could build
another one if you wanted to, if someone were to
to be then ambitious, Yeah, exactly, and I hope that
they will at some point because we're we're fans of
(11:10):
reproduction cars. Oh yeah, and this is a really cool
looking one too, so if you get a chance to
look up the pedrosso you won't be upset by that one. Alright,
Number nine what I just love this one, man, Just
this is a strange one, all right. It's it's a popemobile,
but it's not any popemobile. It's uh, it's it's one
(11:31):
of the very few open top carriers that the Pope
I ever wrote in and this is one that was
built for his, uh, Pope John Paul's second trip to
Mexico City. Yeah, it's a Cadillac popemobile. But for those
of you have heard our popemobile episode, as you know,
the Vatican does not condone the use of that phrase.
(11:54):
So the weird thing is that, as you said, this
is an open carrier, right, So Pope John Paul the
Second never actually rode in this vehicle. There were some
security concerns about where he was going to be going
at the stadium in Mexican Mexico City. So while he
did uh literally give it his blessing like he blessed
(12:18):
the vehicle, he did not actually ever ride in it.
All right, Well, he never did really ride in this
car um you know, it's all configured and ready to
go for him. And with the strangest, maybe the weirdest
feature about this whole thing is that that big papal
seat that says that that kind of thrust out of
the back area there where the where the back seat
normally would be. And I'm sure that there's you know,
(12:39):
side seats there for security as well, but the papal
seat sits on a hydraulic system that can raise or
lower the seat by twenty inches. It's really weird looking
when you see it. Also, when the passenger doors open
and closed, these steps fold you know, in and out
to ease the pope's entrance so he can get in easy,
can get out easy. And maybe one of the other
unusual bits about the thing is that the construction was
(13:02):
completed here in North America by two different companies that
you probably wouldn't expect. There's an American limo company named Eureka,
and I thought Eureka made hers is. Also it seems
like there may be a hearse provider as well. Yeah,
I think they do a couple of different kinds of
custom coaching. Yeah. I would guess, you know, limo maker
would also make curses, so um yeah, probably probably limo
and horses. But um And also this is a weird one.
(13:23):
Roush Performance helped work on this for Afford Performance company
worked on this Cadillac for the Pope in Mexico. It's
just a strange mix of mix of constructors. They usually
do tuning. I guess they decided that it needed to
scoot very strange. Well, they probably had a lot to
do with, you know, maybe like the layout of the
hydraulics and stuff like that. I mean possibly. Yeah, And
(13:47):
this lead Speaking of strange, this leads us to number
eight stam Hussein's Night Mercedes been six hundred London Lay. Yeah,
this is weird. The Landola versions of these cars were
actually the most rare of these types of vehicles. So
if you see a you know, Mercedes Limo from this
era that is a land of lay Um, it's one
(14:08):
of the one of the um more expensive models. These
are the cars of president's dictators, um, aristocrats, you know,
landed gentry. These are excuse me, not even landed gentry.
These are the cars of the world's decision makers. Yeah.
And what's strange about this type of model is that
and maybe it's unusual, I guess I've seen other cars,
(14:30):
you know, even a concourse events that have these, Um
they had a solid roof above the driver and then
the convertible top over the back section that could open
up and allow you know, the crowds to see the person,
you know, the head of stage as they passed by
a parade. I've seen cars like that in person, and
it's such an unusual look. It's a really strange look
when the when the driver is in the covered area
(14:51):
and the top is that the back area is uncovered. Yeah.
And if you just look at this kind of vehicle,
it says power. You know, the beginning of the excuse me,
the front, the classic lines, uh, the the big events
on the side of the body work, which is weird.
You can you can see them from different shots through
(15:14):
on the rear of the vehicle, and they drew air
for the a C which is installed in the trunk. Yeah,
that's the weird thing to have. But but understandably so
because I mean there's probably ten feet of difference between
the front cabin area there and in the back, uh
you know where the we're the the head of state
or the actually the communist dictator would be sitting back there, right,
(15:34):
because that's a that's the kind of car that this
looks like to me. It looks like it's a dictator's car,
somebody that you would see in a parade, uh, driving
past the past of people as they wave and in
their opulent Mercedes Limo. Now, the story of how Peterson
got this is really strange to me. So an Iraqi
National after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in two thousand three, and
(15:55):
Iraqi National drove the Mercedes out of the country and
into Jordan's What that really means is he stole the car. Yeah,
and it's not in that great shape. I mean it's
pretty beat up. I can see some some uh, some
dance and some rust on the front end here as
I'm looking at it right now. Um, it's in it's
in a rough condition. But so when it got to
Jordan's um, a car collector who also lives in the US,
(16:17):
pointed the Peterson Museum staff, you know, to the location
of this car, and then they arranged for the for
the sale and the delivery of it everything. Yeah, I
love I love that vague phrase a Jordanian car collector.
It's like when you read a private businessman. Well, you know,
it ended up at a Mercedes Ben's distributor in Jordan's right,
and then the museum bought it from this Mercedes Benz distributor.
(16:39):
So I kind of understand the the you know, the
flow of the car after that point. But maybe what
happened beforehand, Like he said, he stole the car, Yeah
he did. He stole the dictator stot and one piece
of trivia here. There are so many dents on the
on the vehicle because once the guards were done with
their duties, they would sit on the truck and their
rifle butts would not down on the metal. It's funny
(17:02):
and just like very careless, very there's just no concern
for that type of vehicle. I mean, I would feel
immense relief. If I worked directly for Saddam Hussein and
then he just and you know, he left the car
and he went into the palace or whatever, I would
totally relax. Oh yeah, yeah, I probably wouldn't mess with
the car, though I don't think I would either know,
(17:22):
There's no way I'm touching that car. All right, let's
move on to number seven. These are these are really interesting.
I mean, if nothing else, they they just screamed nineteen
sixties hot ride. This is in the nineteen sixty three
XR six Hot Ride. This one, in particular is the
one that they mentioned because it was built um, part
of of part of like a three issues series in
(17:42):
hot Rod magazine back in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, and
uh it had several of the big names and custom
cars working on it, including George Barris. Yeah. Not a
bad name to have working in your car. Um, not
at all. No, No, I wouldn't think. So it uses
a VW Beatle front suspension, and um, of course they
say that it takes inspiration from the jet age. I
(18:03):
can clearly see that. And oh this is really weird.
Asymmetrical design cues throughout the entire car. So for example, Um,
you know, the driver's seatback is raised just a little
bit more than the passenger seatbelt, the gauges are offset
just a little bit. The the hood scoop is installed
only on the driver's side. It's not on the passenger side.
It's it's just an interesting car to build and it
(18:24):
and it does I mean the color, the look of it, everything,
and even the car that's parked in the background there.
I mean, they both just again they just screamed nineteen
sixties hot ride, you know, the the Ratfink culture. I guess, yes,
the the thing itself. The asymmetry here is not immediately apparent,
but once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah,
(18:45):
I mean I I clearly see that. And it does
kind of bug me a little bit that, you know,
it's not symmetrical. It's not a lined up. I don't
know why, it's just that's the way I am about
this stuff. So if we're speaking of monster machines, then
we've got to move on to the next When the
math on V sixteen Tea Bucket Roadster, this thing is
a beast man. This is this is from nineteen three
(19:07):
Ford Tea Bucket that created into are built into a
hot ride. It was built in the early nineteen nineties.
And this engine we said, you said, a V six team. Yeah, yeah,
it's It was created by joining two Chevy three eights
together at the crankshaft, right, and not only did they
somehow do it successfully, but they did it twice. This
is the only one of those motors that made it
(19:30):
into a vehicle. So it's got an estimated and this
is just estimated. I don't I don't think they've ever
opened it all the way up. Yeah, oh I doubt it.
But uh yeah, the horse power yeah pretty high. Yeah,
estimated five hundred and fifty horse power. Yeah, you know, okay,
I said pretty high. But you know what, when you
think about two V eights joined together to make a
V sixteen, you would just assume that thing would have
(19:51):
like a thousand horse power. But I bet it's pretty
strong anyways, I mean it looks. Mean, it's maybe the
the coolest looking car down there as far as I've seen. Yeah,
and it is as you can imagine, listeners, it is
a long vehicle. It's chassis is stretched. You know, they
clearly had to fabricate a lot of definitely almost looks
like a dragster. It has a dragster appearance, all right,
(20:14):
So let's move on to number five Davis. And maybe
what makes this one most unique then is that it's
very rare. Yeah. This is one of fewer than twenty
cars built by a startup named Davis, which which has
an interesting story because it was founded by a guy
(20:34):
named Gary Davis. Oh and we should say this is
a three wheeled car, and it looks like retro futuristic. Yeah,
and it's also that that kind of notoriously bad three
wheel design, you know, the kind that's the is it
the it's the tadpole is a delta delta, yes, right,
delta configuration, one wheel at the front, two at the back. Yeah,
(20:56):
terribly unstable and pretty much uh capable of pulling parkour
in terms of flipping. That's right. It had to have been,
like like they said, it just had to have been
very very difficult to drive, terrifying to drive, as they say.
But the the the notorious part about this whole story,
you know, why is it notorious is because the founder
of this company, a guy named Gary Davis. He, even
(21:21):
though he maintained his innocence to the end um, he
was taking you know, customer money and dealer deposit money
without ever delivering a single vehicle and eventually convicted of fraud.
So he was found guilty. And this was before Kickstarter.
It was a lot it was a lot more difficult
to get away with that kind of thing back then.
Oh yeah, so all these are handbuilt. Of course, they
were built in a I think it was an airplane hanger. Yeah,
(21:43):
and I'm sure that you know, we're thinking back to
the story of the Dale. By the way, I think
maybe the Dale is down in the isn't there Dale
in the Peterson vault? Yes, there's the I believe there's
the one promotional one that has you know, a lawnmower engine, Yeah,
and U and two by four bumper or something. Yeah,
something like that. I mean, I have to look back
(22:04):
at our Dale story, but um, some some strange cars
down there. But this reminds me a lot of that,
you know, and that I'm sure that there was a
lot of promotional material and printed material and you know,
big talk about you know, the car of the future,
and you know, this is something that people are gonna
love to come to your dealership and buy. So why
wouldn't you want to buy a franchise in this. Yeah,
and what we should say about the Davis car is
(22:26):
that it is so unstable that when it was part
you could hop into. Now this is the Davis, not
the Dale, because the Davis actually ran, you could hop
into the Davis well as part and just by rocking
back and forth side to side, you could knock this
car over on the side it would roll over. And
uh and you know, I think we've just recently we
(22:49):
mentioned that top Gear episode where Jeremy Clarksons driving that
reliant Robin is in it. Yeah, the three wheel car
that he just continually rolls over, the same design, same idea.
The one that's here looks like it's ever been rolled over.
I don't see any scuffs on the on the paint
work here, but um, it's actually kind of it's a
neat looking little car. It's too bad. It's so unstable. Yeah,
it's too bad. But one thing that we should say
(23:11):
in this what looking into Stavis brings it to mind,
is that some of these cars are in an active
state of restoration. Yeah, some are, some are Yeah, that's right.
So this one could be on its way up to
the main floor. Right In another one that we'll talk
about now, the number four contender, the MP Sports st Yeah,
this is a very rare fine. Now, most people when
(23:32):
they think about a doom buggy, uh, they think about
the Bruce Meyers VW Manx you know they make. Yeah,
that's the classic doom buggy. Look the fiberglass fenders, you know,
all open top of the roll bar and everything. This
one is similar, not exactly, it's it's it's more squared off,
I suppose it's. It's the body work is is simpler,
it's not quite as flowing, but it does look an
(23:53):
awful lot like this. Now. It was made by a
company called Empty, and Empty was a major mail order
supply a VW performance parts around, you know, in around
nineteen sixty and actually prior to nineteen sixty and then
around nineteen sixties when they decided to create a kit
car to make VW beetles off roadworthy. Right, So they
use steel tubes, metal body work with these pretty sharp
(24:17):
angular lines that looked nothing like the Manx buggies. So
if you look at these flat fenders, because this thing
totally doesn't look aero dynamic, uh, you can see it
was inspired by the Jeeps. That were around at that time.
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say that when I look
at this, I still I still think Manx only because
that that classic Doom Buggy is burned into my into
(24:39):
my brain as far as like, you know, that's what
the Doom Buggy looks like. Now. It does have quite
a bit of differences. As you mentioned, it has, you know,
the spare tires mounted on the front like we're in
a normal car. The engine would be and I say
normal in quotes. Um, so you know, as we said,
it's built from a Volkswagen bug or Beetle, so the
engines at the back, and you know that the open
(25:00):
framework on top. You know, it looks a little bit
more like well definitely a lot more like Jeep than
than Volkswagen, of course, but it does have it. It
just for some reason, it sparks that the impression of
my mind that, yeah, it looks like I could have
been made by Manx maybe early on. Yeah, and this
was obtained from a retired prize fighter in Riverside, California.
(25:20):
I wonder who that was. I don't know, I mean,
but because you don't know when they collected this car,
I could have been down there for twenty years, who knows.
I mean, so I was trying to think, like, how
am I ever going to figure out who that prize
fighter is? But I guess unless we go there and
read the plaque on the wall, will never know. Al Right, now, Scott,
I've gotta I gotta hop in the driver's seat for
this one. It's a car pun uh number nice work,
(25:42):
Thank you, man. I worked on that earlier as always.
Uh Number three on our list is probably, I'm gonna
say it, probably my favorite car was in this list. Okay,
I mean, who saw it coming? It's the Rules Royce
Phantom one. You guys, this is amazing. This car looks
like Frozen music. I love every I love everything about
(26:05):
it except that I don't own it. It is beautiful,
it really is. It's a It's a striking car, and
I can imagine in person this thing is even more impressive.
And it looks it looks huge. It looks like it's
a gigantic car as well. Proportions. Um, so this was
a you know, it's a pre World War two Rolls
Royce that was rebodied. Now I have a question about this,
all right, So before we get into the little details here.
(26:26):
It says that it was rebodied, Um because everything underneath
the body lasted longer than the body. They say, because
the prep work that was you know, done to the
body work before it went on the on the chassis
was not quite as complete as it is now as
you can imagine, you know, pre World War two. Um,
so the bodies didn't last all that long. But I mean,
come on, nine years for a rolls race, you would
(26:47):
think that it would last longer than that. It must
have had a heavy use, that's true. Yeah, and the
the chassis of this it may have also been that
the chassis was just better than the average chassis. Well
that could be, and that you know that was the
donor car, I guess right. So yeah, I don't know
the story of this specific one, Like I don't know
if it had a if it took some damage some sort,
(27:09):
that's possibility. Sure. So when it was rebodied, it was
rebodied by a company based in Belgium, junk Kia, which
is around today. They build buses, commercial buses, so it's
a it's a coach builder that that that currently builds
busses and big vehicles. Uh. I kind of see the
transition I guess here between building something in this large.
(27:31):
This is a huge vehicle. I mean it really is.
The proportions are just immense. Yeah, it's kind of a
bus anyway. It's it's strange because the vehicle is so
long that you would think the interior was much larger.
But it's I think it's part of it is just
the way that this the Phantom makes such an entrance.
(27:52):
And one of the things that everybody notices about the Phantom,
which I love but can be divisive to some people,
are those owned suicide doors. Yeah, this is weird. Round doors.
And I've got a question about this. I wonder how
this works because it says that it has well, of
course it has round windows to go along with that,
you know, round shape windows. But it says that when
(28:12):
you roll them down, they roll down in a in
a fan pattern. And I can understand, you know, I
can see it kind of like rolling across archy my
arm across Like you can see it like like the
swing of a like a secondhand on the clock. Perfect
Is that is that kind of how it works? I think,
I mean, I'm guessing that that's what it means, like
like the way a fan would open up like you'd
unfolded unfurled, very very strange, right on your own Phantom.
(28:37):
You don't have the stretched Phantom one though, right, No,
I have just the standard, just the standard. Yeah. Yeah,
so this one has been stretched. I mean this, I
keep talking about the proportions, but this has got a
a fastback body design on it. So you can imagine
that on this huge um you know, Rolls Royce chassis
that they've already stretched and they've they've made this long, long,
fastback and the rear portion hasn't And this is so
(29:00):
cool that I love this feature an eighteen inch central
fin which has rows of lovers that extend all the
way down the back, and I love that central fin
design or in race cars, on street cars and whatever,
but you don't see it very often, but it's a
it's just a cool, um cool touch. You would think
too that this would mean with all those events, you
would think that means the car has a rear engine,
(29:22):
but it doesn't. It still has the front engine. So
I mean it's it's just an exceptionally big and long
vehicle and it looks really really cool. I like this
one a lot. Now, the one that you probably like
even more, Scott, I'm gonna go out on a limb
and say that you would probably prefer number two to
the Rolls Royce five, you know what I might. This
is an interesting vehicle. It's the Mercury d F concept
(29:47):
and it was I guess like a approving ground vehicle
for for UM for Mercury at the time or for
four at the time, because they used a lot of
different experimental UM systems and oponents in this they I mean,
just for example, there is an experimental y block V
eight under the hood UM and you know, the y
block eventually became you know, production and it was used
(30:09):
in UH. In fact, this became a whole family of
overhead valve eights from about nineteen fifty in nineteen sixty four.
But this is again they're using it in this vehicle
as an experiment, right, and that wasn't the only experiments.
You know. The one thing that will stand out for
most people when you look at this concept vehicle is
it's going to be the two bumps in the in
(30:32):
the body that precede the tail lights. Right. This is
so unusual because usually when we see tail fins, UH,
they're very sharp, they're usually very very yeah, they look
like an airplane obviously, and this is this does not
look like that at all. I mean, they're they're flowing
almost like a fender. Yeah, camel humps, Yeah, yeah, I
guess that's a good way to put it, right, Yeah,
and uh so, but what's the purpose, right, that's the question,
(30:55):
because when you first look at these, well, at least
when I first looked at my thought, hunt have two
spare tires and are they stored vertically? That's weird. But
here's why. One of their other experiments on this vehicle
was a rear mounted a C. So the idea was
this would pipe up through the rear roof pillars and
(31:16):
it would go down over the occupants of passengers and
the driver of the vehicle through the headliner. But because
this was a concept and because of the nature of
a C tech at the time, the a C evaporators
they had to put in were enormous compared to the
rest of the trunk space they had. So engineers put
(31:38):
the gas tank under one of these bumps, and then
they put the spare tire vertically under the other bump.
Uh And as you know, that's not the best place
to put a gas tank. No, no, no, you don't
want to put a gas tank at the very back
end of the vehicle where it's subject to collisions. And um,
you know it's it's funny when you look at that,
you can see how that you know, the tire shape,
(31:59):
you can understand and why they did that. They had
to match the other side. They could have easily made
the other one squared off. Would hate that. Well, that's
the thing. It's not symmetrical. It'd be like that nineteen
sixties hot ride that we just talked about. That's asymmetrical.
And people, uh, they would they would not like that.
Another thing, Ben, is that that whole body work, all
that body work, maybe not all of it, but some
of it is fiberglass. And remember this is ve that's
(32:20):
pretty early, I mean, and Mercury wasn't really doing uh
you know, Ford wasn't doing a lot of fiberglass back then.
I know General Motors was doing fiberglass with the Corvette,
and they had other fiberglass experiments going on. But this
is very early in the in the days of um
of that type of technology. Now one other thing, actually
two more things, but um the D five twenty eight
was also Ford's first pillarless hardtop um and so what
(32:43):
there's there's what looks like a pillar that would be
like a B pillar, I guess in this car. So
it's a four door vehicle, and it looks like it
has a B pillar, But that's actually just um uh,
like a like a piece of trim that rolls down
with the windows when it goes down. So it doesn't
have like that clean, you know, clear across glass look
or anything. But but there is no pillar there. So
when the windows are down, it's wide open. And maybe
(33:05):
the last thing and I find this maybe the most
intriguing bit about this whole thing. What's that? All right?
So here's the way it goes. When when Ford was
done with this concept, when they were done using it
for their rolling test bed uh, they delivered it to
George Barris's custom shop on the very same day that
they delivered the Lincoln Futura concept that Barris eventually transformed
(33:26):
into the first Batmobile. So these two cars arrived at
his shop on the same day. I know that he
had probably looked at that when I write in the
future and made up his mind. But isn't it interesting
to think that this one could have been just as
easily been in the bat It could have, it didn't
didn't have that look, But yeah, I think it's just
it wasn't open top, you know. Yeah, And this one
(33:47):
did end up in movies. It was in a movie
called Patsy in nineteen with Jerry Lewis. Um, and I'm
sure that it made other film appearances as well. But um,
it's just strange that, you know, the two different paths
these two cars took that went to embarrass a shop.
I mean, on the same day. How unusual is that?
That is strange And it makes you wonder what kind
of a car Batman could have driven. You know, nice
(34:08):
little bit of history, I thought. Yeah. The al right,
speaking of a nice little bit of history, this next
one is it's just wild man. Uh No, could we
get some could we could we get a drum roll? Perfect?
Ladies and Gentlemen. Number one on this list the nineteen
(34:31):
sixties seven Boothill Express hot Rod. And I bet a
lot of people recognize this one from the plastic models
that they have assembled back in the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties. Yeah,
because Monogram made a model, like a kit model of
this vehicle that was wildly popular. I know that I
saw this on shelves everywhere when I was a kid. Yeah,
because it looks so unique. It's all right, here's what
(34:54):
here's what it is. Essentially, it's a funeral coach from
the it's that's been transformed into a hot rod because
of the engine they put in it, which is a
Chrysler four sixty two hmm e V eight. So this
was a car that was created in the in the
late nineties sixties, right at the at the heart of
that kind of hot rods centric culture that was going
(35:16):
on with you know, the Rat Fink character and Ed
Roth and all that. It was just a it's just
a wild show cars what it is. And the story
goes that this was used to supposedly carry a James
gang member to his final resting place at at Bootoo
at the Boothhold Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona. And the the
James gang member, if you're curious, his name was Bob Younger.
(35:38):
That's uh, that's the James gang member who was reportedly
carried in this in this funeral coach right there in Tombstone.
So this thing I keep just inarticulately saying this thing
and waving my hands. It's got it's got a separate uh,
it's got a separate driving open air driving apartment, you know,
(36:01):
just like a coach seat on a wagon. Uh. They've
got you know, to get some leather upholstery there and
a vertically mounted horizontal steering wheel or nearly horizontal as
a slide angle. And in the and they're just those
two seats in the front because the back is a
class enclosed but glass glass Waldam four sides coach with
(36:25):
the space for a coffin. And that's about it. Yeah,
what a cool looking car. And this is part of
and I kind of looked up where where this thing went? Now,
now Farner took this on tour with him. There's also
something called the Boothill Caravan. It was a traveling show
that tour drag strips and auto showed the auto show
circuit in the late nineteen sixties. And if you if
you want to look at this car, if you want
(36:46):
to see it online right now, you can go to
a site called custom It's called custom rama dot com
with a K K U S T O M R
A m A dot com and uh and search for
the cars. You know, just search for Boothill Express and
you'll find it. But along with you know photo of
I think the builder, um pretty pretty incredible vehicle. You'll
see several different views there. But to me, Ben, this
(37:09):
may be my favorite vehicle on the whole list. I mean,
I know it's number one on the Popular Mechanics list,
but I think this might be my favorite. Really, yeah,
I could see that. It's just for personal reasons. It's
not going to take the number one spot from the
Phantom for me. But this, yeah, this is I mean
it does really look like a Roth drawing, you know, Yeah,
(37:31):
it does. I mean it's like it's like a cartoon
caricature brought to life. It really is. It's very strange.
It's cool looking vehicle. I'd love to see it driving
at some point. I've never I've never seen an emotion. Yeah,
I haven't seen a video of it either. Um. I
I do have to say, though, you can't story full
sized coffin in it now because that engine is mounted
dead center in the vehicle. Oh I see. Okay, so
(37:52):
so that's what you're seeing in in the behind the
glass man. That must sound pretty cool. Um. Okay, so
here's another thing I want to mention about this whole
thing about the Vault tours and you know, being able
to go do that or not right now, but maybe
sometime soon in December of this year. I think that
maybe the coolest part about this whole thing is that
when you're when you're looking at the cars that they
(38:12):
feature that they show you on the tour or whatever,
there's a lot of photos out there, and if you
look in the background of those photos, you're gonna find
a lot of interesting stuff. So, you know, things that
maybe you'll see a shape that's covered up underneath the
tarp that they don't want you to see. I love
that kind of thing. So again, the garage peeping thing,
I get it. I mean, I understand that it's it's
all tied in, but I really do like looking in
(38:33):
the background of the photos that they that that you know,
some of these people that have gone on the tours
have taken and uh and just seeing some hidden gems
down there, you know, some some unexpected surprises. That's that's
just so interesting to me. I would I would love
to go and take this tour someday. Yeah, I would
love to be able to watch people work on the
cars to that kind of restoration craft. Yeah, it's a
(38:56):
working shop, so there might be a chance to just
see that. But I mean, I guess if you're on
a tour where you would probably just breeze right past them,
you know. Yeah, I know some people would you and
I probably would just stay back and maybe grab a
jacket or something so we look like them and kind
of hang out. I'd be the irritating guy who's like, so,
what's going on here? What are you working out? You know?
And this isn't the only museum that that has a
vault or has a basement, or has a storage area
(39:18):
or has you know, some area that's off site maybe
that they keep vehicles that are not quite ready for
the you know, for the big show. Um. I think
we talked about, you know that amazing General Motors collection
that's up in UH. I think it's Sterling Heights, Michigan
and h They have, like I want to say, it's
either six or eight hundred cars, but they only display
and maybe two hundred a time, and it's all private.
(39:38):
You can't even go in there unless you know somebody
or you have an event scheduled. It's a special you know, uh,
showing of the vehicles. UM, that collection is remarkable. And
again you know, six hundred of them are tucked away,
two hundred or on display, So that gives you an
idea that you know, where is their offsite, offsite storage
or they keeping them there and you just can't see them.
I don't know, but it seems museums all over the
(40:01):
United States have areas like this. I know that the
Chrysler Museum had something like this as well, a basement
area with unfinished vehicles or cars that have just been donated,
recently donated that we're in rough condition they were trying
to bring back. UM. You know, check out your local
museum and ask them if there is something like this available.
They might even if you get just if you have
the right person at the right time, you know they're
they're in a good mood. Maybe they'll let you peek
(40:23):
in the door. You know, maybe, especially if they're high
enough level, if you're you're diplomatic about it, you know,
don't be don't be too crazy. But if you do
happen to see inside one of the hallowed halls of
the ultra private, ultra exclusive Auto Museums, please let us know.
(40:45):
I mean, don't take pictures if it's gonna get you
in trouble, but if you can take pictures, please send
those pictures our way. Um. Obviously, Scott, you and I
have to get out to the Peterson Museum. Uh sometime.
We'll wait until December, so we're not just standing out there.
That makes sense, Yeah, but we would We would love
(41:05):
to hear from anybody who's got an experience with the
Peterson Museum. If you want to check out the other
podcasts that we mentioned today, we talked about, let's see,
we talked about the Dale Car, which is just it's
a crazy story. If you haven't heard it, Uh, and
you're gonna be driving around and go ahead and pop
that in and and check out. I think it's a
two part that's a multi part, Yeah, but it's it
(41:28):
takes that long to tell that story. That's that's an
incredible story. It might even be three parts. Yeah, it
might be. Uh, but tell us what you think about that.
You can find every every car Stuff episode we've ever
done on our website car Stuff show dot com. And
if you have a suggestion for a museum or another topic,
we should cover anything from the Hell Carrier and Agents
(41:50):
of Shield to the hell cat with dodge, then right
to us directly. We are car stuff and how stuff
works dot Com from are on this and thousands of
other topics. This at how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
at how stuff works dot com. M m hmmmm m
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I Ben Ben. Today's
topic is one that we just kind of stumbled across. Uh,
not too long ago. We were looking through online articles
and we discovered and because we're not from the West coast,
(00:24):
we're down here in the southeast, right, we discovered that
the Peterson Museum is offering volt tours now. Yes, and
this is a huge deal for longtime listeners. You've heard
us mentioned the Peterson Museum before, relatively new founded in
nine by the publisher Robert E. Peterson. Uh, this is
(00:48):
a enormous, amazing thing. It's one of the world's largest
auto museums. We've talked about the Peterson Museum many, many
times because you know, famous cars will end up their
movie car is that you know. Um, they have twenty
two galleries. I don't know a total number of vehicles
that are on display, but it's a it's a huge,
beautiful museum. I know when we talked about um, I
think it was low Riders. We've we've specifically talked about
(01:11):
the Peterson because I think that originally that museum was
supposed to um convey the idea of the southern California
car culture scene. Yeah, yeah, and okay, so there there
are some recent events too that we should catch people up.
All right. So on October nine, the museum went in
(01:32):
for remodeling, right, yeah, and that's gonna last for a
long time, right, more than a year. Yeah, it's gonna
reopen a little bit more than a year later, December one,
that this year. It's as we record this. Around that time,
before it went into remodeling, they had a hundred and
fifty vehicles or so on display in the main galleries.
(01:53):
All right, So going back to the vaults, you guys
when um, I don't know if you've ever been to
the Smithsonian up there when DC or one of the Smithsonian's, right,
So they have these vaults of things that get rotated
in and out of displays or in some cases never
see the proverbial light of day. Essentially, we're talking about
(02:14):
the basement. They do right them into the basement. Now
it's a drive in basement obviously because there's a bunch
of cars down there. And the thing is that prior
to very recently, I don't know when they started this exactly.
But um, it was big news when they allowed when
they finally had official vault tours, because prior to that
you either had to work there, no somebody were sneak in,
and some people did sneak in, I think from what
(02:35):
I hear. Um, there's some funny tales online about that.
But um, once they offer these vault tours, now I
think the tours last I want to say an hour
hour and a half something like that. It's a it's
they're over an hour long. They say it's kind of
cold down there, and apparently no photos are allowed on
the tours, but I don't know how that's possible, because
we see photos from the vault. Yeah right, I there
(02:57):
there have to be a certain amount of promo photos
right when they have a professional photographer take uh take
supervised photographs on the conditions. But there are a lot
of photos to where you can tell somebody quote unquote
got a text on their phone, Oh yeah, you know,
snap something really quick, and let's let's be honest there
there are reasons that a museum would not want that
(03:19):
kind of photography. Sure, there's exclusivity right in in an
art museum, I guess there's concern about the damage done
to the paint over time by flash photography. Yeah, maybe
the same applies to old paint shops. I don't know. Yeah,
that's what I was gonna ask. Could be. I mean,
I'm sure that you know that it's climate control down there.
That's why they keep it cool. They probably keep it
(03:40):
at the right humidity and all that. You know, everything
is adjusted down there for a specific reason to you know,
preserve what's there. But what's interesting to me about this
ben are most interesting to me is that these cars
are are not in what you call museum quality when
you see them. There are their cars that you know,
there'll be a puddle of oil underneath it on the
ground below it. Still four flat tires, yeah, yeah, four
(04:01):
flat tires on some of the cars. I mean they'll
be dust covered. Um, you know, just a shop manual
laying on the passenger seat, you know, where they're still
trying to work things out, figure out the electrical system
of the car. There's there's some amazing stuff down there,
and that's this kind of all goes back to, Uh,
I don't know, my grudge peeping problem that I had
for I like to look inside people's gardges when they're
open or whatever. It's like you just never know what
(04:22):
you're gonna see in there. And it's interesting to see
the kind of I don't know, clutter and the um,
the the stuff that people have a massed over over time,
and and this is kind of like what the museum
is a mass over time. Now. I know that some
of these are on their way up to the main floor,
you know, for the show, so they're gonna get those
ready little faster, but they rotate them in and out
of this place. So it's cars that you rarely see UM.
(04:45):
Just to give you an example, I think they have UM.
They have a a Steve McQueen Jaguar x KSS down there.
They have a Ferrari that was given to Henry Ford
the second by Enzel Ferrari as a gift down there.
And you know what's interesting about that. I I find
that fascinating because you remember there's that whole Ford Ferrari
battle that was going on right around the time of
(05:06):
UM with the late nineteen sixties early nineteen sixties, and
that was the the birth of the four G T forty.
Remember they were trying to bet I think it was
the Ford was trying to buy Ferrari and they refused
the sale. So so what's the deal with, you know,
them giving him a gift Ferrari. I mean it's a
strange I think there's an interesting story behind it. Yes,
it sounds a little bit like an olive branch. Yeah,
(05:26):
it kind of does. It really does. There there's also
a gold plated deloreate, which interesting. That's weird. I thought
it was pretty weird. There are some one of a
kind cars that you will never see again. You know,
if you're familiar with the Peterson Museum then you already
know that that's You can see some movie cars there,
like the Bug from Herbie, right, but in the vault
(05:48):
they also have cars that played a role in history
outside of the cinema, like the uh, what was the
Mercedes that Saddam Hussein d Oh? Yeah, that's one of
the us on the list, right, Yeah. Yeah, and that's
parked right next to somebody else's Mercedes that looks almost well,
it's nearly identical, isn't it very close? Yeah? Jack Nicholson's
(06:10):
seventy two Mercedes Bend six hundred girl sale. Yeah, it's
funny to see them next each other. Like that. It's like, well,
here's Jack Nicholson's, there's Saddam Hussein's. Looks very very similar.
These are interesting cars, by the way, they're pretty beautiful. Yeah,
I mean, I guess a lot of a lot of
features way ahead of their time on those on those
particular models. But okay, we'll get into those, I promise totally,
because there's a there's a whole long list of these things. Now.
(06:31):
They're they're antique cars, their their cars, um, you know,
like you said, from heads of state, their hot rods,
their celebrity cars, Hollywood cars, muscle cars, race cars, exotics, motorcycles. Uh, pamphlets. Oh,
that's one thing that um this article that we're gonna
kind of go through here with the with just ten examples. Um,
there's other stuff down there too. And one thing that
(06:52):
I thought was really curious was that they have just
bookshelf after bookshelf lined with you know, the old Chilton's
manuals are the Haynes manuals are the shop manuals from
the manufacturers for every single one of these cars that's
either on display or not on display, that's down in
the vault, and all of them are in like you
know they're in they're in good shape. It's just but
they've been used. I mean they're they're they're greasy, they've
(07:13):
got thumb prints all over them. They've got bookmarks, you know,
in them for for you know, the mechanics to come
back and take a look at. I find that stuff fascinating,
Like the behind the scenes museum stuff me too. Because
they have a warning at the at the top, or
maybe we should just say a sign. They have a
sign at the at the entrance where you know, it
says something like, welcome to the Vaults. You were about
(07:34):
to enter an exclusive, unparalleled collection beautiful and historically significant vehicles.
This is a working garage and storage facility, right, This
isn't supposed to be pretty. This is supposed to be
a working service center. And it's not pretty. I mean
that's the thing. And I kind of like that about
it's a little bit gritty, it's a little bit greasy.
I like that. I like that, you know, some of
(07:55):
the cars have flat tires and they've got dry rock
and alos a parking deck. Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting,
it's it's it's pretty fascinating and be able to take
a peek behind the curtain, I guess on this and
and and see what's down there. And I found in
Popular Mechanics a short list of ten what they said,
we're strange and notorious cars from the Peterson Museum vault.
But then there's there's countless photos online of other vehicles
(08:17):
down there, so you can kind of comb through those.
Because when these vault tours were happening, you know, prior
to October of last year, a lot of people went
down there and took advantage and said, you know, I'm
going to make a little list of what's there. If
even if they didn't photograph it, they at least you know,
marked it somehow wrote about it in a blog or whatever.
There's a lot of information out there about what's there.
I'm kind of excited about, you know, December, when they reopen,
(08:38):
what's gonna happen because if they're renovating the top part
of the museum, the main the main part of the galleries,
I wonder if they're going to do any renovation in
the vault area to make more space. Possibly, I don't know,
maybe that's not in the works, but it would be
interesting if they did and kind of made that part
of the museum. But then does that take away some
of the the excitement of going into the vault? There's that, yeah,
(08:59):
I mean, but it's nice to, you know, clean up
the work area. I guess if that's what they're gonna do.
But I also kind of like a little gritty. Yeah,
I like it too. Let's let's make it real. So
we're gonna talk about it's just ten of the cars
that are in the vault, and let's let's hop right
into it. Let's start with number ten, the nineteen seven. Yeah,
(09:22):
this is weird. This is a guy, the Marquis de Pedroso,
who is a wealthy Spaniard who lived in France, somewhere
in France, decided that he wanted to build his own
sports car. And in order to build this car, he
had to find a unique supercharge straight eight engine, which
is by the way, it looks like a museum piece alone.
It's an amazing engine two thirds of the car. It
(09:43):
really is. It's a it's a gorgeous engine, and they've
had it on you know, they've got it opened up
and displayed in that way. I mean the car is
a little bit you know, rough, but anyways, Um, a
couple of interesting things that this thing has. I mean,
it's got ignition timing. There was adjustable from the dash.
Now you had to like, okay, so think about very
of valve timing, right, you're you know, that's all electronic.
Now you're adjusting the variable valve timing on the dash
(10:06):
while you're driving this thing in a car from n
that's pretty revolutionary. Yeah, and that's not all. It also
had a smart chassis underslung in the rear portion. So
this was all to bring the passenger compartment closer to
the ground so you could really feel the road when
you're driving. Yeah, and when he finished it, he was
kind of in a hurry day to get out and
drive it. Of course he was right, he wanted to drive.
(10:26):
So so he decided that he's going to take a
couple of wicker chairs from his patio and fit them
to the car, and then later, much later, had them
covered so that they look like, you know, while regular
seats that would be in a sportster like this um
but there's still the wicker seats underneath there. Those are
the original seats that were in the car that that
he put in there. And only two of these vehicles
were ever built. This is the only one around today,
(10:50):
but there's a little bit of light at the end
of the tunnel. Yeah, there's a twist. He The car
was also delivered the museum with blueprints, so there's a
complete set of blueprints for this car. You could build
another one if you wanted to, if someone were to
to be then ambitious, Yeah, exactly, and I hope that
they will at some point because we're we're fans of
(11:10):
reproduction cars. Oh yeah, and this is a really cool
looking one too, so if you get a chance to
look up the pedrosso you won't be upset by that one. Alright,
Number nine what I just love this one, man, Just
this is a strange one, all right. It's it's a popemobile,
but it's not any popemobile. It's uh, it's it's one
(11:31):
of the very few open top carriers that the Pope
I ever wrote in and this is one that was
built for his, uh, Pope John Paul's second trip to
Mexico City. Yeah, it's a Cadillac popemobile. But for those
of you have heard our popemobile episode, as you know,
the Vatican does not condone the use of that phrase.
(11:54):
So the weird thing is that, as you said, this
is an open carrier, right, So Pope John Paul the
Second never actually rode in this vehicle. There were some
security concerns about where he was going to be going
at the stadium in Mexican Mexico City. So while he
did uh literally give it his blessing like he blessed
(12:18):
the vehicle, he did not actually ever ride in it.
All right, Well, he never did really ride in this
car um you know, it's all configured and ready to
go for him. And with the strangest, maybe the weirdest
feature about this whole thing is that that big papal
seat that says that that kind of thrust out of
the back area there where the where the back seat
normally would be. And I'm sure that there's you know,
(12:39):
side seats there for security as well, but the papal
seat sits on a hydraulic system that can raise or
lower the seat by twenty inches. It's really weird looking
when you see it. Also, when the passenger doors open
and closed, these steps fold you know, in and out
to ease the pope's entrance so he can get in easy,
can get out easy. And maybe one of the other
unusual bits about the thing is that the construction was
(13:02):
completed here in North America by two different companies that
you probably wouldn't expect. There's an American limo company named Eureka,
and I thought Eureka made hers is. Also it seems
like there may be a hearse provider as well. Yeah,
I think they do a couple of different kinds of
custom coaching. Yeah. I would guess, you know, limo maker
would also make curses, so um yeah, probably probably limo
and horses. But um And also this is a weird one.
(13:23):
Roush Performance helped work on this for Afford Performance company
worked on this Cadillac for the Pope in Mexico. It's
just a strange mix of mix of constructors. They usually
do tuning. I guess they decided that it needed to
scoot very strange. Well, they probably had a lot to
do with, you know, maybe like the layout of the
hydraulics and stuff like that. I mean possibly. Yeah, And
(13:47):
this lead Speaking of strange, this leads us to number
eight stam Hussein's Night Mercedes been six hundred London Lay. Yeah,
this is weird. The Landola versions of these cars were
actually the most rare of these types of vehicles. So
if you see a you know, Mercedes Limo from this
era that is a land of lay Um, it's one
(14:08):
of the one of the um more expensive models. These
are the cars of president's dictators, um, aristocrats, you know,
landed gentry. These are excuse me, not even landed gentry.
These are the cars of the world's decision makers. Yeah.
And what's strange about this type of model is that
and maybe it's unusual, I guess I've seen other cars,
(14:30):
you know, even a concourse events that have these, Um
they had a solid roof above the driver and then
the convertible top over the back section that could open
up and allow you know, the crowds to see the person,
you know, the head of stage as they passed by
a parade. I've seen cars like that in person, and
it's such an unusual look. It's a really strange look
when the when the driver is in the covered area
(14:51):
and the top is that the back area is uncovered. Yeah.
And if you just look at this kind of vehicle,
it says power. You know, the beginning of the excuse me,
the front, the classic lines, uh, the the big events
on the side of the body work, which is weird.
You can you can see them from different shots through
(15:14):
on the rear of the vehicle, and they drew air
for the a C which is installed in the trunk. Yeah,
that's the weird thing to have. But but understandably so
because I mean there's probably ten feet of difference between
the front cabin area there and in the back, uh
you know where the we're the the head of state
or the actually the communist dictator would be sitting back there, right,
(15:34):
because that's a that's the kind of car that this
looks like to me. It looks like it's a dictator's car,
somebody that you would see in a parade, uh, driving
past the past of people as they wave and in
their opulent Mercedes Limo. Now, the story of how Peterson
got this is really strange to me. So an Iraqi
National after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in two thousand three, and
(15:55):
Iraqi National drove the Mercedes out of the country and
into Jordan's What that really means is he stole the car. Yeah,
and it's not in that great shape. I mean it's
pretty beat up. I can see some some uh, some
dance and some rust on the front end here as
I'm looking at it right now. Um, it's in it's
in a rough condition. But so when it got to
Jordan's um, a car collector who also lives in the US,
(16:17):
pointed the Peterson Museum staff, you know, to the location
of this car, and then they arranged for the for
the sale and the delivery of it everything. Yeah, I
love I love that vague phrase a Jordanian car collector.
It's like when you read a private businessman. Well, you know,
it ended up at a Mercedes Ben's distributor in Jordan's right,
and then the museum bought it from this Mercedes Benz distributor.
(16:39):
So I kind of understand the the you know, the
flow of the car after that point. But maybe what
happened beforehand, Like he said, he stole the car, Yeah
he did. He stole the dictator stot and one piece
of trivia here. There are so many dents on the
on the vehicle because once the guards were done with
their duties, they would sit on the truck and their
rifle butts would not down on the metal. It's funny
(17:02):
and just like very careless, very there's just no concern
for that type of vehicle. I mean, I would feel
immense relief. If I worked directly for Saddam Hussein and
then he just and you know, he left the car
and he went into the palace or whatever, I would
totally relax. Oh yeah, yeah, I probably wouldn't mess with
the car, though I don't think I would either know,
(17:22):
There's no way I'm touching that car. All right, let's
move on to number seven. These are these are really interesting.
I mean, if nothing else, they they just screamed nineteen
sixties hot ride. This is in the nineteen sixty three
XR six Hot Ride. This one, in particular is the
one that they mentioned because it was built um, part
of of part of like a three issues series in
(17:42):
hot Rod magazine back in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, and
uh it had several of the big names and custom
cars working on it, including George Barris. Yeah. Not a
bad name to have working in your car. Um, not
at all. No, No, I wouldn't think. So it uses
a VW Beatle front suspension, and um, of course they
say that it takes inspiration from the jet age. I
(18:03):
can clearly see that. And oh this is really weird.
Asymmetrical design cues throughout the entire car. So for example, Um,
you know, the driver's seatback is raised just a little
bit more than the passenger seatbelt, the gauges are offset
just a little bit. The the hood scoop is installed
only on the driver's side. It's not on the passenger side.
It's it's just an interesting car to build and it
(18:24):
and it does I mean the color, the look of it, everything,
and even the car that's parked in the background there.
I mean, they both just again they just screamed nineteen
sixties hot ride, you know, the the Ratfink culture. I guess, yes,
the the thing itself. The asymmetry here is not immediately apparent,
but once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah,
(18:45):
I mean I I clearly see that. And it does
kind of bug me a little bit that, you know,
it's not symmetrical. It's not a lined up. I don't
know why, it's just that's the way I am about
this stuff. So if we're speaking of monster machines, then
we've got to move on to the next When the
math on V sixteen Tea Bucket Roadster, this thing is
a beast man. This is this is from nineteen three
(19:07):
Ford Tea Bucket that created into are built into a
hot ride. It was built in the early nineteen nineties.
And this engine we said, you said, a V six team. Yeah, yeah,
it's It was created by joining two Chevy three eights
together at the crankshaft, right, and not only did they
somehow do it successfully, but they did it twice. This
is the only one of those motors that made it
(19:30):
into a vehicle. So it's got an estimated and this
is just estimated. I don't I don't think they've ever
opened it all the way up. Yeah, oh I doubt it.
But uh yeah, the horse power yeah pretty high. Yeah,
estimated five hundred and fifty horse power. Yeah, you know, okay,
I said pretty high. But you know what, when you
think about two V eights joined together to make a
V sixteen, you would just assume that thing would have
(19:51):
like a thousand horse power. But I bet it's pretty
strong anyways, I mean it looks. Mean, it's maybe the
the coolest looking car down there as far as I've seen. Yeah,
and it is as you can imagine, listeners, it is
a long vehicle. It's chassis is stretched. You know, they
clearly had to fabricate a lot of definitely almost looks
like a dragster. It has a dragster appearance, all right,
(20:14):
So let's move on to number five Davis. And maybe
what makes this one most unique then is that it's
very rare. Yeah. This is one of fewer than twenty
cars built by a startup named Davis, which which has
an interesting story because it was founded by a guy
(20:34):
named Gary Davis. Oh and we should say this is
a three wheeled car, and it looks like retro futuristic. Yeah,
and it's also that that kind of notoriously bad three
wheel design, you know, the kind that's the is it
the it's the tadpole is a delta delta, yes, right,
delta configuration, one wheel at the front, two at the back. Yeah,
(20:56):
terribly unstable and pretty much uh capable of pulling parkour
in terms of flipping. That's right. It had to have been,
like like they said, it just had to have been
very very difficult to drive, terrifying to drive, as they say.
But the the the notorious part about this whole story,
you know, why is it notorious is because the founder
of this company, a guy named Gary Davis. He, even
(21:21):
though he maintained his innocence to the end um, he
was taking you know, customer money and dealer deposit money
without ever delivering a single vehicle and eventually convicted of fraud.
So he was found guilty. And this was before Kickstarter.
It was a lot it was a lot more difficult
to get away with that kind of thing back then.
Oh yeah, so all these are handbuilt. Of course, they
were built in a I think it was an airplane hanger. Yeah,
(21:43):
and I'm sure that you know, we're thinking back to
the story of the Dale. By the way, I think
maybe the Dale is down in the isn't there Dale
in the Peterson vault? Yes, there's the I believe there's
the one promotional one that has you know, a lawnmower engine, Yeah,
and U and two by four bumper or something. Yeah,
something like that. I mean, I have to look back
(22:04):
at our Dale story, but um, some some strange cars
down there. But this reminds me a lot of that,
you know, and that I'm sure that there was a
lot of promotional material and printed material and you know,
big talk about you know, the car of the future,
and you know, this is something that people are gonna
love to come to your dealership and buy. So why
wouldn't you want to buy a franchise in this. Yeah,
and what we should say about the Davis car is
(22:26):
that it is so unstable that when it was part
you could hop into. Now this is the Davis, not
the Dale, because the Davis actually ran, you could hop
into the Davis well as part and just by rocking
back and forth side to side, you could knock this
car over on the side it would roll over. And
uh and you know, I think we've just recently we
(22:49):
mentioned that top Gear episode where Jeremy Clarksons driving that
reliant Robin is in it. Yeah, the three wheel car
that he just continually rolls over, the same design, same idea.
The one that's here looks like it's ever been rolled over.
I don't see any scuffs on the on the paint
work here, but um, it's actually kind of it's a
neat looking little car. It's too bad. It's so unstable. Yeah,
it's too bad. But one thing that we should say
(23:11):
in this what looking into Stavis brings it to mind,
is that some of these cars are in an active
state of restoration. Yeah, some are, some are Yeah, that's right.
So this one could be on its way up to
the main floor. Right In another one that we'll talk
about now, the number four contender, the MP Sports st Yeah,
this is a very rare fine. Now, most people when
(23:32):
they think about a doom buggy, uh, they think about
the Bruce Meyers VW Manx you know they make. Yeah,
that's the classic doom buggy. Look the fiberglass fenders, you know,
all open top of the roll bar and everything. This
one is similar, not exactly, it's it's it's more squared off,
I suppose it's. It's the body work is is simpler,
it's not quite as flowing, but it does look an
(23:53):
awful lot like this. Now. It was made by a
company called Empty, and Empty was a major mail order
supply a VW performance parts around, you know, in around
nineteen sixty and actually prior to nineteen sixty and then
around nineteen sixties when they decided to create a kit
car to make VW beetles off roadworthy. Right, So they
use steel tubes, metal body work with these pretty sharp
(24:17):
angular lines that looked nothing like the Manx buggies. So
if you look at these flat fenders, because this thing
totally doesn't look aero dynamic, uh, you can see it
was inspired by the Jeeps. That were around at that time.
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say that when I look
at this, I still I still think Manx only because
that that classic Doom Buggy is burned into my into
(24:39):
my brain as far as like, you know, that's what
the Doom Buggy looks like. Now. It does have quite
a bit of differences. As you mentioned, it has, you know,
the spare tires mounted on the front like we're in
a normal car. The engine would be and I say
normal in quotes. Um, so you know, as we said,
it's built from a Volkswagen bug or Beetle, so the
engines at the back, and you know that the open
(25:00):
framework on top. You know, it looks a little bit
more like well definitely a lot more like Jeep than
than Volkswagen, of course, but it does have it. It
just for some reason, it sparks that the impression of
my mind that, yeah, it looks like I could have
been made by Manx maybe early on. Yeah, and this
was obtained from a retired prize fighter in Riverside, California.
(25:20):
I wonder who that was. I don't know, I mean,
but because you don't know when they collected this car,
I could have been down there for twenty years, who knows.
I mean, so I was trying to think, like, how
am I ever going to figure out who that prize
fighter is? But I guess unless we go there and
read the plaque on the wall, will never know. Al Right, now, Scott,
I've gotta I gotta hop in the driver's seat for
this one. It's a car pun uh number nice work,
(25:42):
Thank you, man. I worked on that earlier as always.
Uh Number three on our list is probably, I'm gonna
say it, probably my favorite car was in this list. Okay,
I mean, who saw it coming? It's the Rules Royce
Phantom one. You guys, this is amazing. This car looks
like Frozen music. I love every I love everything about
(26:05):
it except that I don't own it. It is beautiful,
it really is. It's a It's a striking car, and
I can imagine in person this thing is even more impressive.
And it looks it looks huge. It looks like it's
a gigantic car as well. Proportions. Um, so this was
a you know, it's a pre World War two Rolls
Royce that was rebodied. Now I have a question about this,
all right, So before we get into the little details here.
(26:26):
It says that it was rebodied, Um because everything underneath
the body lasted longer than the body. They say, because
the prep work that was you know, done to the
body work before it went on the on the chassis
was not quite as complete as it is now as
you can imagine, you know, pre World War two. Um,
so the bodies didn't last all that long. But I mean,
come on, nine years for a rolls race, you would
(26:47):
think that it would last longer than that. It must
have had a heavy use, that's true. Yeah, and the
the chassis of this it may have also been that
the chassis was just better than the average chassis. Well
that could be, and that you know that was the
donor car, I guess right. So yeah, I don't know
the story of this specific one, Like I don't know
if it had a if it took some damage some sort,
(27:09):
that's possibility. Sure. So when it was rebodied, it was
rebodied by a company based in Belgium, junk Kia, which
is around today. They build buses, commercial buses, so it's
a it's a coach builder that that that currently builds
busses and big vehicles. Uh. I kind of see the
transition I guess here between building something in this large.
(27:31):
This is a huge vehicle. I mean it really is.
The proportions are just immense. Yeah, it's kind of a
bus anyway. It's it's strange because the vehicle is so
long that you would think the interior was much larger.
But it's I think it's part of it is just
the way that this the Phantom makes such an entrance.
(27:52):
And one of the things that everybody notices about the Phantom,
which I love but can be divisive to some people,
are those owned suicide doors. Yeah, this is weird. Round doors.
And I've got a question about this. I wonder how
this works because it says that it has well, of
course it has round windows to go along with that,
you know, round shape windows. But it says that when
(28:12):
you roll them down, they roll down in a in
a fan pattern. And I can understand, you know, I
can see it kind of like rolling across archy my
arm across Like you can see it like like the
swing of a like a secondhand on the clock. Perfect
Is that is that kind of how it works? I think,
I mean, I'm guessing that that's what it means, like
like the way a fan would open up like you'd
unfolded unfurled, very very strange, right on your own Phantom.
(28:37):
You don't have the stretched Phantom one though, right, No,
I have just the standard, just the standard. Yeah. Yeah,
so this one has been stretched. I mean this, I
keep talking about the proportions, but this has got a
a fastback body design on it. So you can imagine
that on this huge um you know, Rolls Royce chassis
that they've already stretched and they've they've made this long, long,
fastback and the rear portion hasn't And this is so
(29:00):
cool that I love this feature an eighteen inch central
fin which has rows of lovers that extend all the
way down the back, and I love that central fin
design or in race cars, on street cars and whatever,
but you don't see it very often, but it's a
it's just a cool, um cool touch. You would think
too that this would mean with all those events, you
would think that means the car has a rear engine,
(29:22):
but it doesn't. It still has the front engine. So
I mean it's it's just an exceptionally big and long
vehicle and it looks really really cool. I like this
one a lot. Now, the one that you probably like
even more, Scott, I'm gonna go out on a limb
and say that you would probably prefer number two to
the Rolls Royce five, you know what I might. This
is an interesting vehicle. It's the Mercury d F concept
(29:47):
and it was I guess like a approving ground vehicle
for for UM for Mercury at the time or for
four at the time, because they used a lot of
different experimental UM systems and oponents in this they I mean,
just for example, there is an experimental y block V
eight under the hood UM and you know, the y
block eventually became you know, production and it was used
(30:09):
in UH. In fact, this became a whole family of
overhead valve eights from about nineteen fifty in nineteen sixty four.
But this is again they're using it in this vehicle
as an experiment, right, and that wasn't the only experiments.
You know. The one thing that will stand out for
most people when you look at this concept vehicle is
it's going to be the two bumps in the in
(30:32):
the body that precede the tail lights. Right. This is
so unusual because usually when we see tail fins, UH,
they're very sharp, they're usually very very yeah, they look
like an airplane obviously, and this is this does not
look like that at all. I mean, they're they're flowing
almost like a fender. Yeah, camel humps, Yeah, yeah, I
guess that's a good way to put it, right, Yeah,
and uh so, but what's the purpose, right, that's the question,
(30:55):
because when you first look at these, well, at least
when I first looked at my thought, hunt have two
spare tires and are they stored vertically? That's weird. But
here's why. One of their other experiments on this vehicle
was a rear mounted a C. So the idea was
this would pipe up through the rear roof pillars and
(31:16):
it would go down over the occupants of passengers and
the driver of the vehicle through the headliner. But because
this was a concept and because of the nature of
a C tech at the time, the a C evaporators
they had to put in were enormous compared to the
rest of the trunk space they had. So engineers put
(31:38):
the gas tank under one of these bumps, and then
they put the spare tire vertically under the other bump.
Uh And as you know, that's not the best place
to put a gas tank. No, no, no, you don't
want to put a gas tank at the very back
end of the vehicle where it's subject to collisions. And um,
you know it's it's funny when you look at that,
you can see how that you know, the tire shape,
(31:59):
you can understand and why they did that. They had
to match the other side. They could have easily made
the other one squared off. Would hate that. Well, that's
the thing. It's not symmetrical. It'd be like that nineteen
sixties hot ride that we just talked about. That's asymmetrical.
And people, uh, they would they would not like that.
Another thing, Ben, is that that whole body work, all
that body work, maybe not all of it, but some
of it is fiberglass. And remember this is ve that's
(32:20):
pretty early, I mean, and Mercury wasn't really doing uh
you know, Ford wasn't doing a lot of fiberglass back then.
I know General Motors was doing fiberglass with the Corvette,
and they had other fiberglass experiments going on. But this
is very early in the in the days of um
of that type of technology. Now one other thing, actually
two more things, but um the D five twenty eight
was also Ford's first pillarless hardtop um and so what
(32:43):
there's there's what looks like a pillar that would be
like a B pillar, I guess in this car. So
it's a four door vehicle, and it looks like it
has a B pillar, But that's actually just um uh,
like a like a piece of trim that rolls down
with the windows when it goes down. So it doesn't
have like that clean, you know, clear across glass look
or anything. But but there is no pillar there. So
when the windows are down, it's wide open. And maybe
(33:05):
the last thing and I find this maybe the most
intriguing bit about this whole thing. What's that? All right?
So here's the way it goes. When when Ford was
done with this concept, when they were done using it
for their rolling test bed uh, they delivered it to
George Barris's custom shop on the very same day that
they delivered the Lincoln Futura concept that Barris eventually transformed
(33:26):
into the first Batmobile. So these two cars arrived at
his shop on the same day. I know that he
had probably looked at that when I write in the
future and made up his mind. But isn't it interesting
to think that this one could have been just as
easily been in the bat It could have, it didn't
didn't have that look, But yeah, I think it's just
it wasn't open top, you know. Yeah, And this one
(33:47):
did end up in movies. It was in a movie
called Patsy in nineteen with Jerry Lewis. Um, and I'm
sure that it made other film appearances as well. But um,
it's just strange that, you know, the two different paths
these two cars took that went to embarrass a shop.
I mean, on the same day. How unusual is that?
That is strange And it makes you wonder what kind
of a car Batman could have driven. You know, nice
(34:08):
little bit of history, I thought. Yeah. The al right,
speaking of a nice little bit of history, this next
one is it's just wild man. Uh No, could we
get some could we could we get a drum roll? Perfect?
Ladies and Gentlemen. Number one on this list the nineteen
(34:31):
sixties seven Boothill Express hot Rod. And I bet a
lot of people recognize this one from the plastic models
that they have assembled back in the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties. Yeah,
because Monogram made a model, like a kit model of
this vehicle that was wildly popular. I know that I
saw this on shelves everywhere when I was a kid. Yeah,
because it looks so unique. It's all right, here's what
(34:54):
here's what it is. Essentially, it's a funeral coach from
the it's that's been transformed into a hot rod because
of the engine they put in it, which is a
Chrysler four sixty two hmm e V eight. So this
was a car that was created in the in the
late nineties sixties, right at the at the heart of
that kind of hot rods centric culture that was going
(35:16):
on with you know, the Rat Fink character and Ed
Roth and all that. It was just a it's just
a wild show cars what it is. And the story
goes that this was used to supposedly carry a James
gang member to his final resting place at at Bootoo
at the Boothhold Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona. And the the
James gang member, if you're curious, his name was Bob Younger.
(35:38):
That's uh, that's the James gang member who was reportedly
carried in this in this funeral coach right there in Tombstone.
So this thing I keep just inarticulately saying this thing
and waving my hands. It's got it's got a separate uh,
it's got a separate driving open air driving apartment, you know,
(36:01):
just like a coach seat on a wagon. Uh. They've
got you know, to get some leather upholstery there and
a vertically mounted horizontal steering wheel or nearly horizontal as
a slide angle. And in the and they're just those
two seats in the front because the back is a
class enclosed but glass glass Waldam four sides coach with
(36:25):
the space for a coffin. And that's about it. Yeah,
what a cool looking car. And this is part of
and I kind of looked up where where this thing went? Now,
now Farner took this on tour with him. There's also
something called the Boothill Caravan. It was a traveling show
that tour drag strips and auto showed the auto show
circuit in the late nineteen sixties. And if you if
you want to look at this car, if you want
(36:46):
to see it online right now, you can go to
a site called custom It's called custom rama dot com
with a K K U S T O M R
A m A dot com and uh and search for
the cars. You know, just search for Boothill Express and
you'll find it. But along with you know photo of
I think the builder, um pretty pretty incredible vehicle. You'll
see several different views there. But to me, Ben, this
(37:09):
may be my favorite vehicle on the whole list. I mean,
I know it's number one on the Popular Mechanics list,
but I think this might be my favorite. Really, yeah,
I could see that. It's just for personal reasons. It's
not going to take the number one spot from the
Phantom for me. But this, yeah, this is I mean
it does really look like a Roth drawing, you know, Yeah,
(37:31):
it does. I mean it's like it's like a cartoon
caricature brought to life. It really is. It's very strange.
It's cool looking vehicle. I'd love to see it driving
at some point. I've never I've never seen an emotion. Yeah,
I haven't seen a video of it either. Um. I
I do have to say, though, you can't story full
sized coffin in it now because that engine is mounted
dead center in the vehicle. Oh I see. Okay, so
(37:52):
so that's what you're seeing in in the behind the
glass man. That must sound pretty cool. Um. Okay, so
here's another thing I want to mention about this whole
thing about the Vault tours and you know, being able
to go do that or not right now, but maybe
sometime soon in December of this year. I think that
maybe the coolest part about this whole thing is that
when you're when you're looking at the cars that they
(38:12):
feature that they show you on the tour or whatever,
there's a lot of photos out there, and if you
look in the background of those photos, you're gonna find
a lot of interesting stuff. So, you know, things that
maybe you'll see a shape that's covered up underneath the
tarp that they don't want you to see. I love
that kind of thing. So again, the garage peeping thing,
I get it. I mean, I understand that it's it's
all tied in, but I really do like looking in
(38:33):
the background of the photos that they that that you know,
some of these people that have gone on the tours
have taken and uh and just seeing some hidden gems
down there, you know, some some unexpected surprises. That's that's
just so interesting to me. I would I would love
to go and take this tour someday. Yeah, I would
love to be able to watch people work on the
cars to that kind of restoration craft. Yeah, it's a
(38:56):
working shop, so there might be a chance to just
see that. But I mean, I guess if you're on
a tour where you would probably just breeze right past them,
you know. Yeah, I know some people would you and
I probably would just stay back and maybe grab a
jacket or something so we look like them and kind
of hang out. I'd be the irritating guy who's like, so,
what's going on here? What are you working out? You know?
And this isn't the only museum that that has a
vault or has a basement, or has a storage area
(39:18):
or has you know, some area that's off site maybe
that they keep vehicles that are not quite ready for
the you know, for the big show. Um. I think
we talked about, you know that amazing General Motors collection
that's up in UH. I think it's Sterling Heights, Michigan
and h They have, like I want to say, it's
either six or eight hundred cars, but they only display
and maybe two hundred a time, and it's all private.
(39:38):
You can't even go in there unless you know somebody
or you have an event scheduled. It's a special you know, uh,
showing of the vehicles. UM, that collection is remarkable. And
again you know, six hundred of them are tucked away,
two hundred or on display, So that gives you an
idea that you know, where is their offsite, offsite storage
or they keeping them there and you just can't see them.
I don't know, but it seems museums all over the
(40:01):
United States have areas like this. I know that the
Chrysler Museum had something like this as well, a basement
area with unfinished vehicles or cars that have just been donated,
recently donated that we're in rough condition they were trying
to bring back. UM. You know, check out your local
museum and ask them if there is something like this available.
They might even if you get just if you have
the right person at the right time, you know they're
they're in a good mood. Maybe they'll let you peek
(40:23):
in the door. You know, maybe, especially if they're high
enough level, if you're you're diplomatic about it, you know,
don't be don't be too crazy. But if you do
happen to see inside one of the hallowed halls of
the ultra private, ultra exclusive Auto Museums, please let us know.
(40:45):
I mean, don't take pictures if it's gonna get you
in trouble, but if you can take pictures, please send
those pictures our way. Um. Obviously, Scott, you and I
have to get out to the Peterson Museum. Uh sometime.
We'll wait until December, so we're not just standing out there.
That makes sense, Yeah, but we would We would love
(41:05):
to hear from anybody who's got an experience with the
Peterson Museum. If you want to check out the other
podcasts that we mentioned today, we talked about, let's see,
we talked about the Dale Car, which is just it's
a crazy story. If you haven't heard it, Uh, and
you're gonna be driving around and go ahead and pop
that in and and check out. I think it's a
two part that's a multi part, Yeah, but it's it
(41:28):
takes that long to tell that story. That's that's an
incredible story. It might even be three parts. Yeah, it
might be. Uh, but tell us what you think about that.
You can find every every car Stuff episode we've ever
done on our website car Stuff show dot com. And
if you have a suggestion for a museum or another topic,
we should cover anything from the Hell Carrier and Agents
(41:50):
of Shield to the hell cat with dodge, then right
to us directly. We are car stuff and how stuff
works dot Com from are on this and thousands of
other topics. This at how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
at how stuff works dot com. M m hmmmm m
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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