0:00

Welcome to car Stuff, a production

0:02

of I Heart Radio. Hello

0:07

and welcome to car Stuff. I'm your host Scott Benjamin.

0:09

I'm Ben Boland. We are joined, as always

0:12

with our super producer, Kurt Vitamin

0:14

G garn. How's it going, Kurt? It's going

0:17

great? What's up? Dudes? The name stuck Vitamin

0:19

G. Vitamin K is there? Actually there's an Actually Vitamin

0:21

K isn't there? There is? Yeah, maybe

0:23

that's a better one. Maybe should go with Vitamin K was

0:26

a drug? I don't know, maybe

0:28

like vitamin you no full

0:30

disclosure. You did come up with

0:32

Vitamin G off air and I think

0:35

Kurt and I are both a d percent on board.

0:37

It's just such a cool nickname, and it's tough to

0:39

make a good nickname. What about special K? He

0:42

could be special? Yeah?

0:45

What angel does? Is that a wait?

0:48

Wait? Wait wait? Special K is a drug?

0:51

I thought that was a breakfast cereal. Well

0:54

it is, Okay, it's also corn

0:57

flakes. They call that special K, don't they. Yeah, it's

0:59

been con fusing a lot of ceed

1:02

drug deal.

1:05

You know, there's there's some guy

1:07

in the alley just trying to sell some Kelloggs,

1:10

and everybody's disappointed. But

1:13

it's funny. It's like it's a it's a tiger. He's

1:16

he got like a like a bandana on. He's all kind

1:18

of scruffy looking and like a hoarse

1:20

voice. Has been working for a while. No,

1:23

I'm just kidding, Tony. If you're listening to Mr

1:26

Mr Tiger, I'll call Mr Tiger um

1:29

no disrespect meant. So are you saying

1:31

that special K is like the that's

1:35

is frosted flakes killing whatever it is. Yeah,

1:38

it's like Special K is the unsweetened

1:40

version. I think you're right,

1:42

instead of frosted flakes. Yeah, that's right now before

1:45

we gentlemen, before we begin

1:47

today's episode. But this is really important,

1:49

Ben, We're gonna figure this out. I want

1:51

to advance and I want to air a grievance

1:54

about cereal and specific and

1:57

about food products in general. As

2:00

you know, I'm very food motivated person. And

2:02

I still have not gotten that party

2:04

sub. My girlfriend said it was ridiculous

2:07

because they are apparently only two of us. I

2:10

texted her right after we did that previous

2:12

episode. Anyway, here it is, Uh,

2:15

do you guys remember Raisin Brand? Yeah?

2:18

I do, Okay, I was never a fan of

2:20

raisin brand. Two scoops are Raisins.

2:23

See, here we go, Here we

2:25

go at the heart of the problem. Here cut

2:28

you cut to the quick. Oh I'm so sorry.

2:30

This is perfect and you're you're saving this time

2:32

because we shouldn't be nice about it. Have

2:35

you ever heard of this thing called shrink flation?

2:38

No, but I've never heard the term. But I

2:40

think I know what you're gonna add. So there are

2:42

fewer and few Like the price

2:45

of a box of cereal is staying the

2:47

same, but the amount of cereal you get

2:50

is dwindling, but the boxes staying in the same

2:52

size, and the boxes stay in the same size.

2:55

Okay, Just like when when

2:57

you see maybe a can of your

2:59

favorite beverage or something, and you know that

3:01

the uh, the curvature at

3:03

the bottom of it has increased

3:06

false bottom. Yeah, Well, you

3:08

buy candy bars and you notice

3:11

that they've they've literally, like on Cadbury

3:13

Candies, they've literally cut the corners to

3:16

save eight percent of

3:18

the chocolate that would normally be used in the bar. All

3:20

right, I'm trying to think of an example of this. It seems

3:23

like there was an airline example of this recently,

3:25

and not recently, I shouldn't say decades

3:29

ago, okay, but when they used to serve in

3:31

flight meals, and I think it was something crazy

3:33

like that, you know, by not putting

3:36

an olive on, you know whatever,

3:38

the sandwich was a single olive or

3:40

a single slice of an olive. This airline

3:42

saved like a hundred thousand dollars a year or

3:44

something. It was some crazy amount of money. But it shows

3:46

you the scale of what's

3:49

a small change like that can mean to a

3:51

big company. There we go. That's

3:53

right. We are going to segue

3:56

to what this episode about. Thank you really me

3:58

complain about this. I've

4:01

just I've been noticing it more and more. It's one

4:03

of those things you can't unsee. Can

4:05

I make one other food related

4:07

common right now? Always I'm looking

4:09

at you right now, and you have a Coca

4:11

Cola in front of you do right here and probably

4:14

bottled right here in Atlanta, if I had to guess. Not

4:16

a Coca Cola commercial, by the way. But but

4:18

what I want to point out is that

4:20

you're using a paper

4:23

straw, and I know that's the

4:25

right thing to do apparently, and I'm

4:28

not I'm not on board with this whole thing. The

4:30

texture bothers me immensely

4:34

and they fall up. No, no, no no, I'm saying like, no,

4:36

no, it's not one of those like like I

4:39

am upset by using it. I just can't

4:41

use it myself. I feel like they stick to my lips.

4:43

They just feel weird, like it just don't

4:45

feel like a straw is supposed to feel.

4:47

So I do tend to use a straw

4:50

from drinking soda. However, when

4:52

this whole plastic straw thing happened,

4:55

I get it. I get it, you know, do

4:57

your best to make the world a better place and so on.

5:00

But the thing is that the vast

5:02

majority of plastic pollution in

5:04

the ocean is coming from commercial

5:06

fishing. It's not coming from

5:09

you know, Johnny or Jane America using

5:11

a plastic straw when they go to McDonald's.

5:14

But we at our office now

5:16

we only have paper straws. We

5:18

don't have the flexible straws anymore, which

5:20

is a shame, because there's

5:22

a superior straw. Everybody loves the bendy

5:25

straws, right, I mean I think, I think I think

5:27

everybody across the board. You know, whether you're

5:29

young, you'll old, you love the bendy straw so

5:31

disappointing when you get one and you put it in

5:33

the wrong way, you

5:35

know what I mean, and we discover

5:38

that it was the bendy one too

5:40

late. I've done that before.

5:42

Yeah, that's it's worse. You're right, it's not the

5:44

worst, but I've forgotten about the disappointment

5:46

that leads to just disappointing. I guess

5:48

if you did that like a milkshake or something, that'd be the worst.

5:51

I mean, you can't. You can flip it around if it's in water or something.

5:53

Fine, guess, but we can't be defined by

5:55

our regrets.

5:57

Hey, what do you say? We talked about a museum,

5:59

tod how about that? Yes? Yeah, okay,

6:01

so I've been as you as you guys know.

6:04

I'm increasingly great. Same.

6:06

But yeah, we're twenty minutes into the episode,

6:08

and maybe we'll talk about some cars. I don't know. Yeah,

6:10

maybe we'll get to it. So I'm increasingly

6:13

being now in our current incarnation

6:15

of car stuff, I'm increasingly finding

6:18

myself being a on the road correspondent.

6:22

That's great. I love being able to

6:25

do this. I love being able to

6:27

find these amazing museums,

6:30

these amazing stories, A lot of stuff, Scott

6:33

that you and I have been talking about for years. I

6:35

love being able to go there in person. Recently,

6:39

I was stranded in Los

6:41

Angeles due to a series of

6:43

cartoonish and uh in retrospect

6:45

hilarious circumstances, and

6:47

I finally, you know, I did that thing

6:50

where I was thinking, I'm stuck here,

6:53

I'm gonna be here for a day.

6:55

I don't have uh,

6:57

I don't have a ton of stuff plan uh.

7:00

So I can either just

7:03

wander the streets to do often,

7:05

or I could do something productive, which I do less

7:07

often. So

7:10

so I finally did it. I took you up

7:12

on your recommendation from years ago, and

7:14

I went to visit the Peterson Museum

7:16

fantastic And and what

7:19

was your impression the very moment

7:21

you walk into that museum, Because it does make an oppression

7:24

immediately. Yeah, oh man, it

7:26

hit me before. It hit me before

7:28

I walked in, because I

7:31

got a sense of the scale of the building,

7:33

like we've all seen the pictures, but it didn't

7:35

really hit me how large the

7:38

museum actually is. Has kind

7:40

of a funky design, doesn't it. I mean, it's

7:42

like, really, um uh

7:45

round it. It's not it's not squared off in anyway.

7:47

It's it's it's a very free form, very organic

7:49

looking building with uh there's like

7:52

red I think it's a red accent behind

7:54

it, or that's maybe just lighting that they could change.

7:56

I don't know, I can't remember, but it's metal

7:58

on the outside. Very king building

8:00

design just as you approach the building. But

8:03

then when you go inside, like once you're

8:05

and that's the renovated version, which we'll talk about

8:07

renovation and all that to go through here because that's

8:09

part of the history of the building itself,

8:11

which is it's Yeah, I guess

8:14

I could call it like a semihistoric building, right

8:16

and uh in Los Angeles.

8:19

Um. But when you write when

8:21

you walk in, I mean you know you're in for something

8:23

special here at the at the Peterson Museum.

8:25

Yeah. Absolutely. And it was a

8:28

lot to take in because

8:31

when I first walked in, I thought, Okay, this

8:33

will be this would be pretty

8:35

simple. I can just there's probably like a

8:37

point A, you start at the point ZU

8:40

and debt or whatever. But the way the museum

8:42

is laid out is in terms

8:44

of rotating exhibits, you know, uh,

8:47

and some permanent collections. They also

8:49

have a they also have a vault which will

8:51

explore later, which you and

8:53

I have talked about in the previous

8:55

episode. But this

8:58

is, no fooling, one

9:00

of the largest automotive museums

9:02

in the world. So this

9:05

is a museum that you could go back to a

9:08

few months later and reasonably

9:10

encounter all new vehicles. Yeah, isn't

9:12

that crazy? Like I mean, with the rotation

9:15

of the other vehicles that we'll talk about,

9:17

you know, there's there's several that

9:19

are rotated in and out, and then they have you know, other

9:22

exhibitions that go on at the time, so there's

9:24

like this endless supply of

9:26

variety that they can throw out there. You know that they

9:28

can they can kind of mix and match these things together

9:30

how they would like and put together collections that

9:32

either makes sense or are very eclectic,

9:35

or you know, whatever they want. And they also

9:37

bring in, you know, special exhibitions

9:39

that are of course more focused you know that,

9:42

you know, but only last for a short amount

9:44

of time. So if you're fortunate enough to be able to go

9:46

there, you're able to catch those things. But they

9:49

do have a lot of I guess i'll call them resident

9:51

vehicles that they can bring in and out that

9:53

you know, do live in that vault and that they do

9:55

throw on the floor. But I would bet that you know, I

9:58

went to the museum, what four years

10:00

ago or something like that. Yeah, yeah,

10:02

and you went just recently, but I

10:04

would bet that you saw very few of the same

10:06

vehicles that I saw on the floor. Yeah,

10:09

yeah, there was. Let's

10:12

see, so they had they

10:15

had Hollywood dream machines. That was

10:17

one of their big ones, and that was the one that actually had

10:19

the most mixed feelings about this

10:21

is this is like like movie cars

10:23

right right exactly exactly. So you'll

10:25

see like some batmobiles. You'll see some George

10:28

Barriss designs,

10:30

um and then they had disruptors,

10:34

they had some motorcycle

10:37

design They had a lot of racing, uh,

10:41

like ground breaking

10:44

race cars. Is Bruce Myers exhibit

10:46

of these epic race cars.

10:48

They're ten of them from nine

10:52

seventy nine, and it's

10:54

stunning. We're talking about historically

10:56

important cars like the first production

10:59

Shelby Cobra from sixty two,

11:02

the Greer Black Prude

11:04

Home Dragster, also from sixty

11:06

two. This one one two

11:09

hundred and thirty seven of the two forty

11:11

one races it ran under

11:14

you know, driven by Don Prude Home the

11:17

Snake. Yes, and

11:20

uh they had Bonneville

11:22

Racer the seven.

11:25

I'm sorry still laughing at the snake nickname.

11:27

That's a that's a great nickname. That's a great nick

11:29

Come on. It depends on who you are. Yeah,

11:31

well yeah, I guess so. But I'm figured if you're drag racer,

11:34

I mean, that's a cool name. If you're a drag racer, then

11:37

you can rationally support being called

11:39

the snake. I guess here in the office, I wouldn't want to

11:41

be called the snake, like like, oh, there's

11:43

Scott, He's the sneaky snake. Yeah.

11:45

I think it's different when you're when it's your nickname

11:47

is inserted between the first and last name

11:50

as if it were a middle name. But if you were

11:52

called snake, like yeah,

11:54

snake Garon or snake Bowling,

11:57

that's a good that's a little different, you know, maybe

12:00

like Don the snake per Dome. Yeah,

12:02

different than snake.

12:05

You're right, it is like his parents might have named

12:07

him snake. But but you know, you'd always

12:10

question that, you always wondered unless you asked the man himself.

12:12

So I haven't you don't want to ask snake if

12:14

that's the real name, you just don't do. So that's

12:16

right out there. We going like, what's so, what's your whole

12:19

deal? What's it? What's your thing

12:21

about? Chances

12:24

of him telling you are slim to none. I don't

12:26

know, man, Maybe Snakes a good dude. I I just

12:28

I have a have a thing with nicknames

12:31

after a certain I

12:35

don't wanna like, I

12:37

don't want to trample on anyone's

12:39

right to expression or something. But one

12:42

time I was on the road and

12:45

I was hanging out with a friend who lived

12:48

in town. This was in Nashville, Tennessee, and

12:51

met an acquaintance of his at

12:53

the local bar and grill who

12:56

was well into his forties or

12:58

fifties and introduced himself as snake

13:01

Bite. And I was like, I don't know if I'm

13:03

gonna call you a snake bite man. You're

13:05

you're like well into adulthood.

13:08

Wow. If I if I

13:10

met a ten year old who was like,

13:12

you know, my name is herman, but I go

13:15

by snake Bite, I would be like, right on, snake

13:17

Bite, you know, you conquer

13:19

the world. But I feel like, when you're fifty, this

13:21

has nothing to do with anything did he look like a snake bite

13:23

guy? Do you I mean picture him? Yeah,

13:25

he looked like he did some time. That's

13:27

where you're there, you go, maybe that's where he got it. That's

13:31

yeah, it's a prison name. I

13:34

always heard the rule with prison names was

13:36

that, uh, the more innocuous

13:38

sounding the name, the more careful you should be

13:40

around the personally. Yeah, like if it's

13:42

a Brian Ors,

13:47

like if there's like a seven ft two

13:49

dude named Smurf. Okay,

13:52

don't don't rest Lisper. So

13:54

I did not get arrested at the Peterson Museum.

13:56

All good for you, thank you. Yeah, I'm

13:59

taking that as a whin. And I didn't either. You

14:01

did not either. Now, was

14:03

this Bruce Meyer exhibit up when you visited?

14:06

Now you're asking a lot of my memory here, but but

14:08

no, no, I don't think it was. So

14:11

that was one of the most impressive

14:13

things. And it's really tempting when

14:15

you're in one of these museums to get

14:18

too close, which is why they have the museum

14:20

minders, their volunteers and

14:22

so on. And it's

14:24

strange because I'm the guy who wants

14:26

to look under the vehicle. I want to look

14:28

inside to see how the seating

14:31

works out, especially in some of those

14:33

land speed record vehicles. Oh yeah,

14:36

I gotta figure out exactly what's going on under the skin

14:38

of those things, right, Yeah, it's always fascinating.

14:41

And that's just one example. We'll get into

14:43

some other exhibits, but the museum itself has

14:45

twenty five galleries storing

14:47

well over a hundred vehicles

14:49

in those galleries, and that's only half

14:51

of the collection, if that. Because

14:54

in the basement there is a vault,

14:58

you know, the vault if you pay a little little

15:00

bit extra where you have some connections

15:03

and you're I

15:05

don't think they let kids in, I think eighteen

15:07

or over. Yeah, yeah, then you can go

15:10

and view the vaults collection

15:12

and no photographs and no photographs,

15:14

which is another tough thing to adhere to, because

15:17

you'll see some real gems down there. I mean, but

15:19

they'll all eventually make themselves available

15:22

on the floor. They'll cycle out, yeah they will.

15:24

But you're going to see some stuff down there that really

15:27

surprising, interesting, you know, maybe

15:29

even not fully restored yet if they're

15:31

working on them. You know that type of thing. I love.

15:33

I love seeing that. That's what Remember

15:36

we had a conversation a long time.

15:38

Going back to Nashville. I guess, um

15:40

the Lane Motor Museum. Yeah. Yeah,

15:42

they're just outside of Nashville, and that's

15:45

one where you can get right around every

15:47

you can get right up to the cars. There's no ropes, so

15:50

as long as you don't touch, you can lean, you can

15:52

even have they even have the windows open on something. You can lean

15:54

your head in if you want, as long as you're holding your yourself,

15:56

backs, your belts, not scraping anything, you know, or first

15:59

or whatever you carry. But they had a

16:02

basement tour and it

16:04

was fantastic. It was an extra few bucks to go on the

16:06

tour and some of the

16:08

best things that I saw of that day were down

16:10

in the basement still And I don't know what

16:12

the what the thought

16:15

was behind it, why it was so exciting to see them down

16:17

there like that in the park, just like it's in a

16:19

parking structure or even you

16:21

know, tighter than that. Even so

16:24

they're very very close together and you don't

16:26

get to see you see them all angles

16:28

or get you know, as close as you would, but it's just exciting

16:30

to see them, not even displayed, but

16:32

just see them parked there like that.

16:35

And I know that this one the Peterson. Uh

16:37

there have been you know a lot of people that write

16:40

you know blogs are you know, their online authors

16:43

that write about you know, their experiences

16:45

down in the Peterson vault and you know

16:47

what they've seen, what they have encountered. And

16:49

I think wasn't there there was like one

16:51

of Saddam Hussein's cars I think was down

16:53

there at one point. Um,

16:56

like one of those old really stately looking

16:58

Mercedes vehicles you know that you can picture of dictator

17:00

in you know, they're really it's like a

17:03

Mercedes limo, but it's like the old diesel

17:05

you know, flathood type vehicle,

17:07

you know that's really big but elegant.

17:09

But also it now looks very very

17:12

dated, you know, but you could definitely picture any

17:14

kind of dictator riding around in the back.

17:16

But they've got some real treasures

17:18

down there. It's the eight

17:21

Mercedes Benz six hundred.

17:23

It's probably still verified to guess, unless they

17:26

auction it off or something, you know. And this

17:28

is interesting because these cars especially

17:32

were mostly used by heads of state.

17:34

Oh that's cool. They were like the cars of

17:36

the ruling class. And picture that

17:39

Hussein had his until he was overthrown

17:42

in two thousand and three. The

17:44

car is not in perfect condition now, I

17:47

would not assume so it has

17:49

some dents in it because guards

17:52

would sit around on the trunk and

17:54

their rifle butts would hit the metal. Is

17:57

that right? I know, I probably shouldn't be laughing

17:59

at this. It's a dictator or his car. But I mean you can

18:01

almost visualize this when you see especially

18:03

if you see the car or if you know the car that we're

18:05

talking about, it just has that look. It just

18:07

has that old style dictator.

18:10

This is, you know, the show is vehicle.

18:12

I could own look, you know, and parade

18:15

myself through town and you know, kind of like a

18:17

show of force. You know. It reminds me

18:19

a little bit of that scene in one of

18:21

those Indiana Jones films where

18:23

the Nazis are trying to bribe like

18:26

a Middle Eastern ruler

18:29

and they have golden

18:31

treasure and the guy doesn't care about that because

18:33

they got him a car. Do you remember

18:36

that part? No, I don't remember this. I got to

18:39

watch the scene, I guess I see. What car was a probably

18:41

like an old Diesel, Mercedes or something like that.

18:43

It was a nice one. Yeah, So

18:46

that's just one of the weird vehicles

18:48

around in the Peterson Museum. One thing

18:51

that I thought you guys really enjoy is

18:53

then pedro

18:56

So. So do you know about this? I do not so,

18:59

and like, so, here's this story. Back in

19:01

the twenties, there's this obscenely

19:04

wealthy Spanish guy, the Marquis

19:06

de Pedroso, and he's living

19:08

in France and he decides

19:11

he's gonna build his own sports car. So

19:14

he designs and he actually

19:16

does this. He designs a supercharge

19:19

straight eight and he implements

19:22

some pretty forward thinking innovations

19:25

and uh, he gets so excited

19:27

again. According to the story

19:30

that when he saw the car, when he was getting close

19:32

to building it and he had running engine, he just

19:34

took two wicker seats from his

19:36

porch and

19:38

put them on and took off. There

19:41

only two that were ever built. The

19:43

only one that survived is at the Peterson

19:46

Museum. He built. I'm surprised that there were

19:48

two built. You know, you think it would

19:50

be just the one. I know, was

19:52

it like, was it like just a rich man's

19:54

folly? Crazy? So just wicker

19:56

seats from the front porch. That's laser. They got

19:58

covered with canvas when he regained

20:01

possession of his that's crazy. Uh.

20:03

When Peterson Museum got them,

20:06

they also received full blueprints of the

20:08

design. So theoretically you could build another

20:10

Pedroso today, if you want it, I don't think

20:12

I want to, Okay, Well, but maybe maybe, I

20:14

mean, I haven't seen the car, so maybe maybe I'll check

20:16

it. Well, don't over commit yet, because there are a lot of cars.

20:19

We've got some stuff to walk through. You know, it's not so unusually,

20:21

I guess. I guess wicker for a material

20:23

isn't all that unusual we've seen back in the day. Yeah,

20:26

I mean, it's coma is lightweight.

20:28

It was, it was durable and relatively

20:30

durable, I should say. But I mean just the idea

20:33

I guess of throwing the ones from the porch on into the

20:35

car. That's strange and

20:38

not necessarily secured all that well,

20:40

I would believe probably strapped down, you know, leather

20:42

straps or whatever if that. But

20:45

the thing that's different about the thing

20:47

that's different with wicker specifically

20:50

is that wicker was used

20:52

in automotive construction when

20:55

there were many like custom coach builders,

20:58

you know what I mean. Yeah, we talked about that

21:00

before, Like the same people who build the furniture

21:02

are like, all right, yeah, just bring the chassis

21:05

of the car over. Yeah, why not? Yeah? I mean,

21:07

and we see it on on even the exterior

21:09

of vehicles, you know, with laid over, with lacquer

21:11

and things of that Ford design elements.

21:13

Uh as some beautiful, beautiful designs

21:15

come out of that era that you know have. It's

21:18

just stuff you never would see. You know, at

21:20

this point in time, you never see anybody

21:22

using wicker right now to build I don't

21:24

think. Yeah, I mean, if there is somebody out

21:26

there, my apologies, but I

21:29

haven't seen many wicker exteriors

21:31

on vehicles recently. If I have

21:33

not, not on new vehicles.

21:35

No, I wouldn't see new vehicles. Uh

21:48

No, there is another vehicle I didn't see.

21:51

I have to say, Uh, this is classic

21:54

vitamin G right here. Peterson

21:56

Auto Museum is home to an official

21:59

popemobile. We did an

22:01

episode on the popemobile. We're not

22:04

the Vatican technically doesn't like us

22:06

to call them popemobiles. I'm

22:08

called the Pokemobile. I mean, I think that's how

22:10

everybody knows it. Just like uh,

22:12

Frenny Star Wars fans. The

22:15

name of that tiny Yoda

22:17

in the Mandalorian is not baby Yoda,

22:19

but everybody calls it baby Yoda of course.

22:21

Yeah. So this is where they want us to call it, like Paple

22:24

Transport, I think, or something

22:26

like that, something way less TV. So

22:30

this popemobile is a Cadillac

22:34

and this is one

22:36

of the only examples of one that of

22:38

a popemobile that was open

22:41

top, constructed on a modern chassis.

22:43

GM Mexico built it for John Paul

22:46

the Second just to

22:49

use on his trip to give a speech at

22:51

stadium in Mexico City. Just

22:53

have the glass box on it. This does not and

22:57

good thing to mention Scott because he

22:59

never actually road in the Cadillac. There

23:02

were security concerns about that open

23:04

design. However, as

23:06

the manufacturers are quick to point out,

23:09

the Pope did bless the car on

23:11

the visit, so it's it's got his co

23:13

sign. Yeah, and it has

23:16

that seat mechanism that we talked

23:18

about in earlier potmobiles, you know

23:20

where, so on several potmobiles

23:23

the papal seat where

23:26

the actual pope sits is on this hydraulic

23:28

system that can raise or lower the

23:31

seat. Oh that's cool. Yeah,

23:33

that's really neat. I like that. And that's the

23:36

ones that have that bulletproof shielding and

23:38

do that too. Oh that is cool. That's a that's a cool

23:40

feature. I think that's that's interesting to be able

23:42

to raise and lower yourself into into that box,

23:44

in that glass box. See this is yeah,

23:46

this is where the dictators need to

23:49

be humble, because no matter how

23:51

powerful you are as a dictator, I

23:53

don't think there are people who are building

23:56

specific cars for you to take

23:58

a field trip. You know. You know, I'm starting

24:00

to laugh. When you were describing this, when you said that the Pope

24:02

blessed this vehicle. I got

24:04

this this picture in my head of like

24:06

George Costanza in Seinfeld,

24:09

like buying a car that had claimed to have been

24:11

blessed by the pope or something because he remember he

24:13

had it was a John Voight's car, right, but

24:15

it wasn't the actor John. Remember, it was like that

24:17

whole thing. Remember he bought a car that

24:19

was all right.

24:22

I have to I feel like it's one of those moments

24:24

where I have to say this because I know

24:26

I have many many years ago, there

24:28

used to be a chairman of Chrysler

24:30

named Bob Eaton and It was

24:33

back at the time when my wife and I at

24:35

the time, we worked for a company that was like a

24:37

supplier to Chrysler. It was a television

24:39

station and

24:41

it was like their internal television station. And

24:43

at the time we bought a jeep

24:46

Cherokee that was owned by a guy

24:48

named Bob Eaton. But it wasn't the Bob

24:50

Eaton. So anybody later that didn't

24:52

know, like past us, you know, past the

24:54

ownership, if they were to trace back

24:57

the ownership of that vehicle, they might

24:59

be confused to think that was Bob Eaton's jeep,

25:01

which I thought was kind of funny because it's somewhere

25:03

down the line that's going to get confused if it's

25:06

still around. It was like a Cherokee.

25:08

It was a red one. If anybody out there knows

25:11

of this one, watch out for that that

25:13

fake on the on the auction block, you know,

25:15

if it happens. But but it was not

25:17

the Bob Eaton. But I always got kind of a chuckle

25:19

out of that thinking it was like it was like Costanza's

25:23

John Voyker is there. I mean, okay,

25:26

I'm totally unaware of this. I

25:28

don't know the answer here, but is

25:30

it legal for private citizen to

25:32

own a popemobile. I guess it is.

25:34

It has to be. There's no law

25:36

against this. Okay, one of one of the Pope's

25:39

recently owned or it still does, maybe

25:41

owned a Harley Davidson. Even he was

25:43

like, he's a like he's a biker. Yeah,

25:46

I mean, so he's got a great big Harley Davis.

25:48

I don't know if he still owns it or if it's

25:50

uh and I don't remember which Pope it was.

25:52

I don't remember. I just don't have the knowledge of pope

25:55

cycle. Yeah. Yeah, and I'll have to dig

25:57

into that too. Hey, you can want one of the quick thing or

25:59

talk kin about the Vault or the Vault rather

26:02

the Vault not that one.

26:04

Um. I remember

26:07

that we had talked about a car called

26:09

the Dale a long time ago. It was the big hoax

26:11

car, remember yea. Yeah, the whole story,

26:13

the twisted tale of We can't even give away

26:15

too much. I think that's that's

26:18

a saga though. Check that out. That's one of

26:20

our that's one of the most fascinating episodes we've done.

26:22

I loved that episode of of

26:24

Car, those episodes, I should say, it

26:26

was so much fun to research that it was just

26:29

a blast. But they

26:31

at the Peterson they own one

26:33

of the Dale cars, So it's probably

26:36

if if you were able to get down there in the vault. I'm

26:38

sure that it it was down there somewhere. If it I'm sure, you

26:40

know, it's one of those cars that I doubt they will ever let

26:42

go of. I don't think that

26:44

they would. Well, it's certain that no one's

26:46

going to drive it off. That's

26:50

one thing that we do know. Yeah that it will. It will. It

26:52

will never make its way under on the l

26:54

A freeways, yeah, not under its own power.

26:58

Won't be involved with one of the high speed chases

27:00

that we see from the helicopters. You know, it's not gonna

27:03

happen. There's another really wild car there

27:05

to UH, the ninety

27:07

three Mathon V sixteen

27:09

tea Bucket. This engine

27:12

is insane. The V sixteen

27:15

and I did Not miss Speak was

27:17

built in the early nineteen nineties, even though

27:19

the cars from the twenties. They took

27:22

two Chevy three

27:24

eights and joined them together at the crank shaft.

27:28

There were only two of these engines ever

27:30

built, and only one was ever installed

27:33

in a car. UH and

27:35

the egg heads at Peterson say, based

27:37

on what they know about it,

27:40

it probably produces five fifty

27:42

horsepower five d fifty pounds

27:45

foot of torque. It's

27:47

it's a monster. And of course, as you can

27:49

imagine that Chassie's pretty stretched somewhere

27:52

round is when they customized

27:55

the engine. The four tea

27:57

bucket was built in twenty three. Yeah, okay,

28:00

got you. Okay, so it's on that body. But you know, um,

28:02

it's funny here. I find this a little

28:04

bit funny. So they they're here, they are,

28:06

they're frankenstein in together a couple of

28:09

right and uh, and it's that's cool. It's a cool thing

28:12

to do. It's a neat you know, the neat

28:14

looking vehicle. I'm sure it has a

28:16

certain appearance that's really interesting and

28:18

unique. But think about this, like there

28:21

was five fifty horse power as a pile of horse

28:23

power back then, and everybody was that. And think

28:25

about like the first production Viper

28:27

was somewhere around four hundred horse power. But

28:29

it seems like a lot of sedans now are

28:32

around four horse power, you

28:34

know, or close to it, or you know, three fifty

28:36

or whatever. And you know you've got some of these

28:38

um um, I guess a lot of other performance

28:42

UM lines of cars, you know, like maybe

28:44

BMW S or Lexus or whoever.

28:46

You know that a lot of their their top end vehicles

28:48

are in the five D some horsepower range

28:52

right now for production vehicles. So it's it's funny

28:54

that you know they're doing that UM back

28:56

then they just the idea was just go bigger

28:58

with everything, right, I mean, and what a cool

29:00

what a cool design though to throw it on an old model

29:03

T though, and you know what I

29:05

think. And unless I'm giving something away here, Ben, there's

29:07

another model T that we want to talk about, right, that Mongrel

29:09

T. Let's get to it. You want to because

29:11

this is one of the ones that you brought up in a previous

29:13

episode, and almost

29:16

with disbelief, we we looked it up because

29:18

we couldn't. I can't picture ever seen

29:21

this car before, but you had, you've

29:23

seen it. So one of the exhibits,

29:26

one of them rotating exhibits at the Peterson

29:28

Museum the time I visited, was that

29:30

Hollywood Dream Machine exhibit.

29:33

These are vehicles from science fiction

29:35

and fantasy, as you said, Scott, movie

29:37

cars. They've got a DeLorean up there, They've

29:39

got some stuff from Blade Runner. They've

29:42

got two vehicles from mad Max

29:44

Fury Road, which we did an episode

29:46

on and they were fascinating to see up close there,

29:50

very dirty, Yeah and

29:51

U And one of

29:54

the things that was really the

29:56

star of the show for me were

29:58

all these Barressed designed

30:01

batmobiles, like Barriss designed

30:03

I should say bat vehicles, because there's a bat cycle

30:05

there as well. I guess they decided

30:08

to go with the bat cycle instead of the post cycle.

30:10

Can I stop you from of course I

30:13

keep interrupting, but these cars are so cool.

30:15

The Bat cycle. There's that detachable go

30:17

kart and the passengers side like in the um

30:21

what do you call that? The side side car. There's

30:23

a sidecar that Robin would ride in

30:25

that hand, a detachable go kart that would

30:27

launch out of the side. That is so cool. And

30:30

that thing I think I'd sent you guys pictures

30:32

of it. That thing. What surprised me

30:34

is that little go kart thing is

30:36

so small that

30:39

I've I haven't seen

30:41

a bunch of the classic Batman episodes

30:43

the Adam West era, but I

30:45

feel like that's even for such

30:47

a campy show that was probably too ridiculous

30:50

for him to really use it too often

30:52

because you would have to the best

30:54

way to describe how you would have to ride

30:57

that thing is to crouch

30:59

on your do what they call like the Slavic

31:02

squat, you know, and

31:04

then and then take your hands and

31:07

put them flat on the ground in front

31:09

of your feet. And that's about your footprint

31:11

on that on that. But I will tell you the guy

31:14

that played Robin, his name is Burt Ward,

31:16

and he was not necessarily

31:19

tall. He's not. He's about five ft eight, okay,

31:21

so he's a smaller guy. But I mean when you look at him

31:23

in those old Batman episodes,

31:26

he's also very thin build, so

31:28

he's not a very large person. They

31:30

probably built it knowing that he would be able to

31:32

do it. I don't think that I could fit on this thing.

31:34

I don't. I'm not much taller than him, but I'm heftier.

31:37

I'm have a bigger person than Burt

31:39

Ward was when he was in the Batman movies

31:41

and not slim like that. But maybe

31:44

it was built knowing that he would be able to accomplish

31:46

this too. But yeah, you're right, it's it's nearly an impossible

31:49

thing to get on. I've I've seen promotional

31:51

photos of him in that position

31:53

you're talking about, like on the cart ready

31:55

to go. I don't remember seeing an episode where

31:57

he actually used it, though I saw old

32:00

photograph of him on it in the exhibit.

32:02

I thinks probably something that you know, the movie

32:04

production company or the movie house sent

32:07

out as promotional material. Oh

32:09

for sure. Yeah, before we bury

32:11

the lead. Here's why we're talking about

32:13

this in general. Sorry again,

32:16

I took us on the wrong. No, no, no, this is perfect

32:18

because we're still in the world a Batman and

32:22

I did not know this. I'm sure many of

32:24

our Batman fans and the audience

32:26

already fans the bat fans, right, I'm

32:28

sure they already. I'm sure you all already have heard

32:30

of this. But apparently the Joker had an

32:32

official vehicle of his own,

32:35

the Joker's answer to the Batmobile,

32:38

the and Catwoman had her own

32:40

Catmobile. The

32:42

Joker Mobile makes no sense

32:45

for the Joker to have, now, it really doesn't.

32:48

It's an it's an unusual vehicle for

32:50

sure. It's not on brand. It

32:52

has it's this mongrel ty heavily

32:55

customized. Um, we're talking

32:57

like the seat backs are surf words.

33:01

Uh, it's a hot red model t that

33:03

was built in nineteen sixty six, and

33:06

it's so strange. It looks more like something that would

33:08

be a beach boys. Well, you know,

33:10

and there's a good reason for that, right, I mean we we

33:12

did then look up the history of this car because

33:14

we were curious about what happened. And

33:17

I guess apparently, um,

33:19

you can jump in here anytime then. But Paramount

33:21

Pictures in nineteen sixty six,

33:24

I got a call looking for a vehicle

33:26

to go into an Elvis Presley movie. And if

33:28

you remember, Elvis Pressley was doing a

33:30

lot of like Hawaiian you know, beach

33:33

type movies, and you know a lot of movies at the time.

33:35

But one of the movies was called Easy Come, Easy

33:37

Go, and it's like a it's a

33:39

musical comedy type thing, and there's lots

33:41

of you know, on the beach type activity

33:44

going on, you know, surfing, that type of thing. But

33:46

when that was done, and of course you know, they designed

33:48

like what would be like a beach car for the

33:50

nineteen sixties. I think everybody can picture that. You know,

33:52

the the outlandish colors, you know,

33:54

the bright reds, greens, yellows,

33:56

blues, that kind of thing. Um, the

33:59

seats the seat back X are surfboards

34:01

that have been chopped modified and in

34:03

a way that makes sense for a seat back, and they

34:05

look like surfboards sticking out of the car looks like four

34:07

surfboards. It's of course an open

34:10

vehicle model T if

34:12

everybody can picture the hot rod version of

34:14

that. Um you know, the big engine up

34:16

front, and you know open at the top, and you

34:18

know, big fenders and everything, and the fat

34:20

wheels all around. I guess not too fat,

34:22

not like the big drag star type ones, but

34:24

just a cool looking beach buggy that you would

34:27

anticipate, you know, being from that era

34:29

with the beach cars. Well, I guess

34:31

they just repurposed this thing as

34:34

as the as the Joker Mobile

34:36

for the Batman TV series, which is

34:39

really strange to me, Like why why would

34:41

Bear bearrass of all people? He was building so

34:43

many cars and and like you said,

34:45

Ben, this is way off brand. It doesn't seem

34:48

to fit the Joker for

34:50

me. I mean, I I don't know why, but it

34:52

just doesn't have the right feel to It. Doesn't

34:55

far be it for me to criticize someone's

34:58

artistic choice, but just doesn't

35:00

It doesn't feel like a Joker mobile.

35:02

I think, Kurt you said it best off

35:05

a air What were what were you describing it as?

35:08

The fur fur around the doors

35:10

looks like the grinches fur. Yeah,

35:13

it's all kind of matted down and dirty. And I know

35:15

that that's a lot of you know, it's time,

35:17

right. I think it's just time that does that, because

35:20

I've seen shag carpet that you know, gets

35:22

into the same condition after a long time, you know, an

35:24

old custom vans and things. But this

35:26

is just like it's kind of dirty and gross

35:29

looking right now. But to give it, you know, credit,

35:31

I guess it's in the basement of a

35:33

museum. Um, I

35:36

don't know. There's a lot of tiki design to it. I

35:38

mean a lot of you know, really intricate design

35:41

on the door panels. And it's

35:43

creative. It's got a lot going

35:45

for it. It's it's definitely dirty.

35:47

Yeah, it's creative. It's definitely dirty. And I've

35:49

seen I've seen the car. There's a UM

35:52

link to a video where it's you know, a little bit cleaned

35:54

up. It's a little bit polished up, and that's probably the way you

35:56

saw it. Ben's all these photos are a little

35:58

bit rougher maybe the way it came

36:00

into the shop. So it

36:02

does look a lot better. But I don't know as

36:04

far as being a like a car for the Joker,

36:07

a good villain vehicle, I don't

36:09

know. If it's a villains vehicle has

36:11

has a happier feel to it. Yeah, yeah,

36:14

it's uh, the Joker supposed to have that like

36:16

dichotomy, right, especially character

36:19

the classic Joker in the Adam

36:21

West Batman is worlds

36:24

away from like the Heath Ledger Joker.

36:26

Oh yeah, or the one that we just saw recently

36:28

that it was into the backstory for

36:30

the Joker. Oh yeah, I

36:32

guess that's pretty dark as well. Yeah, how

36:35

he actually became that person and it's

36:37

just yeah, you're right, it's it's a completely different

36:40

character altogether. So yeah, maybe,

36:42

but it's still and it just doesn't fit

36:44

that character very well. It's it's an oddball

36:46

piece of the collection. I mean, there's a there's a lot of

36:48

those though. Um you had mentioned other

36:51

movie cars, yeah, DeLorean

36:54

Blade Runner, there was, I

36:56

have to be honest, so that was the only exhibit

36:58

where I had. UM,

37:01

I would say mixed feelings because

37:04

there's nothing wrong with the vehicles, per

37:06

se but you know, you get up close,

37:08

and you know, especially with sci

37:10

fi vehicles, you can

37:13

see like a hovered craft, a

37:15

glider of some sort. We know that that technology

37:17

doesn't exist in the real world, right. I accept

37:19

that we're there to see the design, but

37:21

then when you get closer and closer, things

37:24

start to break down and go, oh, that's that

37:27

is plywood, you know what

37:29

I mean. So you could tell that some are

37:31

meant to be filmed from far away.

37:34

Others are meant for close ups, and those are the refined,

37:37

very carefully put together, you know, well

37:39

done ones. That's where you know they got the close ups

37:42

and the and the you know, maybe the person's inside

37:44

and they're doing you know, like driving

37:46

shots or whatever. But from a distance,

37:49

these cars don't have to be all that, you know,

37:51

they just have to have the same general shape. You're

37:53

gonna have somebody different driving them, a stunt

37:55

driver whoever, right, so that

37:57

doesn't necessarily matter. I think one

38:00

of the best examples I've

38:02

ever seen, but not in person, were

38:04

some of the Hardcastle McCormick

38:06

cars. The Coyote, remember the cool

38:08

Coyote kick car that they had in that uh

38:11

um McCormick.

38:13

The the convict in this whole thing.

38:15

It's a it's a very improbable setup

38:18

for the whole the whole one. I haven't thought, yeah,

38:21

but it's a great at least love

38:23

to watch that show just for that car, just for the coyote,

38:25

because it was so cool. And they had

38:27

a few that were really well put together, and

38:29

then they had some that were just piles

38:31

of garbage. I mean they were just they

38:34

were fiberglass shells and they were on top

38:36

of like a really rough frame. But they drove,

38:38

they run and they ran and drove. But those

38:40

are the ones they would, you know, jump over hay bales,

38:43

and you know, they weren't so careful with it because they didn't

38:45

they knew that they could build another one quickly. But

38:48

if you look at you know, some of the stills from the

38:50

actual film itself or the

38:52

television show, you're able to tell,

38:54

you know, like, Okay, this one is really really rough. You

38:57

can see the uh, you know, the intensity

38:59

with which they focused on details and some

39:01

cars versus others that are a little bit more like

39:04

put together a bit more sloppily, you know,

39:07

or they're rougher around the edges. So you were

39:09

there at the museum and you're seeing things like you know,

39:11

tach welds and you really saw applywood

39:14

on a car, like you're seeing like it's not

39:16

metal, it's painted wood. And yeah,

39:18

what about any other like really egregious

39:21

things that you saw, like cars

39:23

that were standouts for like

39:26

you know, this is this. I can't even believe

39:28

this is in here in this museum, but it's

39:30

part of movie history. Yeah. I just

39:32

want to keep it. I want to keep it positive,

39:35

like I it if

39:37

anything to put a positive spin on it,

39:40

Uh, it just shows the

39:43

craftsmanship and the

39:45

ingenuity of the people involved

39:47

in the production. Because until

39:49

you get up close to something like until

39:53

you get up close to some of these vehicles, and I'm not going to name

39:55

specific ones, but to you get up

39:57

close to some of these vehicles, you know when you

40:00

see them on the screen, it looks

40:02

real. You know, Um

40:04

my car is kind of like that. Now. Yeah, yeah,

40:06

what's going on. Nothing terrible,

40:08

it's just you know, from a distance,

40:11

looks pretty good. Still. The vacuum it

40:14

no, I mean, you know, it's just getting older and there's

40:16

some dents and things and things from being in a

40:18

parking lot. You know from your door and your security

40:21

sitting on the trunk with their rifle butts.

40:23

With the rifle butts. Yeah, that always causes

40:25

a lot of scuffs and dents and things. But

40:27

no, just you know, the normal like minor

40:30

flaws that come along with owning a vehicle for

40:32

a certain amount of time, and and you know, you're

40:35

less pleased with it close up as as you

40:37

are than you know, I think it becomes like a twenty ft

40:39

car. You know, you're happier with it from twenty ft

40:41

away than you are up close when you're polishing

40:43

the car, and you you know, just all the flaws and

40:46

and the minor imperfections that are there.

40:48

But I think a lot of these museum cars are like that too.

40:50

But there are also many of them here that are

40:53

pristine. I mean, just beautiful,

40:55

beautiful examples. And maybe

40:58

I'm I don't know if I'm gonna lead you to something

41:00

that wasn't there at this time. There were four

41:02

or five years ago on the ground floor

41:05

they had a display when I was there

41:07

of French manufactured cars

41:09

or or built cars. Bugatti

41:12

the Talbot I think was another one that

41:14

they had. But they're beautiful, beautiful,

41:16

flowing designs that were painted just

41:18

like it looked like they had twenty

41:20

or thirty coats of paint on them and chrome

41:23

that was in real decorative um,

41:25

organic flowing curves

41:27

and everything. It was just beautiful cars. But

41:30

that was also when that controversy was having It was

41:32

going on that you know, they were going to get

41:34

rid of kind of the American culture

41:36

the South in particular

41:39

the South um South Southern

41:41

California car culture type vehicles

41:44

and change the whole thing over to like

41:46

these French designs. Because the new owners

41:49

of the place, and there was a lot of

41:51

like back and forth talk about what they were doing, because

41:53

they were selling some cars off. I think at the time people

41:56

were worried that they were going to completely convert

41:58

over to a different type of museum them that it was never

42:00

intended to be like where where

42:03

does the line stop? Right? Yeah, exactly,

42:05

Yeah, because they had that history of being kind

42:07

of like a microcosm

42:09

of Southern California car

42:11

culture, you know, through the decades, like everything

42:14

from the very beginning of the Autumn WIBI all the way through

42:16

the current day. Yeah. Well, they've definitely

42:19

expanded their collection, you know,

42:21

and one of the things that's really impressive

42:25

and you can see these if you go during the right

42:27

time, would be all the all

42:29

the concept cars they have, you know, like

42:31

they have a Plymouth Explorer that was

42:34

built by Gia and

42:36

it was one myth Explorer. Yeah, it's nineteen

42:39

fifty four. This

42:42

was just a design study for

42:44

like how would a Plymouth look if

42:47

this manufacturer built it.

42:49

Yeah, and I like stuff like that. Yeah,

42:52

and it's really stylish to

42:56

look that up and see what that was all about. But um,

42:59

so they have more than they have other

43:01

concept vehicles there, of course. Um

43:04

but yeah, I find like just the

43:06

eclectic nature of what they have there to

43:08

be fascinating to It's like they didn't focus

43:11

on just one type of vehicle or

43:13

one um you know not. It's not not

43:16

that there's a bad thing about this, but when you go to

43:18

certain museums that have a focus, like it's

43:20

like the hot Rod It's hot Rod Museum, or it's

43:22

the drag racing museum that I went to recently,

43:24

Like it's all drag racing cars. They

43:27

they've got a separate building that has you know there

43:29

the collection of the owner, you know that

43:31

that has other stuff, but like one

43:33

building is strictly just for this type

43:35

of vehicle. I find it fascinating that they have

43:37

so many different cars that they can rotate in and

43:39

out like um, and they

43:41

have all these different exhibits that they can

43:44

again bring in and out like the uh

43:46

they have a Porsche collection, but I guess

43:48

is pretty exemplary as well. They

43:50

have you know, like extensive, as they say,

43:53

everything from nine Porsches

43:56

sixty four all the way up through you know modern

43:58

day pors as well. They have Japanese

44:01

automotive industry vehicles there on

44:03

display, like a huge history

44:06

of the Japanese automotive industry, so like everything

44:08

from the beginning to the end of that. As well. They

44:10

have children's race cars that are powered

44:12

that they can bring out, which I think is, Oh, that's a

44:15

fascinating thing. I'd love to see that.

44:17

That just I didn't see. I don't think I remember

44:19

seeing any of those, but the powered children's

44:21

race cars would be a really cool thing because I'm

44:24

a big Go Card fan anyway, like writing,

44:26

um, they have you know, the Lightning McQueen

44:28

car from you know, Pixar, Disney

44:31

Disney Cars. You know, um, oh, I got a Lightning

44:33

mc queen shirt on today. You didn't. Wow,

44:36

you just did kind of like a sort of a Superman,

44:38

a little Superman movie. I just

44:41

realized that I had that shirt on today. That'sh

44:43

What else they have They have the NASCAR Herbie there, which

44:45

is kind of a unique vehicle Batmobile

44:48

of course that you talked about. They've got old

44:51

Elvis Presley's Pantera is somewhere

44:53

there. I know that that car. That's

44:55

another one that we just talked about recently. You know how

44:58

Elvis Presley like he was, he had a lot

45:00

of cars, a big collection of cars, and

45:03

the Pantera is one that sometimes will make the rounds.

45:05

You know, they'll it'll travel and

45:08

you know with like cars of the rock stars or

45:10

whatever, you know. And I know that it went to the Henry Ford

45:12

at some point and you can go

45:14

see you know that there's a bullet hole in the

45:16

in the steering wheel from where he shot. The King

45:18

shot the car apparently when it wouldn't start.

45:21

And I think the story is that after

45:24

he shot it, the things started up like it

45:26

worked, like he threatened it into operating.

45:29

This crazy it's

45:32

a stream. There's a whole story behind the

45:35

Pantera and elv and uh, Elvis

45:37

Presley but um, and you've talked about

45:39

the DeLorean time machine. That's one that I think everybody

45:41

can picture. There's so there's all kinds of movie cars

45:43

and cars that were owned by famous

45:45

people. I know I saw um when I was there.

45:48

There was Fatty Arbuckle car. He's

45:50

a he's a big car guy. Um,

45:52

a big car guy. He was a he was a big he's a

45:54

big everything guy. He was. He's a big

45:56

fellow, thus the nickname Fatty Arbuckle.

45:59

But he, uh, he had cars

46:01

that were built by Harley Earl. He

46:03

went to Harley Earl and had three

46:06

cars made specifically for him by

46:08

Harley Earl. He were designed and built for him by

46:10

him. I guess that pre dates, you know, the

46:12

days when he worked for GM, of

46:14

course, and you know it was full time on

46:17

the GM design staff. But one

46:19

other thing about um, Fatty Arbuckle, he

46:21

was he was like

46:23

like I said, he was a big car guy at the time

46:26

and really loved automobiles. He was

46:28

one of the first celebrities, one of the first

46:30

stars to be able to do this because he

46:32

was also the first movie star that

46:35

would make was was making on contract

46:37

over a million dollars a year. He's

46:39

the very first actor to be able to do that.

46:42

So that's kind of his notch

46:44

in history. I mean, other than having some you know, some good

46:46

films of course, but um,

46:49

apparently a good actor. Mr Arbuckle

46:52

had some skeletons in his closet. Yeah he

46:56

I was confined to avoid it, but yeah, he he um.

46:58

I don't want to get into because yeah,

47:01

he's got a whole history there as well, but yes,

47:03

some definite skeletons in

47:05

that closet. While we're on the subject of things

47:08

that are are turning a bit dark, there's

47:10

also the nineteen sixties seven Booth Hill

47:12

Express hot rod. Oh you know what

47:14

I'm talking about. I do have seen this one.

47:16

I did get to see this. You saw this, I did.

47:19

Yeah, this is nuts. So Ray

47:21

Farmer built built

47:23

a booth Hill Express. They took a funeral

47:25

coach from the eighteen hundreds and

47:28

they made it a hot rod. Yeah. Now you

47:30

know what. Kurt and I had talked about

47:32

this on an earlier episode when we

47:34

did the seventies are

47:36

sixties and seventies hot rod cars.

47:39

It was an actual funeral coach. It's said.

47:41

Now it's said, wasn't it said?

47:43

To have taken one of the James Gang members,

47:46

I think, to this final resting place

47:48

at Booth Hill Graveyard. Yeah, is that Do

47:51

you think that's true or do you think that's a that's a myth.

47:54

It's tough to verify. A lot of this is like tall

47:56

tale territory, you know, and I wonder, but

47:58

the hot Rods all have these stories

48:01

about them. I like that though. I like

48:03

that there's a mystery, and I like that you know that that

48:06

people can kind of dig into it if

48:08

they want to and trace it back. That's always fun. Well,

48:10

I know it sounds like we're maybe jumping

48:12

around a little bit. We're doing that because

48:14

we want to give you kind of when

48:16

we give you a broad view of just how many

48:19

different unique vehicles there are.

48:21

In fact, I am probably

48:23

going to return when I go

48:25

back to that area of

48:28

the world because they have

48:30

some upcoming exhibits that I want to

48:32

see. I was thinking about

48:34

this after we did our Famous Car Collector's episode.

48:37

I think Scott mentioned James Hetfield

48:39

of Metallica, Right, Yeah, that's right. So

48:43

the James Hetfield collection

48:46

is coming to the

48:49

Pierson Museum. He has an entire collection that

48:51

he's exhibiting in the museum

48:53

and it started. The

48:56

opening day is today as

48:58

we record this. Oh no kidding, I I'd love to

49:00

go see that because he's got he I think he was a collector of

49:02

hot rods, right, hot rods

49:04

and some some really old class I mean we're talking nineteen

49:07

thirties iron that type of era vehicle,

49:09

that vintage era. I think. Oh no,

49:12

I think it's a one day thing. Oh boy,

49:14

well, you know what, that's too big? Well, gosh, if

49:16

you're listening to this episode live, which otherwise

49:20

otherwise I just missed out on the in the Headfield

49:23

collection. But I'm sure there's plenty of other

49:25

collections, uh to go to and check

49:27

out. That's that's the one thing too. I mean you go to their

49:30

their website. They've always got you up to

49:32

date on what's coming in, what's what's leaving,

49:34

you know, the dates of the shows and everything. So if you're

49:36

in the area of you know, the Peterson

49:39

definitely worthwhile. It's not really that expensive

49:42

to go. It's it's relatively a cheap

49:44

afternoon um. But man,

49:47

there's there's so many beautiful, beautiful

49:49

vehicles there. It really is a different type

49:51

of museum. Altogether. Yeah,

49:54

highly recommended. No, I'm not

49:56

gonna I'm not gonna start

49:59

say one museum is better than another,

50:01

since I feel like I'll be on the road for

50:03

a lot of these. But it is very different

50:06

from the Nagoya Museum. And if you go to

50:08

the Peterson Museum, be aware

50:10

that, like the Natural History

50:13

museums or the Smithsonians, this

50:15

is at the very least a full day visit. Don't

50:18

go in it like for

50:20

thirty thinking you're gonna run through. No,

50:22

no, no, this is this is a long afternoon

50:25

or a full day and maybe even like you said,

50:27

you can go back and check it out. Now,

50:38

it's funny that you say natural history

50:40

museum because that's where this whole

50:42

thing started. Really, I mean, we didn't talk about this,

50:44

but I just want to mention it because I think it's there's

50:46

one thing in here that's really interesting. I think, out

50:49

of this whole thing, I mean, maybe you can take

50:51

pieces of this, and you know that's the most interesting

50:53

thing to you, but the purchase price of the of the

50:56

building was one of the most interesting things

50:58

to me out of this whole thing. So

51:01

the building itself, I think it's like I want

51:03

to say the nineteen sixties. Was open in nineteen

51:05

sixty two as a branch

51:07

of a department store

51:09

I believe, right, see boo, yes, ce boo.

51:12

It was a department store back then, and

51:14

then another another department store

51:16

bought it from around over. It was a nineteen sixty

51:18

five and they owned it until nineteen eighties

51:20

six, and I think it was called or Box,

51:23

so it was an are Box department store.

51:25

Then after that point, so from eighty

51:28

six and then after

51:30

that, I mean after I guess um

51:33

Peterson bought the Peterson

51:35

who by the way, I mean we didn't even say this. Peterson

51:38

is a publishing magnan. He's he's the guy that

51:40

was in charge of UM magazines

51:42

like hot Rod and Motor Trend and and

51:45

Motorcyclist. And he also had some other stuff

51:47

like Tiger Beat and teen Magazine and

51:49

U Sassy magazine he had.

51:51

He has a really compelling story, just

51:54

real briefly on him. If we can do his

51:56

background, is that all right? Yeah? Why not? Sure? And

51:58

then I'll get back to the building. Okay. So Robert

52:00

Peterson was born

52:02

in ninet six and he

52:05

was a bootstraps guy. His father was a truck

52:07

mechanic which give him that lifelong love of

52:09

cars. He's a veteran. He

52:11

served in the Army Air Corps and

52:13

he went to work as a publicist

52:16

at MGM, and he

52:18

got laid off, which launched him

52:21

into his creating his own

52:23

business with some other people who got

52:25

laid off at him GM. And that

52:27

set him on the path to becoming the publisher

52:30

of all these profoundly influential

52:32

auto magazines. And it

52:35

also gave him, frankly, the

52:37

scratch he needed to create

52:40

his own car collection and then to create

52:42

this automotive museum. So, in

52:45

a weird way, thanks

52:47

for being jerks, MGM. What's

52:50

he'll saying? I mean every door that closes and

52:53

it gets the worm or something

52:55

like that. Right, that's that's it,

52:57

right, I learned, Uh, I learned

52:59

the word for Oh man, I thought

53:01

of you guys for the blending of

53:03

idioms or cliches. Oh, this

53:05

is my my problem, right, this is my diagnosis.

53:08

I think it's your gift. Uh.

53:11

It's called a mala for a

53:13

malla for so like we'll burn that

53:15

bridge when we get to it, okay, or

53:17

uh, that makes perfect sense. It's not rocket

53:20

surgery. Well,

53:23

when you say them the ridiculous, that's that's

53:25

crazy. But to me they make perfect sense.

53:27

Uh, you've opened this can of worms

53:30

now lyeing it. These

53:32

are great. You know who did this? And now I

53:34

remember, Um it was in Back the Future.

53:37

It was it was it was a biff.

53:39

Yeah, you're right, Curtis Biff. Biff

53:41

was always mixing up those scenes and it was so funny.

53:45

But I do that myself now, Like I can't.

53:47

I can't get them straight. I don't think it's a bit either,

53:49

dude, I believe you. I cannot get those

53:51

straight. I mean there's something that I can't that I can I get,

53:53

but others I just can't remember. And

53:55

like it's it's funny because I've already started

53:58

saying it and then I just have to finish it with what ever

54:00

I can think of at the moment. You know, I could, I

54:02

know how to use it. I just can't

54:04

get the right words out. You always nail the beginning,

54:06

Yeah, well yeah, I mean it's used in

54:08

the right context, but

54:11

then it's not. It's the closing part

54:13

that I have had to wrap up. You know, there

54:16

have been so many man that I sometimes

54:18

I can't remember whether you actually said

54:20

one, or whether I

54:23

thought of something that sounded like it

54:25

would be like a Scott Benjamin style observation.

54:29

There's stuff like, you know, you can lead a horse

54:31

the water, but there are two in the bush, stuff

54:34

like that, you know, said and

54:37

that mallaf

54:40

okay, very good, very good. So he anyway,

54:42

so Peterson, Peterson, he's moved

54:44

on from his job he laid

54:47

off or whatever, and and now he's suddenly

54:50

thrust into the world of publishing or he wants to be a publisher,

54:52

right right right, and that's where

54:54

he made his fortune and that's why

54:57

we have to uh in

54:59

a weird way. And MGM, and

55:01

now that we know Pearson back to the building. We

55:04

did this episode backwards, didn't we, I guess,

55:06

so you know maybe it was um well,

55:09

was the actor Tarantino likes

55:12

together like this? Right? Maybe that's a maybe

55:14

he should give him a co credit

55:17

on this. Maybe this will be our first

55:19

non linear podcast. Actually probably

55:21

wouldn't be. But we we do this all the time.

55:23

We talked about it. Crap, that doesn't matter, Curt,

55:25

are you gonna edit this in? So we start like

55:28

in media arst know this makes

55:30

sense? Really? Yeah,

55:32

you're too kind? I don't know about that. Toast

55:36

listeners if any of this makes sense. Alright,

55:38

So back to the building. Oh yes, we also on

55:41

this series. Note if there are

55:43

any complaints, we do want to hear from

55:45

you, the good stuff as well as the bad stuff, so we're

55:48

grateful whenever you take the time to contact

55:50

us. We have a special

55:52

email for any complaints.

55:54

You can write directly to our complaint department,

55:57

which is Jonathan Strickland at

56:00

heart radio dot com seven

56:03

during sixty five days a week, days

56:06

a year. I mean, he's

56:09

gonna kill us. Could be as mean as you want. Yeah,

56:11

please please let it, just let

56:13

us have it. Yeah, let's unvarnished

56:15

truth again, only to that email address.

56:19

Uh, feel free to send multiple times if you're worried

56:21

it didn't come through. I love this part of the show, me

56:23

too. Okay, this building. Back

56:25

to the building. Okay, so we're in, and

56:28

I guess Six years later, Robert

56:30

Peterson decides that he is going to he's

56:33

looking for property for a museum for

56:35

his interest in automobiles. He's got all his money,

56:37

right. He decides that he's going to open

56:39

a museum, and he's trying to find an ideal space, and

56:42

he decides that this is a great building for

56:44

it, this this department store, because it has

56:46

very few windows. The place doesn't have it's

56:48

not like completely open like a lot of the other um

56:50

a lot of other buildings downtown were, and

56:53

decided that this would be a great place to have you know, artifacts,

56:56

you know, like without any kind of direct

56:58

exposure to sunlight, so you know, it doesn't have to worry

57:00

about sun fade on, you know, whether it's automobiles,

57:03

interiors, or paintings or whatever.

57:05

He happens to put up in there and decides

57:07

that he's going to buy this building. And he

57:09

buys the building in two

57:12

for an odd sum. This is this is what I find

57:15

interesting about this whole thing. I mean, there's a lot interesting,

57:17

but this number he buys it

57:19

in n for it's

57:22

all once completely once eleven

57:24

million, one d eleven thousand,

57:26

one hundred eleven dollars and eleven cents,

57:29

so all ones, all the way across. It's very easy number

57:31

to remember. But he buys that in buys

57:34

building in from that department

57:36

store or or box, and in

57:38

nine opens up the museum, the first

57:41

iteration of the Peterson Museum

57:43

and a much different version than you

57:45

and I have seen it was. It was it was still nice,

57:48

it was just different. And

57:50

the renovation that they went through recently, they went

57:52

through in two thousand fifteen and did this

57:54

this hundred and twenty five million dollar

57:57

renovation. Where as we said,

57:59

you know, they've they've done not only the inside

58:01

inside museum, but they've also done the outside of the museum

58:04

where it's this kind of and here's a better way

58:06

to describe it. I found it finally, um

58:08

a stainless steel ribbon assembly that's

58:11

made of one hundred tons of fourteen

58:13

gauge type three or four steel

58:15

in three hundred and eight sections, and

58:18

it has something like a hundred and forty thousand

58:20

customs stainless steel screws that keep

58:22

the thing in place. It's really a it's an interesting

58:25

looking building. It stands out

58:27

in in downtown l A, of course, and it's

58:29

just it's it's I mean, inside

58:31

and out. This is a unique experience.

58:33

Really, it's it's it's the building itself

58:36

has got its own history, the materials

58:38

inside that the person who owns it, or who

58:40

owned it, I should say, he has passed on. He passed

58:43

away. I believe in two thousand and seven,

58:45

wasn't it. I think that's when Peterson,

58:48

Yeah, two thousand seven. He was aged eighty when

58:50

he died. But of course the place is still operating

58:52

and doing well as you as you said, Um,

58:55

it's just it's a it's a great place to go and

58:57

as you've mentioned, spend more than

58:59

a day there if you can, or a day. You know,

59:01

it's tough to spend more than a day, but if you can spend a day

59:03

there, I'd say you're getting your your money's

59:06

worth out a museum for sure. And the museum

59:08

itself is is a celebrity

59:10

in its own right. It has its

59:12

own history as a building. As you mentioned,

59:15

Adam Krola held his tenth anniversary

59:17

celebration for his podcasts

59:20

there, So maybe we can do a live podcast

59:22

at the Peters Museum one day. It is

59:25

involved in the death of the

59:27

notorious b I G. Yeah, right,

59:29

that was the last place he was seen alive, right, right,

59:31

And the buildings featured in a couple

59:34

of films Miracle Mile Volcano,

59:36

Who Killed the Electric Car? So

59:39

so check it, Yeah, who killed the Electric Car?

59:41

That's what the ev was there? Right,

59:43

It was a museum. What was it. There was a strange

59:45

story. Someone who owned uh

59:48

g M E V one goes

59:50

to visit their their car, and that's

59:52

right, because they had to return the vehicles right right,

59:54

had to give them back to GM. And the

59:56

one that that person in particular owned

59:59

were rented was on

1:00:01

display at the Peterson Museum.

1:00:04

That's still the e V one story

1:00:06

for another day, but that's still so strange

1:00:08

it is. But let us know what exhibits

1:00:10

you saw at the Peterson Museum, because odds

1:00:12

are the average person is

1:00:15

not seeing all of the exhibits, nor

1:00:17

probably all of the vehicles. No, unless you work

1:00:19

there, you wouldn't. He wouldn't have been you know, privy

1:00:21

to see every single one of them or no, you

1:00:24

know exactly what's coming up when. So

1:00:26

it would be it would be a fascinating place to work, wouldn't

1:00:28

it. Yeah? Absolutely, dream job. I

1:00:30

mean our gigs, okay, but dream

1:00:33

job would be working at a at an auto museum,

1:00:35

wouldn't it. Yeah? I guess so that would

1:00:37

be fun. I don't know, you know what. I waffle

1:00:40

on this a little bit because I think it'd be really cool

1:00:42

to work in a museum, an AUTOMOI automobile

1:00:44

museum would be fun to be surrounded by that. But

1:00:47

I mean after about a day or two, I

1:00:50

don't know, unless you're really taking deep

1:00:52

dives into the history of a certain car and you really

1:00:54

focus on that and then move on to the next one, I

1:00:57

think that it would just become a bit repetitive

1:00:59

for me. See, this is why you want to get

1:01:01

the perfect job, which is either

1:01:04

the test driver or the

1:01:06

restorer. Oh yeah, if you're

1:01:08

a mechanic, that'd

1:01:10

be great, it would be fun. But test driver,

1:01:13

that's an interesting idea too. If you were able to like

1:01:15

actually, you know, take them out and motor them around a

1:01:18

little bit, stretch their legs, that'd be fun. I think

1:01:20

you have to earn that though, I don't think they

1:01:22

let you. I don't think like on

1:01:24

the website they have, you know, cashier

1:01:27

cafe position test driver. Yeah.

1:01:30

You know some of the Dilson's at the

1:01:33

Lane Museum, the one that I mentioned earlier, I

1:01:35

know that I was talking to one of them for a

1:01:37

long time and just kind

1:01:39

of our paths crossed many times, you know, during

1:01:41

the museum tour there. He was very helpful.

1:01:43

He said that you know, he does get to take vehicles home, because

1:01:46

that's one of the pride of a lot of museums

1:01:48

is that, you know, it's just been particular the Lane

1:01:50

Museum. Every vehicle is

1:01:52

roadworthy, so they encourage their employees

1:01:55

to take them home sometimes and you know, just

1:01:57

kind of work them out a little bit, because it's good for a car

1:01:59

to move it, it's it's bad for them to sit around. So

1:02:02

they realized that. And you know, I'm

1:02:04

sure that there are limitations. There's certain vehicles

1:02:06

there that are not allowed to bring home, like you know, the you

1:02:09

know, the rally cars and things like you know, the Group

1:02:11

B rally cars that show up or vehicles

1:02:13

like that that are not you know, road

1:02:15

legal, of course, and that's why you refuse to volunteer

1:02:18

there, right, That's right,

1:02:20

Yeah, I'm not taking not

1:02:22

taking a Group B Rally

1:02:24

car home. I'm not doing it. One important

1:02:26

note regarding these museums in this travel

1:02:28

So now that I am officially

1:02:31

uh A on the road consultant

1:02:34

for car stuff, there are going to be

1:02:36

times where I'm out of the studio

1:02:39

because I'm on some weird mission and

1:02:41

we would love your help recommend

1:02:44

some of your favorite museums in your neck

1:02:46

of the Global Woods, some of your favorite car

1:02:48

events, race tracks. No spoilers,

1:02:51

but we're working on getting Car Stuff itself

1:02:53

back on the road, you know, and

1:02:56

we would love to hear your

1:02:58

recommendation, so let us know. You could

1:03:00

let us on Facebook, Instagram,

1:03:03

Twitter. We mentioned in this episode we

1:03:05

mentioned a lot of stuff that we have recorded

1:03:07

previously, like the Dale Car, a

1:03:09

couple other stories. If you want to

1:03:11

check those out, you can find our podcast.

1:03:14

Just point your browser to Car Stuff

1:03:16

Show dot com right well, which you go to our

1:03:18

website and you can find

1:03:20

us on any anywhere

1:03:22

you get podcasts. Just know that

1:03:25

I think it's uh it's Apple Podcasts

1:03:27

that only shows you the first three hundred that's

1:03:30

correct. If you want the full archive, you have to

1:03:32

go to I Heart Radio, the I Heart

1:03:34

Radio app, I guess, or I Heart radio dot

1:03:36

com and check that out there. But there's

1:03:38

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of I think we're

1:03:41

we've got to be getting close to

1:03:43

a thousand. Way it

1:03:46

maybe a little ways off, because you know, we're like once

1:03:48

a week at this point. So yeah, well, you

1:03:50

know, if we plan this right, you guys, we

1:03:52

can get a party sub for

1:03:55

episode one. Yeah, you're right. You're

1:03:57

right. That'd be fantastic. I mean, dare

1:03:59

to dream. H car

1:04:04

Stuff is a production of I heart Radio. For

1:04:07

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