Tag Archives: old cars

Valley Relics Museum

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Valley Relics Museum
Chatsworth
May 31, 2014

We went back to the Valley Relics Museum in Chatsworth. This trip was our second visit; we first learned about the musuem through a Los Angeles Times article and visited last winter, shortly after it opened. Meredith’s sister Kathleen accompanied us this time. She follows the museum on Facebook but had not previously visited it. The museum is housed in warehouse space, with three small rooms and one large open space.

Meredith and Kathleen both attended high school in the San Fernando Valley, and we are comfortable there, but we do not tend to associate the Valley with museums or high culture. The Valley Relics Museum has a delightfully offbeat assortment of signs, photos, and assorted memorabilia associated with the Valley from the early 20th century on. Tommy Gelinas, the owner and curator, is very knowledgeable about the history of the Valley and various now-gone shops, restaurants, and other sites. When we arrived, he was in the lobby explaining several items to other visitors and answering questions.

The collection has expanded since our first visit just six months before, and the website has been revamped and expanded as well. The museum is full of the sort of things we used to see everywhere and take for granted, like signs for Green Stamps and an old Wurlitzer jukebox. One of the smaller rooms has lots of old black-and-white photos of Western movie stars associated with the Valley, and that room was of particular interest to Margaret, who is a fan of old Western movies. Bob and Meredith liked one of the new additions, a classic VW beetle that was hand painted by a local artist, with various historical themes on different parts of the car.

VRelics

The museum is on Marilla Street just beyond the end of Canoga Avenue. We had a little trouble finding it the first time because it is in industrial space and not marked prominently. There is no handicap cut out immediately in front of the museum. Tommy assisted us with getting Margaret and the wheelchair inside.

There is no café at the Museum. Prior to this visit, we stopped at the Bob’s Big Boy in Northridge.

Petersen Automotive Museum

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Petersen Automotive Museum
Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard
May 3, 2014

We went to the Petersen on “Mustang Weekend,” a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Ford’s introducing the Mustang. Meredith is a big Mustang fan, and Margaret loves old cars, so this outing was a natural.

The Mustang exhibit (May 3, 2014 – October 18, 2014) featured Mustangs of all five “generations,” with a bonus viewing of the brand new 2015 model. We timed our visit to take a guided tour through the Mustang exhibit, then walked back through it on our own. The cars on display spanned all 50 years. It was amusing to find out that the Petersen had trouble finding a Mustang II to display, from the second generation, because it is not popular with collectors. The museum finally bought one through Craigslist just a few weeks before the exhibit opened. We particularly liked seeing the light blue convertible Mustang Ronald Reagan used to tour California on the campaign trail, when he ran for governor of California in 1966. Period TV ads for Mustangs were running on a loop in a back corner of the exhibit.

petersen-mustang

We went on to another special exhibit, this one of town cars (February 15, 2014- February 8, 2015). We had not known that is a technical term. According to the museum website, “from the early 1900s to the mid-1960s, the term ‘town car’ referred to a body style distinguished by an open chauffeur’s compartment and an enclosed passenger area.” There were many beautiful old cars on display, some with handcrafted, one-of-a-kind coaches.

We finished our visit with a tour through the Streetscape area, a permanent exhibition of various cars and contemporaneous artifacts in the setting of Southern California throughout the span of the 20th century.

We were unhappy with one thing, namely that there are no elevators in the parking structure next to the museum. There are handicapped spots on the ground floor of that garage, of course, but we do not have a disabled placard. We make do with regular parking on our outings even though Margaret is in a wheelchair. A parking attendant directed us to the upper floor when we drove in, and it was only after we were up there that we found there were no elevators to get down, just stairs. Since there had not been any regular parking available on the ground floor, we left the car up there and walked down the (steep) ramp to get to the museum. When Meredith spoke to the attendant who had sent us upstairs, he shrugged off her complaint. We did get an apology from the ticket seller inside, though, and the security guards inside the museum were friendly and helpful.

We had eaten lunch at Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria (several blocks east, at 5757 Wilshire) before we went to the museum. It is not the closest place to eat – for convenience there is a Johnny Rockets hamburger restaurant inside the Petersen – but Johnnie’s Pizzeria is our favorite whenever we visit any of the museums in the Wilshire / Hancock Park area. We always enjoy the food and service there. The first time we visited we did not realize it was a chain restaurant; it was only when we looked it up online afterwards that we found out that fact.