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TAKE A WALK THROUGH THE PETERSEN AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM HYPERCAR EXHIBIT - NO DROOLING.

Published: 2022-04-27 10:04:15 Last Updated: 2022-04-27 16:01:17

There’s loads of places in the world that feature on the bucket lists of motoring fanatics, but some places feature higher up and more often than others. The Petersen Automotive Museum is one such place. It was founded back in 1994 by Robert and Margie Petersen and is dedicated to all things automotive. It’s not only a bucket list destination for fans of the industry, it’s also a place that car collectors and builders aspire to have their work shown in. This means the quality of cars seen in exhibits is second to none, only the best of the best builds make it in, and many are even donated. The museum is found at the end of LA’s Miracle Mile at the third most travelled intersection in the city inside a historic department store that’s had a $90 mil renovation. This was done by the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, and included 25 rotating exhibitions with space for more than 150 cars inside the original Welton Becket-designed building.

Now the whole Covid-19 pandemic was, as you know, a terrible time for many businesses out there, especially those that relied heavily on interaction and visits from the public. This forced a new way of thinking for many businesses and the Petersen Automotive Museum was one of them. The museum is well known for its amazing exhibitions and shows, and a tour of the museum was something special. With travel restricted, the museum decided to still have millions of eyes on the tour by creating some high quality walk through videos with a short background on most of the exhibits. These productions have proven quite popular and they showcase all manner of cars and collections so most automotive fans will find something of interest. The reaction to these videos has seen the museum carry on making them, which is a win for us all. Not everyone can make it to LA to see it in person, bucket list destination or not.

The latest exhibition to showcase at the Petersen Automotive Museum is called HYPERCARS, and it features some of the most expensive, rarest and fastest cars ever created. Their website shows some of what’s to expect, like the Devel Sixteen V8 Prototype. It’s a controversial thing, but it does look amazing. They say we’ll see three models, two V16-powered and one V8 like what you see here. Claims of 5 000 hp are optimistic, but we’re holding thumbs. The exhibit also features a Lamborghini Centenario, the company’s project to show off what it’s capable of, like the mostly carbon fibre construction, double splitters and rear-wheel steering for the first time on a Lamborghini vehicle in 2016. Petersen has also secured a rare Chinese EV hypercar called the NextEV EP9 built in 2014. This amazing machine saw fitment of electric motors each with their own gearbox. The car was never intended for production, it’s purpose was to show what was possible in hypercar EV construction and materials. There’s not going to be many opportunities for this car to be seen in the metal.

Asking what a hypercar is and about it's origins, the Petersen Automotive Museum explains: "Although the term “supercar” first appeared in the 1920s, the modern notion of supercars was born in the late 1960s, when automotive marvels such as the Lamborghini Miura and the Shelby AC Cobra 427, capable of performance targets far exceeding anything that had come before, made their debuts. For the next several decades, the term supercar was applied to a handful of automobiles that occupied the top tier of excellence. And then, inevitably, a car came along that was so extreme—with supernatural performance and outrageous luxury—that it outshone all supercars to date: the Bugatti Veyron of 2005. With its 4-digit horsepower, 7-digit price tag, quad-turbocharged 16-cylinder engine, and top speed greater than 250 miles per hour, the Veyron topped the numeric bar set by earlier supercars, and the “hypercar” was born."

“But what exactly is a hypercar? The definition is elusive and debatable. Metrics frequently associated with the hypercar include: excessive top speed, upwards of 200 miles per hour; an abundance of horsepower, approaching or surpassing 1,000; rarity, with less than a few hundred units produced; and a price tag exceeding one million dollars. But none of these things alone, or even combined, definitively make a vehicle a hypercar. There is also an exotic look and a bespoke luxury that can bring the moniker to bear on an automobile. However subjective the definition may be, one thing is for certain: hypercars are all high-performance, highly styled, audacious, alluring, and extreme. This exhibition features a selection of these rarified, ultra-elite vehicles, exploring their manufacture and their capabilities, and hinting at what greatness is still to come" says the Petersen Automotive Museum's curator.

Take a look at the YouTube video about the Hypercars Exhibition at the amazing Petersen Automotive Museum below: HYPERCARS Exhibition Full Tour | Petersen Automotive Museum.

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Article Tags: Cars Nio EP9 Centenario Lamborghini Devel Sixteen Walk Through Tour Museum Petersen Automotive Museum