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That sounds fascinating.

By the way, if you've never been to the Petersen, this is a good excuse to enjoy a whole museum full of fun and not just this exciting-sounding special exhibit. The "hollywood gallery" mentioned is home to famous cars such as the truck from the Beverly Hillbillies, the Munster-mobile, the "Hannibal 8" from "The Great Race" Elvis's De Tomaso, TV's Green Honet's "Black Beauty" and...yes, he's here--Herbie the Love Bug... and others on a rotating basis, and the main galleries on the ground floor that trace the evolution of the automobile are not just full of great cars---they display the auto classics in sets proper to the periods being shown...and WDI was involved in the design when they got into the museum-making business back during the EPCOT days. There's another relic of a great moment in Disney live-action filmmaking at the Petersen, too. Remember that iconic bulldog-shaped diner from "The Rocketeer"? Its there, too.

BTW, the big building the Petersen is housed in was originally constructed as the first U.S. location of a chain of JAPANESE department stores, lasted a few years, then became a cut-rate close-out American women's clothing store before going bust and then stood empty for many before Petersen took it over---and one BIG reason for their choosing the site ( aside from the huge, pillar-free department -store spaces that were easily adaptable to museum exhibit space) was that the parking structure behind it, including a huge spiralling ramp, let them drive cars up to the upper floor galleries of this four-story 300,000 sq. ft. building w/o building a car-sized elevator or some other costly addition.

SO...if you're planning an L.A. visit during this showing, look forward to a full half-day at least at the Petersen and, if you're in a museum-crawling mood, just up Wilshire Blvd. is the L.A. County Art Museum AND of course, the famous LA Brea Tar Pits and their Page museum full of dinosaur bones and the like. Actually, LACMA has expanded into another former department store--the old May Company art-deco classic across from the Petersen, and, if you're going, LACMA has a super ongoing movie series that often features classics including Disney films along with its great permanent collections, an astounding piece of architecture built to house its Asian art in a kind of modernist spiral-ramped West Coast take on NYC's Guggenheim which will remind you of a plain white minimalist version in concrete of the Japan EPCOT Pavilion's towering structures.

OH, and to round out the neighborhood tour, L.A.'s famous Farmer's Market (which the one at WDW's Disney Studios was patterned after) is right up Fairfax at 3rd St. with great alfresco eating and shopping (for AMAZINGLY good Cajun cuisine, try The Gumbo Pot in the Market's west side patio,) and the whole area around the Petersen is full of buildings that will be instantly recognizeable to visitors to WDW's studio backlots...among them the "camera" building that looks like an old-fashioned Kodak with a round window as its lens (a few blocks west of the Petersen on Wilshire's south side in the "Miracle Mile") and the old art-deco veterinary clinic that became that Goofy building at WDW as well as the gas station that was used as the basis for Sid Cahuenga's and other structures on Highland Avenue parallel to Fairfax and La Brea in nearby Hollywood proper.

I just checked their website: http://www.petersen.org/ and the other exhibitions going on now look interesting, too, including one all about low-riders and how they are customized, a celebration of NASCAR's 60th anniversary and, back from a long hiatus, the HotWheels Hall of Fame! And for you who think "green" there's a special exploration of alternative fuel/power sources from the past to the future that will give everyone who ever saw "The Water Engine" show at the original "World of Motion" at EPCOT a sense of nostalgia, indeed.

And as long as we're doing facts, its $10 for adults, $5 for seniors 62 and over and military or students with ID, $3 for kids from 5 to 12 and under 5 are free.

Oh heck, one more speck of Petersen trivia most don't know. They host many events, and when the Democratic Party held its convention in Los Angeles last, I happen to know that Chrysler had a special lobbying party for the delegates at the Petersen and, of course, supplemented the exhibit space with a showing of all the newest Chrysler cars.....except ONE MODEL! The one they left out? The PT Cruiser! Can you guess WHYFOR?......

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Because.....the PT Cruiser is built entirely in...MEXICO, which isn't too popular a fact with the auto-worker UNION types who predominate in the Democrats donor/delegate ranks, so to avoid offense, Chrysler "forgot" to include that popular car in their party lineup.

NOW you know. (Smile)

One added note. The new story up on the site re. merchandise for Pixar films and the refurb/reaquisition of the Disney stores points out another aspect to THIS story: Museums like merchandising, too. Every new exhibit or show at any museum these days comes with a poster, a book or two, and other goodies to buy to go with it. I date the phenomenon's major boost to the famou touring King Tut exhibit which garnered mega-millions in goodie/spin-off sales. The fact that CARS is a merch. blockbuster is surely part of the reason for this show--and if you visit the petersen website you'll see them already selling lots of goodies.

Let me share another example. A couple of years ago, L.A.'s wonderful Gene Autry Western Heritage museum (renamed since because it was founded BY Autry and isn't, as some guests misunderstood from that original name, a museum ABOUT him but rather about the whole western experience, real AND Hollywood) did a special six-month long show about the films of Sergio Leone--the classic "spaghetti westerns" that made Clint Eastwood a star. The museum's shop aquired a HUGE bunch of related and barely-related merchandise to add to their usual offerings, including even.....would-you-believe-it? PASTA and sauces branded by the famous tourist-trap Italian restaurant in NYC named Mama Leone's, hence LITERALLY "spaghetti" with the name (but NO relation whatsoever in reality) of the famous inventor of the artform whose movies were being tributed.

HOWEVER...the PRIME artifact of them all in the museum's show was loaned by Clint Eastwood himself who, it seems, has kept it lovingly all these years because it wasn't bought by the movie but by HIM at a Hollywood Blvd. surplus store before he went to Italy and Spain to do the first film with Leone---the famous poncho he wore as "the Man With No Name" in three classic films. It was on a clear lucite mannekin and it was huddled around both times I attended the exihibit by one and all, young and old, as if it was some sort of religious artifact or shrine. I cannot exaggerate this--it was bizarre and wonderous to see---imagine WDW putting the first pen Walt used to sketch the first drawing of Mickey on display and you can get some idea.

ANYHOW....the STORE got somebody to make up take-home-and-wear-in-your-bedroom-or-wherever COPIES of the famous poncho--same color, same size, same pattern---and put them on sale during the exhibit. Now imagine this for a moment with me folks....what does it COST to have some Hong Kong sweatshop churn out a hunk of cloth with some zig-zag ticking sewn on with a hole in the middle of it? $2? Maybe $5 with the shipping to the USA, max?

Guess how much they charged?

You cannot. Trust me you cannot, so I'll tell you.

$500.

Each.

Okay, I lie: $499.99.

Each.

And on one day I was in the shop, I saw TWO of them sold in 20 minutes time.

SO please, do not ever underestimate the value of the RIGHT merchandise pitched at the RIGHT audience in the RIGHT venue. Prediction? The Petersen will do a HUGE business in CARS stuff during this show, both in person and on their website...and furthermore, they'll sell it to AUTO enthusiasts who are ADULTS and who would, otherwise, never have been in a Disney store to buy the "kids" stuff at all.