LIT Show Trip 2020 - Part 4

6 years agoLos Angeles, CA0Comments

Metallic silver Porsche 918 Spyder rear view, featuring top-exit exhausts, carbon fiber trim, and gold badging. At PECLA.

Orange Audi R8 V10 rear on display. Exposed mid-engine, carbon fiber wing, and aggressive black rear diffuser. Auto show exhibit.

Exposed Honda Indy V8 engine with polished chrome exhaust headers and gold heat shield in a blue NTT IndyCar race car.

Capturing a Racing Legend: The 1956 Porsche 550 Spyder at the Petersen Museum

Petersen Museum

As our trip comes to a close, we made one final trip out to the Petersen Museum. The museum bills itself as “one of the largest automotive collections in the world.” They have a rotating collection and what you’ll see differs year to year. During our trip they were featuring two major exhibitions, “Supercars: A Century of Spectacle and Speed” and “Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Science Fiction and Fantasy”.

The supercars exhibit was fabulous. Getting to see a GT40 Mk III in person was amazing. Having watched plenty of YouTube shorts on the racing history of the Ford GT, it was fun to finally stand next to one.

550 Spyder

That said, the main attraction was the 1956 Porsche 550/1550 RS Spyder. To realize that only 90 of these were made, some were wrecked racing, is pretty chilling. Hagerty claims to know the location of about 80% of the original run, so there’s still close to 70 in the wild.

It was a nice way to end the trip. I saw so many incredible current model Porsches on this trip, yet we ended seeing one of the earliest prouction Porsches built. It’s a true testament to the longevity of the brand and the passion that still exists in the community today.