WE FOUND 250+ CARS UNDERGROUND! HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS DISCOVERED

hi my name is Dana Williamson conservator and manager of the collection here at the Petersen Automotive Museum and today we're going to take a short tour in the vault and we're going to specialize with our concentrate on cars of heads of state and some Hollywood cars I a little stories on different Hollywood cars and their owners and their movies so we're here at the vault presented by Hagerty and we're gonna go in and take a look at some of these great cars that have great stories so we're going to be doing many of these videos while the museum is closed so please go on our website look at times look at a schedule and hop on and see some of our great content all right let's go so right now we're entering the vault and down here in the vault deep below the Petersen Automotive Museum we have over 250 cars motorcycles some trucks and like I said what we're gonna do right now is we're going to kind of concentrate on some Hollywood cars and some heads of state cars but as we're walking up through the interval toward the outer vault as you can see around me a collection of motorcycles and I guess we could we could say we have some celebrity motorcycles back here we have some Husqvarna 's these are all off-road bikes these that one on your left was James Coburn's built for him by Steve McQueen so the one right here in front of us with Steve's desert sled the one next that is the bike that Steve used in the movie on any Sunday and then this one here in the front was owned by Bruce Brown who was actually the director of the movie on any Sunday coming up further another motorcycle on a right that we'll be seeing is this 1929 Indian chief this was also Steve McQueen's this is one of his favorite bikes that used to ride of course I know that's saying a lot because Steve had a collection of hundreds of motorcycles so I'm sure he had hundreds of favorites and then next to that we have the harley-davidson of the late Jessi combs that's used when she was Grand Marshall last year at Sturgis now as we continue through the vault coming up to our first Hollywood car you can look around and you can see supercar as you can see exotic cars American classics but what right in front of us is a 1927 rolls-royce phantom limousine this this car is gorgeous it's a beautiful car it's a two-tone green and it was owned by Fred the dancer Fred Astaire a lot of you remember Fred Astaire from the 20s and 30s an incredible dancer and actor made many movies as you'll notice the chauffeurs compartment is open it did have a fabric that you could stretch over the top for rainy weather or inclement weather but other than that the chauffeur was out to the elements but Fred Astaire would ride in here with silk upholstery wool carpeting really really appointed appointed very well so this is what he would have been driven every day to MGM studios where he would film and dance his heart out now on the back so trunks that we have on cars now are called trunks because trunks on backs of cars were originally trunks and what we have here is in an original Louis Vuitton trunk which is probably worth as much as some of the cars in here and the previous owner that owned this car Fred Astaire's was also a Fred Astaire collector he loved Fred Astaire so he amassed a collection of Fred Astaire spats dancing shoes cricket bat tennis racket flask thermos scarf Pat many items that had been Fred Astaire's and what he used to do or what he did was if I can open this here he displayed them here in the Louis Vuitton trunk unfortunately I don't have them in there now for you to see what we've done is we've taken them they've been archived and they're being held in in conditions that that would help preserve them for longevity now as we continue back through the inner vault you can see over over my shoulder we're going into the outer vault where we have a huge collection of the automobiles we are in the process while we're closed of course cleaning making sure cars are cleaned and making sure they're protected so we're covering some depending upon the finishes and depending upon the cars so the first head of state car that we're going to talk about right now is the one right in front of me this is a 1942 Lincoln now this particular Lincoln was the presidential limo of FDR so you know we're coming off of Pearl Harbor and the government is saying you know something we really need something to protect the president we know we've never had a armored limousine but I think we need one for FDR so they built this particular car this particular car weighs 8,000 pounds as a matter of fact it's so heavy that it broke the first frame when they built it and also the rear end and they had to put a truck rear end in it in order to perform with with all the weight the windows on this car are over an inch thick they're an inch of an eight inch and 1/8 thick it uses plates of eighth inch glass and they're all welded together glued together that gives it the bulletproof glass the doors are lined with lead to absorb the bullets and there is also a metal mesh that encompasses the engine compartment which would have sore bullets too before they were ever able to get to the engine and its mesh and in that way it would be able to cool the engine would get cooling and it wasn't in a just in a solid box there's a little flap here a little chrome flap so when this window does go down of course you have an inch and 1/8 gap in the door this would flop flop over that when the window was down and she wouldn't lose anything inside the door so as you can see on the back we have handles and we have steps where Secret Service would stand there and they would hold on now there is a story we've been told it could be true could not be true but the government wasn't sure how to make a armored car or an armored limousine so they were of course researching and and figuring out ways to do it and how to do it and it was about the same time I think that Al Capone's car was confiscated because he was arrested and Al Capone actually had a fully armored and bulletproof car go figure so I have a feeling that he figured it out before the government but this is a very very heavy heavy armored limousine now so this is a 42 as I mentioned it was for FDR and if we look behind us now we're going to see another presidential limousine and this is the Chrysler Imperial the 52 Chrysler Imperial of Dwight Eisenhower so now we're 10 years later and when we're not involved in a war so there wasn't concern that the president would be in danger so as you can see this is not armored this is not bulletproof doesn't even have a top so this parade limo was used by Eisenhower and at the time Chrysler built three of these one was in the city one for the city of Los Angeles one for the city of Detroit and one for the city of New York this is actually the Detroit car so this is the only presidential limo of the three that is owned privately and that's we own it here at the Petersen museum Lausanne the city of Los Angeles owns the other one and the city of New York still owns that one which they use for parades and for dignitaries this one is also used for the same purposes we've loaned this out for different parades and different dignitaries so this was Eisenhower rode in this Nixon rode in it but it was the perfect limo for ticker-tape parades so astronauts many of the astronauts would have sat on the back sat on top of there and the ticker tape parades and depending upon where they were in the States they would use whatever limo was available closer to them whether it was from Los Angeles Detroit or New York now we're going to talk about movie Cars and heads of state cars at the same time so as we go down the left-hand side here we come across this little 50 1954 nash-healey I'm pointing this out because this car was used by Audrey Hepburn she rode in this car in the original in the original Sabrina movie and it was also used by Clark Kent in the original serie television series of Superman so you know some people have said oh that's Superman's car but it really isn't as we know Superman didn't need a car he flew but Clark Kent needed a car so this would be parked in front of the Daily Planet or of course parked next to a phone booth where Clark Kent would jump out he would get in the phone booth and then he became Superman great Hollywood stories now on my right is a Mercedes that is also as we talked about FDR's car this is also fully armor plated and bulletproof glass if you look really closely you can see that the glass does not curve as the doorframe does it's just straight and flat that's because it is bulletproof glass this particular car belonged to Imelda Marcos the Marcoses of the Philippines and as you know they were not very popular in the trunk of this car is an oil generator oil smoke generator so that if someone was chasing chasing them they could release hot oil that would create a very dense sticky slippery oil smoke screen in the back you see those lights those are two lint aircraft landing lights that could also blind the person behind them but with all this there was still room for many of her thousands of pairs of shoes in the trunk I think now we come to a Hong ji limousine so Hong ji a meaning red flag was a Chinese automotive manufacturer and this particular car was not used for any specific dignitary but anybody who was either a diplomat or a statesman or someone very important would ride in this car and it is said that the dalai lama had written in this car a couple of times but it is a you know when you look at it and also the next car that we're going to talk about you can see a lot of american influences a lot of influences from packard and from Chrysler and from Ford the next car we come to is a Chaka so China is a Russian made car this is a chai ker parade car as you notice it's a convertible still you know nobody's is worrying about safety at this point this particular car was commissioned from Chaka by nikita khrushchev to give to erica Gogan the I always mispronounce his name sorry about that Yuri he was the first man in space he actually received this car as a gift had it until he died and then it was taken Khrushchev took back ownership of the car behind that as we approach the next car this is the parade car the Pope popemobile as we call it so this car was built for John Paul Pope John Paul the second he was coming to Mexico in to address you know - for a parade and and for a big gathering but he had been before that he had been there was an attempt on his life someone tried to assassinate the Pope so immediately after that happened of course even though this had been commissioned from General Motors by the Vatican that they did not want the Swiss Guard said the Pope could not ride in any more open cars so this particular car was equipped this seat races up and down so he could sit in the seat and hydraulically the seat would come up he would could be much higher and viewed much better or it could go down the door would open and has steps that fold out so it would be easy for him to get up but like I said unfortunately he couldn't use the car he did bless the car in Mexico the Swiss car guard let him bless the car and then of course General Motors said wow what do we do with a use popemobile so here it's here it's it's at the Petersen Automotive Museum very very stately Cadillac and now this white you might say holy car in front of us is contradicted by this black car that we have behind us so this black car is a Mercedes landal a limo now this particular car was owned by Saddam Hussein that's why I say we have holy white and really a disturbing black car now mr. Peterson wanted a land delay really badly this is the LAN delay was a very rare model of Mercedes in the chauffeur compartment was a hardtop and the passenger compartment was a convertible so mr. Peterson had looked far and wide for this for this model of car didn't have much luck friend of his was in Jordan passed a Mercedes dealer and he said Pete you're not gonna believe this I think I saw her LAN delay and back of the Mercedes dealer you should come over and take a look at the time mr. Peterson had Peterson aviation and where he had several eight eight to ten jets and a couple of helicopters that he would lease Peterson aviation used to lease jet time to corporations that didn't want their executives to fly commercial but didn't want to buy a plane so they would leased time with Peterson aviation he opted on one of his jets flew over to Jordan said that's it LAN delay this is what I want signed the papers and then realized it was Saddam Hussein's car so there are steps on the so this is not an armored car has does not have bulletproof glass that's why you see it has steps on the side for his security and his bodyguards handles on the back and this car is in the original state as it was when it was found in Jordan when everything went down with the shower one of his generals apparently hopped in the car and drove it until it ran out of gas and apparently I ended up in Jordan now we're gonna do some Hollywood cars I think that just about does it for our heads of state state cars right now so on my left we're going to look at some cars we have the Lincoln of Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield had all all Jayne Mansfield's cars were pink she would order them in pink this is her Lincoln that was her daily driver not the not the car people asked always ask if this was the car that she was killed in but it was not this Lincoln premiere was like I said her her daily driver she and I think you know this is one of the first Lincoln's that was equipped with air conditioning she ordered it special with air conditioning because she knew how hot it would get in in cars and she wanted to be cool while she was driving next to Jayne Mansfield's Lincoln premiere we have Carole Lombards 1941 Cadillac unfortunately Clark Gable had ordered this Cadillac new from Cadillac from the dealer and he had it customized here in Los Angeles by coach Kraft he had the running boards were cut off the dashboard was painted red it had a the top was chopped he had a a vinyl top put on white walls fender skirts he was he had bought this for a gift for Carole Lombard unfortunately she wasn't really able to enjoy it because as as many of you know Carole Lombard was on her trip flying on her way back home from selling some war bonds and the plane crashed and she perished so very sad story Clark Gable never after that used the car it went in the hands of many different directors from there now we have a delahaye beautiful Delahaye convertible in red that was owned by Sir Elton John and interesting about this car is so Elton John is driving this car and it's a hardtop and he said to the friend he was with it at the time she's I wish I had got it convertible as friend said oh I know somebody that can make it into a convertible they took it to a shop had the top chopped a nice convertible top put on it but unfortunately with a coupe you know coop a lot of the structural integrity is picked up by the roof structure so without that roof structure it was a it was a weak car and it's sagging badly now in the middle doors don't open correctly and the frame has some issues so right now we're trying to figure out if we want to find another Delahaye coupe take the roof from that put it on this car and restore it to its original configuration of a delahaye coupe and if you've ever seen pictures or if you want to google the Delahaye this model in a coupe it's really really a beautiful car next to that we have greased lightning so of course this is greased lightning this is this was built by Barris everybody knows the movie Grease this was actually for the for the musical the musical that toured with Olivia newton-john John Travolta refused the tour with the company doing the musical so that's why his name is is painted on the door John Travolta because they wanted to associate both Olivia and John Travolta with the musical but this is a copy of the car that was used in the movie where it's it's built by the high school shop and then John Travolta drives it all around we have a very unique car next and it's a it's actually a manure spreader so this particular hot rod we'll call it it's a mid-engine manure spreader so it's a 1800s manure spreader they had put you'd put them and a farmer would put manure in it it would be towed by a horse the back would spin spread the manure out on the fields that hence fertilizing the the crops well Bob Hope had an idea that he wanted to give John Wayne something special for his birthday so he had this built and George Barris constructed a a major portion of this vehicle a manure spreader with a mid-engine Chevy and a Conestoga wagon top and horns on the front very very unique hot rod it does run I've driven it to meet but it is it's crazy one day we had John Wayne's son in here and I asked I said so what did your father think when he got this vehicle it's actually was named the Texas scraper and he said you know something he he had a big laugh with Bob Hope it ended up going into the barn in that work that's where it said he said it was it wasn't something that my father was going to drive around next we have a 1965 Mustang that was also customized by George Barris and it was it was used by Frank and Nancy Sinatra they were in a movie together called marriage on the rocks this has leopard fabric on this I excuse me it has tiger fabric on the sides or like zebra fabric and zebra fabric inside has a wet bar it has a television in the dashboard really really a crazy car but like I said it started out life as a 1965 Ford Mustang next to that we have a 1948 Chevy now this Chevy fleetmaster was donated to us by Jack Nicholson this was used in the movie the two Jakes and I think also Chinatown Jack Nicholson liked to obtain the cars that he had used in movies and then he used them for a short while had them in his collection and this particular when he donated to us he also doing it donated to us the Mercedes that he used the movie witches of eastwick after that movie he had that for a while used to drive it and he donated that to us now we have a VW Beetle painted crazy those of you may remember this was Austin Powers shag Mobile right now we have some plastic on it just to protect it because the details are very fragile that the studio had put on and they're starting to fade so we try to protect that so this was his time machine in the Spy that shagged me so he would be able to get in this and he travel back in time and so that's why the Volkswagen was chosen because it it had nostalgia from the 60s and flowerpower and and things like that now we have the 308 of the Ferrari 308 of the TV series magnum p.i this is one of the actual cars that that Magnum drove that Tom Selleck drove if you watch that series you'll never see him driving one of these cars with the top on because even though they lowered the driver's seat that kind of took some stuffing out of the bottom they redid the the seat slides he was still too tall he could not put the top on and drive so he's always driving this car with no top on it but it's in Hawaii so I guess it works next to that another VW this is the VW bus that was used in Little Miss Sunshine the acts exact bus they built a few of these this was driven in the sequence and you notice that if you see it in the movie it gets a scrape on the side a dent on the side and that's right there in the door and in the rear quarter now we have a Chrysler Imperial convertible this was Katharine Hepburn's daily driver this is the car that Katharine Hepburn drove herself to the studio in all the time and actually she had a chauffeur but she preferred to drive herself so often times that she would drive and her chauffeur would ride with her now we have a camera car so this is a Chrysler camera car Chrysler built three of these this particular one they they gave to Howard Hughes at RKO studios and basically before this camera cars were whatever the studio could get their hands on it might be a 1928 Essex or Model A or a 40 Ford but what what Chrysler did is they said look we're going to build a car specifically for the studios it'll have a deck on the back where they can put all the scaffolding and reading for the cameras it's a convertible top so they can put the top top down if they need communication back and forth or if it's really hot the top can be put up it has air conditioning it can protect the driver and maybe a cameraman inside but this was a car that was specifically built just for studios know next to that we have a Stutz Italia know this test Italia was based on a Pontiac Grand Prix and then it was sent to Italy to be bodied but what's interesting about this car it is a gaudi car it's a very flashy car so if I said to you who do you think would drive this car well this car actually had three owners it was ordered by Elvis Presley and he got impatient and never took delivery of this car then it was so he sold the rights to Evel Knievel Evel Knievel did take delivery drove the car for a while and it was a coupe it was not a convertible it was a coupe and Evel Knievel said you know what I really want a convertible I'm not so sure I like the coupe took at the Jean Winfield out in the desert here in California Jean Winfield chopped the top made it into a convertible Evel Knievel said I still don't like it so he sold it to Wayne Newton and Wayne Newton had it for many many years and as she like I said if you look at it with all its gold trim and and it's exhaust out the side and side pipes it's the perfect Vegas strip car so you can imagine Wayne Newton driving that up and down the Vegas Strip as we walk around this this yellow Pantera this is the Pantera that was owned well I should say purchased by Elvis Presley and given to Linda Thompson his girlfriend at the time as a gift and of course she's said to me when when I saw her one time she said I don't know I asked her how she liked it and she goes you know something he buys me a used car he doesn't we're dating he doesn't even give him buy me a new car buys me a used car and it's a smelly car the engine is loud there's no ventilation she said I hated it anyway that's her story but Elvis buys the car and and why this is famous Elvis has many cars this is the car that he shot three times he had an argument with Linda Thompson he runs out of the house and what he's gonna do is he's gonna run out of the door of Graceland he's gonna jump in this car he's gonna peel out of the driveway and he's gonna say there you go Linda unfortunately he jumps in the car won't start gets out of the car he kicks the door in with his big size ten shoe jumps back in still wouldn't start frustrated jumps out of the car again pulls a 38 revolver out of his sock and shoots the car three times and hopefully I don't know if you can but if you can you can see that we have a bullet Nick 38 Nick here in the steering wheel there's one back here and underneath that carpet are still the holes that are in the floor where the bullets passed through so everybody said so after he shot it did it start answer is yes I don't know how but you know it did it started and he was happy so you would say why would anyone shoot a car but I don't think this is the only car that Elvis shot I think he shot one of his Cadillacs and I also have heard that when he would be staying in a motel with his entourage of course he'd be sitting on the couch watching TV they didn't have remotes in that day so if he didn't like what was on or somebody was saying something bad about Elvis he would pull that same room 38 out of her sock and shoot the TV one is one of his friends at the time and told me that he says you can't imagine how many TVs we had to purchase the next car is a Mustang for creed 2 this is the Mustang that was lost and then had to be won back Herbie everybody loves Herbie the lovebug so this is second-generation Herbie this was from the movie fully loaded which starred Lindsay Lohan and if you remember in the movie Herbie becomes a racecar and this is a racecar Herbie it was certified by NASCAR had to be in order for them to run it on a NASCAR oval full roll cage the VW engine is puts out over 200 horsepower so this particular car on the oval was clocked at doing about 136 miles an hour I've driven it and there's no way I want to go 136 miles an hour it was scary at the speed that I was driving him next to that we have the Thunderbird of Thelma & Louise this is they had several Thunderbirds for the movie of course one you know one went off the cliff others were damaged this particular car was we kind of call the hero car so when they would be driving or they would be sitting in it talking this is the car they would use their mirrors have been taken off the sides because that's where the cameras would be hung off the doors but this is an actual car from the movie next in line of course is the Plymouth Fury Christine so this is Christine this was the evil car tormented her owner killed several people but anytime there was damage Christine would morph back together so that's a sampling of the movie Cars that we have here and heads of state cars we have like I said many more cars and hopefully when we reopen when the museum reopens you'll all come in take the Evolve the guided vault tours get the stories of all the cars get the stories every car in here has a story and they're all very very interesting stories so with that I'm going to leave you I'll be back at another time like I said check the website we have plenty of videos coming up we also have interactive educational videos so please tune in and until then be healthy and be safe

Channel: Petersen Automotive Museum

Views: 34,041

Rating: 4.9026217 out of 5

Keywords: Rarest car in the world, secret car collections, largest car collections in the world, worlds best car collection, Famous cars, Celebrity cars, car collections, greatest hollywood car, Herbie, Popemobile, barn finds, grease lightning, top 10 celebrity car collections, car collection shmee, car collecton garage, grease lightning broadway, barn finds muscle cars, barn finds cars, herbie the love bug, car collection rappers, car collection garage, car collection tour

Id: suqhUSc6tKI

Length: 33min 10sec (1990 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020