Check out Batman’s and Marty McFly’s rides at the Petersen Museum

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  • The BTTF DeLorean DMC-12 has actually been on display at the Petersen for a while now. That doesn’t make it any less cool.
    The Petersen Museum
  • The DeLorean is one of three that were used in the movie.
    The Petersen Museum
  • Back to the Future II was supposed to be fiction.
    The Petersen Museum
  • Did you know a company in Texas will build you a new DMC-12?
    The Petersen Museum
  • If the movie had come out a few years earlier, perhaps John DeLorean wouldn’t have had to resort to drug smuggling to keep the factory open.
    The Petersen Museum
  • There have been many Batmobiles, but this one is from the 1989 Tim Burton movie starring Michael Keaton as the bat.
    The Petersen Museum
  • The Batmobile’s dash is more 1980s race car than gadget-filled crime fighter machine.
    The Petersen Museum
  • There’s a Christopher Nolan-era Batbike in the exhibit, too.
    The Petersen Museum
  • I’m not going to lie, I never really liked the Nolan Batvehicles.
    The Petersen Museum
  • This is the bike from Ghost in the Shell. Ars editor Sam Machkovech hated the movie and I never watched the anime, so I have nothing helpful to say about this bike.
    The Petersen Museum
  • If you know more about the GITS bike, let us know in the comments.
    The Petersen Museum
  • When I was at the museum in February, there were already some movie cars on display. This is obviously Lightning McQueen, from Cars. Does the fact that the film has a WWII veteran Jeep mean that in the Cars universe there was a Car Hitler?
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • Now this is a real Batbike if you ask me.
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • No mistakes this time around—this is Suki’s Honda S2000 from 2 Fast 2 Furious
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • The Plymouth Fury from Christine.
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • I can’t remember which film this custom starred in, but the detailing was too good not to share.
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • This Herbie must be from the reboot because it’s wearing NASCAR stickers.
    Jonathan Gitlin
  • The Ford Thunderbird from Thelma and Louise.
    Jonathan Gitlin

A new exhibition will open shortly at Los Angeles’ wonderful Petersen Automotive Museum. It’s called “Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Science Fiction and Fantasy,” and as the name suggests, it features the two- and four-wheel stars of movies and video games, most of which will be very familiar to anyone with a passing interest in depictions of dystopian futures or speculative fiction.

“‘Hollywood Dream Machines’ will be the biggest exhibit of our 25th anniversary,” said Petersen Automotive Museum Executive Director Terry L. Karges. “With more than 40 vehicles from the silver screen spread across the museum, the exhibit is an ode to the industry that Los Angeles was built upon. We can’t wait to explore the fantasy and fictional concepts behind these extraordinary vehicles with the world.”

Some of the featured vehicles will be more instantly recognizable than others. I’m sure everyone is familiar with Batmobiles and the time machine from Back to the Future. Others might be a little more obscure, like the Weyland Industries RT01 Group Transport from Prometheus, or Frankenstein’s Corvette from Death Race 2000. And they aren’t all from films, either. Halo‘s iconic Warthog will be on display, and along with the BTTF DeLorean, you can don a HoloLens to check it out in augmented reality.

The exhibit opens on May 5 and runs until March 15, 2020, but in advance of the opening, the museum shared some studio photos of a few of the new exhibits. In addition to the gorgeous shots they sent us, I’ve included a few other movie cars that were on display from my visit there earlier this year. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can persuade my editors to send me back to LA sometime soon…

Listing image by The Petersen Museum

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1494765