Come to "Cardena" in Gardena!

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has been collecting and preserving California’s automotive culture since 1929. Today, the Museum’s automotive collection is the largest on the West Coast at a public institution. The collection consists of 75 historic cars and motorcycles dating from 1900 to 1984. 

Now, the Natural History Museum offers a monthly, behind-the-scenes tour series at our Gardena, California collection facility. Typically 60 or so of the 75 vehicles are on view (the number fluctuates depending on loans and Museum exhibits). Tour participants will learn about the history of automotive design, and Los Angeles’ rich — and sometimes surprising — automotive past.

One of the standouts in the collection is the 1908 Pierce Great Arrow, which won the 1st in class in the Prewar Preservation Class and the Chairman’s Trophy at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The Museum’s 1908 Pierce remains in original, unrestored condition. It was donated by the widow of T.C. Wohlbruck in 1937; her husband owned a private car museum in the San Jose, California area. Before entering Mr. Wohlbruck’s collection, the car was owned by Mrs. Edward de Nivernois, the wife of the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, and her monogram can still be seen in gold leaf on the door of the car.

Other highlights in the Museum’s Gardena facility include a 1909 Case steam traction engine used in a San Fernando Valley orange grove, and the “newest” car in the collection, a Buick convertible which served as the Olympic Torch Relay Car in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Though the focus of the collection is on automobiles made or designed in Southern California, it includes a wide variety of vehicles:

• 1902 Tourist (produced by the first car manufacturing company in Los Angeles)
• 1932 Duesenberg (the body of this glamour car was designed and manufactured in Pasadena)
• 1953 Cadillac El Dorado (a car that defines post- WWII American design exuberance)
• Industrial designer Raymond Loewy’s personally-designed 1957 BMW 507 Coupe 

Gardena Facility Tour Info:
Guided tours are held on the first Friday of the month. Reservations are required. Tours last approximately one hour. Please note that guests will be permitted to enter the building 10 minutes prior to the tour's start time. Parking is free. There is a 20-person cap on each tour, and visitors must be 16 years of age or older.

For reservations and location details contact cars@nhm.org or (213) 763-3218. $20 for general public; $16 for NHM members; free for NHM Fellows and employees.