Museum Auto brings New York art and car sensibility to LA

CPR Classic’s Porsche 906

Museum Auto official poster

A beautiful 356 Cabriolet

How often do you see an FJ 40 pickup?

VW pickup

The front of the VW pickup

GT500

911 RS. Note the plate.

Splendid 356

1957 356A Coupe

Targa

2002

Father-daughter day at the car show. 

911

2002 with stance

MGB with removable hardtop

Joel Morejon and his partner Osiel Rojas held art shows and car shows, owned art galleries and even opened a Cuban coffee shop back in New York, but they have arrived in Los Angeles now and the city looks to be the better for it. They had already established Cars & Coffee Los Angeles on the last Sunday of every month in the parking lot of the Friendship Auditorium across the street from the William Mulholland Memorial Fountain adjacent to Griffith Park, next to the LA River. They did it “… to bring together like-minded automotive and design enthusiasts.”

“The events are very chill and welcoming to all car sorts,” their website explains.

But this past Sunday they did something a little different, changing things up by turning the gathering into a curated car show that was held in conjunction with a display of automotive-themed art inside the auditorium. They called the new event Museum Auto. It was cool.

“It’s a way of merging classic cars with art,” Morejon explained.

Das Pimp

1978 Lotus Elan Coupe

Jaguar E-Type

Rolls-Royce Corniche

Rolls-Royce Corniche

Early Bronco

BMW CSL Coupe

Alfa Romeo GTV6 3.0

More from Museum Auto, including the art!

Ford Ranchero

Early Bronco with Ducati Scrambler

Early Bronco

Land Rover Defender 90

Early Bronco, possibly not stock

The big picture was the only thing at the show not for sale. It looks like just a photo of some guys around a Cobra. Then you see that the main guy is Steve McQueen, and he’s showing his new Cobra off to the crew on a movie set.

That’s co-organizer Joel Morejon

More from Museum Auto, including the art!

Lugcraft laser-etches car images into wood, in this case skate boards. www.lugcraft.com

Lugcraft laser-etches car images into wood. Looks really cool. www.lugcraft.com

Natalie Strong, wife of Model Citizen model car seller Patrick Strong, creates artworks using images of her husband’s car models juxtaposed in unique settings. Look on Instagram @constantalchemy




















Not only was it a paid event this time—20 bucks a head—but it incorporated some very interesting automotive-themed art inside the hall. There were two long scrims of photos in the main hall. Our favorite was a large black and white print of a Cobra with a few people gathering around it. At first it seems almost unremarkable, then you notice that the guy who owns the Cobra is Steve McQueen.

“He had just bought it and was showing it off to members of the crew,” said Morejon. “They were filming a movie, and this was during a break.”

Automotive art craft house lugcraft laser-etches images into wood—in this case, a BMW 2002 on the bottom of a skateboard.

Outside was a display by lugcraft, an automotive art craft house up the freeway in Moorpark that has mastered the art of laser-etching car profiles onto wood. There was a tall rack of skateboards with 911s, Mustangs and BMW 2002s etched into their undersides. You could be the coolest kid in the skate park! Lugcraft also makes coasters with race wheel patterns that include the tire profile, race-themed notebooks and, of course, automotive-themed T-shirts. I may drive up there to do some Christmas shopping.

Next to them was our old friend Patrick Strong, whose Model Citizen specializes in getting you 1:43-scale car models that you probably can’t get anywhere else. We’ve seen him at car shows before, but here at Museum Auto was Natalie Strong, wife of Patrick, who displayed her own automotive artwork. Natalie took prints of her husband’s cars and juxtaposed them with other imagery to create uniquely styled works of art. Follow her on Instagram @constantalchemy.

And, of course, there were the cars. If you had to pick a best of show, I’d say the CPR Classics Porsche 906 had to be it. CPR has owned it a few times and had just gotten it back from a Swiss collector, who inexplicably didn’t drive it. I’d daily-drive that thing back and forth on Mulholland and stop only for gas.

There were several perfectly preserved 356s on hand, too, along with a good showing of 911s from the 1970s. A couple of BMW 2002s shared lot space with a CSL coupe, while the far end of the lot sported several Early Broncos in various stages of customization. In all, over 100 cars had registered for the show, which was dubbed the inaugural Museum Auto. Looking forward to the next one. In the meantime, you can attend Cars & Coffee Los Angeles on the last Sunday of every month in this same space. Welcome to LA, boys!

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