Famed collector takes the wheel at L.A.’s Petersen Automotive Museum

Visiting the cavernous halls of Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum over the years, one thing was always apparent. Packed as it was with cars, people typically were in scarce supply. I once interviewed "House" star Hugh Laurie there partly because it was sure to be a quiet place for an molested conversation. Laurie, a gearhead in addition to being an actor and jazz pianist, loved the place. The Petersen’s enduring problem was not enough other people did.

Peter Mullin wants to change that. As the museum’s new board chair, he is poised to launch a $35 to $45 million overhaul that ranges from exterior and interior makeovers to a wholesale reappraisal of the museum’s exhibits and mission. The timeline is tight: Mullin wants to have the new Petersen ready by 2014, two decades after it was opened by the late hot rod publishing magnate Bob Petersen.

“We’re aiming to be a world-class museum period, not a southern California car culture museum,” says Mullin, 72. “I understand why it started out one way. It’s not a criticism, that was just the focus of Petersen publications. But we can be so much more.”

Specifically, the new Petersen will look to appeal beyond a typical auto museum’s core audience, which is largely white and male, according to the American Alliance of Museums. Mullin says the quest for a younger and more ethnically diverse crowd will employ a range of tactics, including interactive exhibits, an engaging website and an emphasis on green technology.

“We want to be in line with what the views of younger visitors might be, from energy efficiency to creating cars with environmental sensitivity in mind,” he says, adding that he plans to create exhibits with the participation of institutions ranging from Pasadena’s Art Center of Design (which has spawned dozens of the world’s top automotive designers, including Ford’s Freeman Thomas and BMW’s Chris Bangle) to the dozens of design studios operated by automakers around Southern California (BMW’s outfit just penned a sleek bobsled for the U.S. Olympic team).

Mullin also hopes that the museum’s location midway down Wilshire Boulevard will soon become more of an asset than a liability, far as it is from Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. With a new motion picture museum led by Disney chief Robert Iger set to open nearby soon, Mullin hopes the area eventually will offer visitors a museum trifecta that also includes the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

But Mullin’s decision to hop back on board didn’t come easy. The longtime automotive aficionado, who sold his executive compensation business MullinTBG to Prudential in 2008, was briefly chairman of the museum’s board a decade ago before opening his own French car-Art Deco museum in Oxnard, Calif. Petersen remained a supporter of the L.A. museum, but felt that “ultimately what I envisioned and what the Petersen envisioned were on different paths.”