WORDS: NATHAN CHADWICK | PHOTOS: PETERSEN AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM
General Motors’ most exotic creations from the 1950s will form the centrepiece of the Petersen Automotive Museum‘s new Dream Cars collection. Entitled GM’s Marvellous Motorama: Dream Cars From The Joe Bortz Collection, it will feature six concept cars from the General Motors Motorama shows of 1953, 1954 and 1955. All will be on display in the same place for the first time, from March 16, 2024 onwards.
The display will feature six concept cars from the General Motors Motorama shows of 1953, 1954 and 1955. All will be on display in the same place for the first time, from March 16, 2024 onwards
The Motorama shows were General Motors stylist Harley Earl’s shop window for experimental non-production cars, which would go on to influence production models with design touches and innovative technology; the Corvette was one such exercise that ended up being a showroom reality.
Of the six cars, three are lucky to survive – they were rescued from near-destruction at the Warhoops Auto and Truck Parts site in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Once their time in the spotlight was run, GM sent the dream machines to scrap yards to be destroyed, but some Warhoops staff had a better idea. Four cars were saved and hidden away among the towers of junk vehicles, to be rescued in the mid-1980s by collector Joe Bortz (pictured above).
The exhibition, which takes place in the Audrey and Martin Gruss Foundation Gallery, will feature the fully Bortz-restored 1955 LaSalle II Roadster (pictured above) and the 1955 Chevrolet Biscayne, which were found cut in half ready to be crushed. A 1955 LaSalle Sedan will be on display in as-found, junkyard condition, and additional cars include a 1953 Pontiac Parisienne, a 1953 Buick Wildcat and an unrestored, original 1954 Pontiac Bonneville Special.
“These cars are the Picassos and Rembrandts of this automotive generation,” said Bortz. “To see six of them together, all from the ‘50s, and all the real deal, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
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