The Automobile Driving Museum | iDSC045

The Automobile Driving Museum A Collection You Can Ride In! Whether you’re a young kid or a kid-at-heart The Automobile Driving Museum is a guaranteed treat for every automotive enthusiast. It’s one of the coolest museums in Southern California. It offers antique Model T’s all the way up to a ’95 Viper and 2000 Saleen. And not only is it okay to touch and sit in the cars but you can swing by on Sundays and go for a free ride! Hear the details from co-founder Stanley Zimmerman himself in this episode of the iDriveSoCal Podcast. ***Transcript*** Recorded March 14, 2018, in El Segundo, CA An Automotive Museum Like None Other Stanley Zimmerman: We would go to car shows, generally, everybody else had a sign up saying, "Look but don't touch" their precious jewel. And we thought differently. We thought that we should invite the public, particularly, young children to sit in our cars. And go for a ride in them. They're not immobile. They are moving art and so to enjoy them, you have to use them. We bring out three or four cars from our collection, and people line up and get a ride. It's no charge; it's all free. Tom Smith: Welcome to iDriveSoCal, the podcast all about mobility from the automotive capital of the United States, Southern California. Today is a pretty fun day for me, actually, already has been because I've been getting a tour through The Automobile Driving Museum here in El Segundo, California. Those of you from Southern California know that El Segundo is adjacent to LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. And sitting with me right now is the founder of the Automobile Driving Museum, Mr. Stanley Zimmerman, Stanley, thank you so much for joining us. Stanley Zimmerman: My pleasure to be here and talk with you. Tom Smith: So the Automobile Driving Museum, you're the founder. It was your vision long ago. Can you kind of start off with a high-level explanation, summary? "We bring out three or four cars from our collection, and people line up and get a ride. It's no charge; it's all free." Stanley Zimmerman: Correctly, I am a co-founder of it along with a man called Earl Rubenstein who's no longer active in the museum. He's busy with his profession as an architect. And we're both car collectors, primarily, and we would go to car shows and to car exhibits, concourses, and we would be there with our cars and, generally, everybody else had a sign up saying, "Look but don't touch" their precious jewel. And we thought differently. Driving Children's Interest We thought that we should invite the public, particularly, young children to sit in our cars. And so between us we had discussions and said someday, we'd like to have a museum for our cars where the public could come and sit in them, bring their children, and let their children sit in them and go for a ride in them. They're not immobile. They are moving art and so to enjoy them, you have to use them. Tom Smith: And how long ago did you actually execute on that dream that became a vision that became a reality? "We thought that we should invite the public, particularly, young children to sit in our cars. And go for a ride in them." Stanley Zimmerman: In the beginning, it was just car clubs coming and maybe bringing their families for meetings; it wasn't the general public. But in 2002, I was able to get the use of a large underground or semi-underground garage under a preschool, which they weren't using. And so we put our cars there and started with leaving a few cars out on the street with a sign on them, "There is a museum around the corner." In West Los Angeles it was. And so we'd get a few people coming in and then I decided that it would be worthwhile making it a public m...