Petersen Automotive Museum Tickets

The Petersen Automotive Museum sits on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, wrapped in a stainless-steel ribbon facade that locals either love or argue about, and inside it holds one of the largest car collections anywhere. The building spans three floors and roughly 25 galleries in a former department store, redesigned and reopened in 2015 around a bold red-and-silver interior. The Vault, a basement-level storage gallery, holds more than a hundred vehicles not on the main floors. It sits on Museum Row, a short walk from LACMA's campus and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which makes it one of the easiest museums in Los Angeles to pair with a second stop in the same afternoon.

How Much Do Petersen Automotive Museum Tickets Cost?

General admission is $22 at the door, and the listing sells the same ticket from $22. The museum is open daily, with no closed weekday, which is unusual for Museum Row. Tickets can also be bought direct from the museum at petersen.org/tickets. The Vault tour, a separate guided experience in the basement collection, is ticketed in addition to general admission.

For a museum of this scale, $22 sits in the middle of the Miracle Mile range: the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures charges $25 and LACMA charges $30 for non-residents. What the Petersen ticket buys is access to all three floors of permanent and rotating exhibits, from the History floor's permanent galleries to the Industry and Artistry floors above, where the displays lean into design, motorsport and Hollywood machinery.

The Vault is the one upsell worth weighing before arrival. It is a guided tour through the basement storage area, where vehicles sit in rows rather than on plinths, and it runs on a schedule rather than as a walk-in. If the Vault is the reason for the trip, check availability on the listing before travelling, because timed slots fill on busy days and the tour cannot simply be joined mid-visit.

Families should note that the museum is a working collection rather than a hands-on science centre: vehicles are displayed behind barriers, and photography without flash is generally welcome. The museum's own site carries the current policy on strollers, bags and accessibility, and it is worth a minute on the tickets page before a visit with small children.

Where Is The Petersen Automotive Museum And How Do I Get There?

The museum is at 6060 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036, on the south side of Wilshire in the Miracle Mile. It is one block east of LACMA and directly across the street from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures at 6067 Wilshire Boulevard. That makes it the anchor of the eastern end of Museum Row, walkable from most of the corridor's other institutions.

Wilshire Boulevard is the spine of the neighbourhood, and the Petersen sits at the point where the Museum Row cluster is densest. The Academy Museum is a two-minute walk across the intersection. The La Brea Tar Pits park and the Lake Pit are a few blocks west along Wilshire, with the outdoor excavator tour running in Hancock Park. The museum building itself is hard to miss: the exterior is wrapped in ribbons of brushed stainless steel, an architectural statement as loud as anything inside.

Driving is the default in Los Angeles, but transit works better here than almost anywhere else in the city. Metro's metro.net routes along Wilshire serve the corridor directly, and the nearest stations are a short walk from the museum. Check the Metro trip planner for the current Wilshire line options, as service in this corridor has been expanding. Arriving by rail sidesteps the parking question entirely, which is worth considering on weekends when the Museum Row lots fill early.

Visitors pairing museums should plan the walk deliberately. The Petersen and the Academy Museum can be done in either order across an afternoon; the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is the natural second stop given it is across the street. Further afield, the Madame Tussauds Hollywood wax museum is a short drive up Fairfax and Hollywood Boulevard for visitors building a film-and-cars themed day.

What Does Parking Cost At The Petersen Automotive Museum?

Parking at the Petersen is paid. At the time of writing, the listing for the museum states that its ticket price excludes a $17 parking fee, so budget around $17 per car for a visit. The museum operates its own structure behind the building, entered from Fairfax Avenue, and the fee is charged per vehicle regardless of visit length.

The $17 figure comes from a single listing source, so treat it as approximate rather than guaranteed: the museum's own site at petersen.org/tickets is the place to confirm the current rate before relying on it. What is certain is that parking is not free and is not bundled into admission, which is the pattern across most of Museum Row. The Getty Center, by contrast, is the corridor's outlier in the other direction: free admission with $25 parking.

The structure fills fastest on weekends and during school holidays, when the whole Miracle Mile cluster draws families. If the Petersen's lot is full, the surrounding blocks offer metered street parking and paid commercial lots along Wilshire and Fairfax, but Miracle Mile meters are strictly enforced and the residential side streets to the south are largely permit-only. The honest advice: arrive before late morning on a weekend, or take the Wilshire transit line and skip the hunt entirely.

For visitors touring multiple museums, note that each institution on the row has its own parking arrangement and none of them share validation. Parking once at the Petersen and walking to the Academy Museum and the Tar Pits park is the cheapest pattern; moving the car between museums means paying each structure separately.

What Are The Petersen Automotive Museum's Hours And How Long Should I Allow?

The Petersen Automotive Museum is open daily, with no closed weekday, which makes it one of the few major museums in Los Angeles that cannot catch a visitor out on a Monday or Tuesday. Exact opening and closing times, and any holiday variations, are published on the museum's own site. Most visitors should allow two to three hours for the three exhibit floors, longer with the Vault tour.

The open-daily schedule is genuinely rare on Museum Row. LACMA closes Wednesdays, the Academy Museum closes Tuesdays, and the La Brea Tar Pits museum building is closed for renovation entirely. That makes the Petersen the reliable fallback on any day of the week, and the sensible anchor when planning a multi-museum day around other institutions' closed days.

Two hours covers the permanent galleries at a steady pace; three allows for the rotating exhibits, which change regularly and have included themed displays on everything from lowriders to Bond cars to electric vehicles. The Vault tour adds roughly an hour and runs to a schedule, so check availability on the listing for timed slots when planning the day. Visitors combining the Petersen with the Academy Museum across the street should budget a full afternoon for both.

What Will I See Inside The Petersen Automotive Museum?

The Petersen holds one of the largest and most significant car collections in the world, spread across three floors and roughly 25 galleries. The History floor traces the automobile through California and beyond, the Industry floor covers engineering and motorsport, and the Artistry floor treats cars as design objects. The Vault below holds more than a hundred additional vehicles on a guided tour.

The museum's identity is Los Angeles as much as it is the car. The galleries lean into the city's car culture: hot rods, lowriders, custom builds and the machinery of Hollywood, which is why the museum shares its film-music-cars theme with the Academy Museum and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood across the city. Star cars from film and television rotate through the displays, and the museum's connection to screen vehicles is a recurring thread rather than a single exhibit.

The rotating exhibition programme is what keeps the museum current. Displays have ranged from surveys of Southern California car customisation to retrospectives on specific marques and racing disciplines, so what is on the Artistry floor in any given month is worth checking on the museum's site before a visit. The permanent galleries are the constant: the California story, the design story, and the racing story, each given its own space.

The Vault deserves its reputation. It is storage presented honestly, vehicles parked in ranks with stories attached, and the guided format means the experience depends partly on the docent. For enthusiasts it is the highlight of the visit; for casual visitors the three main floors are substantial on their own. The the booking platform listing for the museum carries a 4.8 rating, with review numbers on the listing, and that score reflects how consistently the collection lands even with visitors who arrived without a particular interest in cars.

Is The Petersen Automotive Museum Worth Combining With Other Miracle Mile Museums?

Yes, and it is one of the easiest pairings in Los Angeles. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is directly across Wilshire Boulevard, LACMA is one block west, and the La Brea Tar Pits park is a short walk beyond that. Because the Petersen is open daily, it slots into any day of the week around its neighbours' closed days.

The natural pairing is the Petersen and the Academy Museum: one ticket each, a crosswalk apart, and a shared film-and-cars sensibility, since both institutions celebrate the machinery and craft of the screen. LACMA, one block west, closes Wednesdays and charges $30 for non-residents, so it belongs on a Tuesday-free itinerary. The La Brea Tar Pits museum building is closed for renovation, but Hancock Park, the Lake Pit and the outdoor excavator tour remain open and free to wander, making a pleasant walking leg between museums rather than a ticketed stop.

For visitors building a wider film-and-cars day, the Petersen pairs naturally with the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood in Burbank, roughly a 30-minute drive north without traffic, or with Madame Tussauds Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard. Neither is walkable from the Miracle Mile, so plan them as a separate leg with their own parking. Within the Miracle Mile itself, parking once at the Petersen's structure, at around $17 per the current listing, and walking the row is the most economical pattern; each museum otherwise charges its own parking separately.

There is no Los Angeles CityPASS, so do not go looking for one: Southern California CityPASS covers theme parks, not museums. Go City Los Angeles is the real multi-attraction pass for the city, and visitors doing several paid museums across a week can compare its coverage against individual tickets. For a single Miracle Mile afternoon, individual tickets bought per museum remain the straightforward route, with the Petersen at $22 and the Academy Museum at $25.

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