There’s something homely about San Diego Automotive Museum, which opened in 1988, and not just because the building is comfortable rather than flashy, tucked in next to the historic Air & Space Museum in the extensive Balboa Park, just north of the city centre.
It’s because the focus is on local automotive achievers, their cars and their exploits.
The exhibits include former city garage owner Louie Mattar’s amazing long-distance 1947 Cadillac.
This 1947 Cadillac, known as ‘Louie Mattar’s Fabulous Car’, completed a remarkable non-stop journey across the USA
Rigged up with a system of dolly wheels that allowed wheel-changing on the move, and towing fuel and water bowsers, in 1952 the inventor and two friends drove the 6230 miles from San Diego to New York and back in a week without stopping, refuelling from tanker trucks on airfields.
They followed that up two years later with a non-stop drive from Anchorage, Alaska, to Mexico City.
And here it is, back home and complete with all of the accessories that facilitated cooking, shaving, ironing, and even oil-changing and minor repairs on the move in the adapted sedan.
Loaned by Louie’s grandson, Lee, it has been on show since the turn of the millennium.
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL brings the recreated Heinz Gietz dealership to life
