What to Know
- The AeroMobil is on view at the Petersen Automotive Museum on the Miracle Mile
- On view through March 31; included with museum admission
- The road-to-sky wonder can move from asphalt to the air in under three minutes
When an auto-awesome exhibit rolls into a world-class museum, and it happens to include several iconic vehicles seen in a number of James Bond films, you can count on 007 fans to be both stirred and shaken.
Because when author Ian Fleming's famous fictional spy is nearby, or at least some of the dream machines he's driven? Over-the-top action, super-cool devices, and "can-that-be-real" inventions seem to naturally follow.
Look to the most recent wonder that just pulled into the Petersen Automotive Museum, and when we say "pulled into" we also simultaneously mean "could have actually landed, too."
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Meet the eye-popping, straight-out-of-a-movie AeroMobil, billed as "The World's First True Flying Car."
And while the real-world plane car doesn't hail from a James Bond film, you could be forgiven for thinking it has, especially since a large display of Bond-driven vehicles is currently snazzing-up a sizable swath of the mid-city museum.
And the AeroMobil certainly seems like it could have easily emerged from that fantastical, device-saturated cinematic universe, with its sleek wings, dynamic lines, and ultra-plush, gadget-laden interior.
The plane-car, or perhaps car-plane is more apt, is on view through March 31, and your admission to the Miracle Mile auto institution? It gets you into the area where the super-bespoke vehicle, a machine at ease in both the air and on the asphalt, is on display.
But like a machine made for being on the go, the AeroMobil's Los Angeles engagement will be on the quicker side, so act with haste, lovers of innovative ideas.
"An automotive and aviation creation ten years in the making, the AeroMobil’s research and development team includes leading automakers BMW, Aston Martin, McLaren, Mercedes Benz F-1 and Ferrari F-1, and aerospace leaders Lockheed Martin, Rolls Royce, Airbus, and Diamond Aircraft," shares the Petersen.
"It has been engineered and tested in accordance to CS 23 aerospace certification standard."
The numbers only up this wonder's inherent "wowza" factor. The 30-foot wingspan is a jaw-dropper, but so is the fact that the AeroMobil can go from an on-the-road car to an up-in-the-sky plane "in less than three minutes."
Does this exhibit provide an early and enticing peek at a future that so many sci-fi films and speculative novels dreamt about?
The chance to soar above the crowds, into the clouds, when gridlock gets too gridlocky and the vast sky beckons?
For more information on viewing the AeroMobil, the Bond cars, the Ecto-1 from "Ghostbusters," and the "Lowriders and Custom Vault Display," spread your wings and fly over to the Petersen Automotive Museum.