Petersen Automotive Museum Breakfast Club Cruise-In

On Sunday, Dan and I joined our SoCal Smarties group at the Petersen Automotive Museum's monthly event, Breakfast Cruise-In. The event is held on the roof of the museum's parking structure and is open for the public to display their personal collection exotic, classic and special interest cars. As a participant, we were given free parking, 2-for-1 tickets to the museum and coffee/donuts. Great deal!

We brought Hopper, our new Electric Drive Smart and arrived at the event a little early, meeting up with a few members, including the event host, Victor. Thanks for planning a fun event Victor!

Even if you don't own a special car, it's worth visiting the Petersen Automotive Museum during the monthly event as it essentially adds another area of the museum to visit. It's free for anyone who happens to be visiting the museum (technically you don't even need to go into the museum, just walk up to the roof of the parking structure) and was advertised throughout the museum. Some of the cars brought to the event were even more impressive than the museum's collection.

There was a lot to see at the cruise-in. We had a medium sized turn out, but I think that we had the most amount of cars for any single club at the event.

A few of the many Smarts at the meet, Hopper is the white and green.

There were so many beautiful cars.

The most unusual vehicle by a long-shot was this old fire truck, that had been lovingly restored and modified. I love all of the details, especially the bee.

We went into the museum when it opened at ten. In the section displaying early cars, we saw the first electric vehicle, a Detroit Electric. The Detroit Electrics started being manufactured in 1906 and like our Electric Smart, it was a quiet drive!

The museum has three levels and we took about an hour to go through it. We were a bit on car overload and ended up rushing it, as on previous visits, I spent over two hours enjoying the Peterson. It's a very well done museum with highly immersive displays and education slickly snuck in among the fun exhibits.

Dan likes to give his son Hot Wheels and the kid has amassed quite a collection. I knew that Dan would like the Hot Wheels section of the Petersen, where they have on display every body model ever made.

There were several signs promoting the Breakfast Club Cruise-In event.

On the third floor we found a picture opportunity. I've joined the police force to bust people for parking Non-ED vehicles in ED Charging stations. We had some issues this weekend and it's our new crusade!

We wrapped up our visit to the Petersen with lunch at Johnny Rockets, located on the first floor of the museum. We had a great time at the meet-up and I enjoyed introducing Dan to another new place in Los Angeles. The Petersen does a great job with hosting the monthly Cruise-In and I highly recommend the event.

Electric Smart Car in California

On Friday night, Dan and I took posession of the first Electric Drive Smart Car sold/leased from the Smart Center in West Covina. Although it hasn't been confirmed, it may have been the first Electric Drive Smart off the lot in all of California.

We signed up for a three year lease on both the car and the battery through Kamaal Petersen in West Covina. Prior to deciding to go for the electric, we owned two Smart Passion convertibles. We are very active members in a local Smart Car club (So Cal Smarties) and through our club, attended a electric test drive event in Santa Monica. Dan fell in love with the electric and since his work commute is only twenty-five miles a day, it seemed like a perfect fit. He traded in his Smart Passion for the Electric. We were wowed by the great rebates and incentives to go electric and although it still cost a lot to make the switch, we felt it was worth it be among the first to experience the car.

Members of our Smart Car group highly recommended both the West Covina Smart Center, specifically Kamaal and it swayed us to give the dealership our business. Although it was a long wait and we spent many hours at the dealership, our transaction was wonderful. There were legal issues regarding the contracts on the electrics specific to them being sold in California and it created a delay in the cars being available for sale. Since we were the first, it slowed down the process of signing the lease documents. However, Kamaal kept us in the loop and when it was all finished, we were very happy with both the dealership and his service.

Here is our new Electric Drive Smart car. We have named her Grasshopper or Hopper for short.

Unfortunately, we made the tough decision to sell of Dan's RTR, Thunder, when we decided to go electric. Thunder, although beautiful, was a major gas guzzler and an all around expensive toy. It was very sad to see her go, however we hope that she has found a new home and hopefully someone who will take her out on a race track where she belongs.

Lots of great memories in Thunder, especially our mega road trip in Utah.

One of the major negatives that we keep hearing regarding the ED Smart is lack of range. When driven sensibly, it can go up to ninety-one miles on a charge. Naturally, we like to push the limits, so on our first day of having Hopper, we took her from Glendale to the top of Mount Wilson in the Angeles National Forest. The drive was approximately sixty-five miles round trip and half of it is a hard climb.

We mounted a GoPro to the interior of the car, so that you can see the dials during the drive. The video is nearly an hour and a half, but the camera battery died before we could finish our run. We started with a full charge and returned with slightly over forty percent left. Admittedly, we were worried when we were just over thirty-five percent when we reached the top of Mt. Wilson, however we charged on the way down and ended overall gaining a charge! We really didn't know what to expect with this run, but we were very pleased with the results.

Here is our GoPro video.

We also took a few pictures at the top of Mt. Wilson. Not bad for Hopper's first day out of the dealership.

Coming Soon, our experiences with the local EV charging stations. We have some gripes!

SoCal Smarties Meetup - Brackett Airport

On Sunday, Dan and I went to the SoCal Smartie's Cars & Planes at the Brackett Airport meet-up. It was one of those perfect Southern California spring days, so we took my Smart (Freddy) and drove with his top down to the Smart Center in West Covina.

We have a bit of good news. Saturday night we met with Kamaal Petersen and put a down-payment as a reservation on a new Smart. If you're looking to purchase or lease a Smart, I highly recommend going to see Kamaal in West Covina. Not only is he super nice, but he is also a multiple Smart owner and has a wealth of knowledge regarding the brand. Plus, the West Covina dealership has a great selection.

There are some legal issues holding up the dealerships in California from selling the new Electric Smarts, but if all goes well, our new car should be home with us this week. We are excited to have an electric Smart in our family and I will write up another blog post after it is officially ours.

We have named him Grasshopper..or Hopper for short.

We spent about an hour having donuts, coffee and catching up with friends at the Smart Center. They had a bunch of the electric drives out on display, as well as gas fueled Smarts. As always, it was fun to check out the other cars in our group. We are so used to have the least interesting cars in the group, that it will be nice to finally have a car that is a little special. Although, the range of the electric might prevent us from taking Hopper to many meets. We may have to organize a meet near Glendale!

One of our group members attached a camera to a remote controlled helicopter to get some aerial shots.

We drove in convoy to Brackett Airport along the roads in the beautiful hills of West Covina and San Dimas. We've taken part in many Smart Convoys and I don't think that Dan will ever get bored of seeing so many Smarts on the road. Giddy is the best way to describe his reaction to it.

At the airport, we were met by one of our group members, Hal, who is a member of the airport association. Hal co-hosted this meet, along with Bob who did a great job (as always) at mobilizing the group and getting us from the Smart Center to the planes. He brought the much appreciated coffee and snacks.

We checked in and were given displayer badges. Along with the airplanes on display, there were also classic cars and scooters.

Here is a shot of our cars on display.

And a lovely picture of Lilly taking it easy in the shade.

Our club got a new sign.

Dan took a few panorama shots with his IPhone.

There were many beautiful vintage planes on display. This is a great monthly show for anyone interested in aircrafts. Hopefully we will be able to take Dan's parents to it the next time they visit us from England. I couldn't help but be reminded of the gorgeous Timothy Oulton furniture that we have been lusting after for the last several weeks.

There were two planes in particular that had traveled long distances.

There were also some paramotors on display, two from our group members Hal and Jeremy. Jeremy even brought his to the event in his Smart, thus proving a point that all of us Smart owners already know, there is plenty of storage space!

There were a handful of classic cars on display. The paint jobs on the cars was amazing, they were all so vivid and saturated in color. I really liked the shiny orange truck.