What we’re looking at here is a shot taken at the 17th annual Los Angeles Automobile Show in Expo Hall at the Shrine Auditorium in February 1930. I can barely imagine the time, effort, and skill it took to get all those cars positioned exactly right with very little turnaround space. But I’d like to give a shout-out to the guy who came up with all that over-the-top ceiling decoration. Did they double his budget for the 1930 show, or do you think maybe the Expo Hall was always bedecked like that?
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1929 was the year of the big fire on Figueroa where the show literally burned down. 1930 saw the show moved to the Shrine Auditorium and in 1931, the show moved to the intersection of Wilshire and Fairfax
I wonder if the exhibit closest to the “Lower Floor Exhibits” sign on the right is the Duesenberg booth. There appears to be a rolling chassis with no body mounted on it. I believe Duesenberg did that to show off the engineering and construction on their chassis and drivetrain components.
If that is the Duesenberg booth, Cord (showing the front drive L-29) and Auburn (missing the Speedster that year) would have been adjacent to it probably.
OMG! The whole show? Burned to the ground? That must have been one hell of a fire!
It was across Figueroa from Patriotic Hall and held in large tents. Once one tent caught fire, everything went up in flames. The irony is that when they moved to Fairfax and Wilshire, they used tents again! Eventually they moved it to the Pan Pacific Auditorium (which burned down too, but many, many years later)
Check the pics out at the Hemmings article below:
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2014/03/05/the-day-the-los-angeles-auto-show-went-up-in-flames
Ah! In a tent? That makes more sense. Those photos you linked to are still shocking, though!
Is that where the Peterson Museum sits today?
No. The Petersen is at Wilshire and Fairfax.
I love all of those old cars!!!! I sure would have loved to have been there to see all the different makes and colors offered. What a grand time to be alive it must have been.
Yes, a grand time indeed…as long as you didn’t get an infection and needed penicillin…