The Petersen Automotive Museum will open a significant new exhibition on 7 December, charting the evolution of off-road motorsport through some of the discipline’s most influential machines. ‘Legends of the Dirt’ brings together competition vehicles from desert racing, rallying, hill climb, Ultra4 and stadium racing in what the museum describes as a comprehensive look at off-road culture and engineering.
Off-road motorsport has shaped a broad range of automotive technologies – from all-wheel drive systems and long-travel suspension to modern navigation and durability engineering – and the exhibition aims to show how much of today’s road-car capability stems from competition in punishing terrain. To illustrate that point, the Petersen has assembled machinery from events including the Baja 1000, King of the Hammers, Pikes Peak and the World Rally Championship.
Among the headline exhibits is Tanner Foust’s 2017 Volkswagen Beetle GRC, one of the most successful cars of the Global Rallycross era, alongside the 1983 Lancia Rally 037 that delivered the last rear-wheel-drive World Rally Championship Constructors’ title. From American desert racing comes the 1995 Herbst ‘LandShark’, a Class 1 machine that helped redefine high-speed off-road chassis design, while the 1993 Suzuki Cultus Twin-Engine Pikes Peak Special represents Nobuhiro Tajima’s most ambitious early attempt on the Colorado summit.
The exhibition will also feature the 2010 Coleworx ‘Screaming Blue’ rock bouncer, the first King of the Hammers-winning Ford Bronco Ultra4, and Parnelli Jones and Bill Stroppe’s ‘Big Oly’ Bronco – one of the defining vehicles of early Baja competition. A curated group of significant off-road motorcycles completes the display, offering a wider view of the sport’s development.
Petersen executive director Terry L Karges said the exhibition fills a gap in the museum’s coverage of motorsport history, describing off-road racing as one of the most technically demanding branches of the sport.
‘Legends of the Dirt’ runs until January 2027. Details and tickets are available at petersen.org
