Gift Offered to Save Car Museum

Southern California’s shrine to motor cars, the Petersen Automotive Museum, would survive under a tentative agreement reached late Monday that involves a $25-million gift from its namesake.

Publishing magnate Robert E. Petersen and his wife, Margie, offered the gift from their private foundation to pay off the money-losing museum’s debt under a plan that would turn operations over to a new nonprofit foundation.

The full board of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which currently governs the Petersen and its world-renowned stable of collector cars, still must approve the deal, worked out by lawyers from both sides.

It is hoped the agreement will win final approval in April, Petersen said.

“The outpouring of support we have received from automotive enthusiasts and people from all walks of life--from around the country--has been amazing and inspirational,” he said.

“Margie and I felt we couldn’t just stand on the sidelines.”

Natural History Museum trustees were expected to end a nearly $2.5-million annual subsidy of the Petersen earlier this month, but a decision was delayed while negotiations resumed with representatives of Petersen.

The 72-year-old chairman emeritus of EMAP Corp. led the drive to start the 5-year-old museum. He has already contributed $5 million to it and has promised another $10 million upon his death.

The Petersen is considered one of the top five automotive museums in the nation, and its failure would be a blow to auto fanciers and students of automotive history, Petersen said.

County officials feared that the Petersen museum’s indebtedness could foul a pending $200-million fund-raising drive to finance a replacement for the Natural History Museum’s aging Exposition Park facility.

The debt comes from a $28.5-million bond issue the trustees voted to float in 1991 for purchasing and refurbishing the museum’s building. The vote was based on assurances that the museum would draw enough paying customers each year--about 400,000--to cover its operating costs and the debt service on the bonds.

“Obviously this lifts a huge millstone off the neck of the Natural History Museum,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. The $28.5 million “now is no longer a factor. This frees the Natural History Museum of this obligation and allows them to proceed, unfettered, with fund-raising to replace the existing facility. Hopefully, this ends an episode of uncertainty. This is good news for the Petersen Museum [and] the Natural History Museum.”

For the past five years, the Natural History Museum foundation has dipped into its endowment to pay the annual debt service of $2.5 million.