San Diego Automotive Museum, Transportation museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, US.

The San Diego Automotive Museum is a vehicle museum in Balboa Park that displays cars and motorcycles from different decades. The collection covers American classics, international motorcycles, and rotating exhibitions that change throughout the year.

The museum was founded in the 1980s with the goal of preserving vehicles that reflect the history of motoring in the United States. Over time, the collection has grown to cover more than a century of automotive history, from early machines to more recent models.

In Southern California, cars have long been a way for people to express who they are, and this comes through clearly when you walk through the collection. Many of the vehicles on display were customized by their owners, showing how personal and local car culture can be.

The museum sits inside Balboa Park, a large city park in the heart of San Diego where several other museums are also located. Pairing a visit here with a walk through the park is easy and makes for a full half-day outing.

The museum's signature vehicle is Louie Mattar's Fabulous Car, a 1947 Cadillac with a trailer that he modified to be largely self-contained. He drove it non-stop from Alaska to Mexico City and across the United States, refuelling in motion from support vehicles. Exhibits rotate every four to six months.