• 

  Supercars: A Century of Spectacle and Speed is a new exhibit at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles. [credit:
  The Petersen Museum ]

Identifying the world’s first supercar is harder than it sounds. The problem—to me at least—is that there’s no universally agreed-upon definition of what a supercar actually is. If you’d asked me yesterday I’d have probably said Lamborghini, when it introduced the Miura in 1966.

Its body was dramatically styled by Gandini, writing checks that the mid-mounted V12 could definitely cash, sending notice to establishment names like Ferrari that the game had been changed forever. But my answer might be 50 years too late, according a new exhibit at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.

It’s called Supercars: A Century of Spectacle and Speed, and our friends at the museum—which was just named Museum of the year by The Historic Motoring Awards—were kind enough to send over photos of some of the cars in the new exhibit. And that’s as much excuse as I need to put together a gallery to give people something to click through this fine November Saturday.