Making famous friends at the Petersen museum

Celebrities, they're just like us! And aside from the public adulation and fame, plus our sneaking suspicion that the 12 or so really well-known car guys can actually afford their lavish hand-picked choices without so much as entering a PIN or presenting a letter of credit, celebrities bicker and fret over the cars with which they'd fill their dream garages.

Difference is, when they fill their dream garages, people pay attention. People like Leslie Kendall and Terry Karges of the Petersen Automotive Museum and Ian Callum of Jaguar, whose F-Type coupe might actually belong -- never too fresh to carve out a legacy.

At "World's Greatest Sports Coupes," which opened last Thursday and runs until October, the latest Petersen exhibit got by with a little help from some friends. Some famous friends.

Patrick Dempsey picked a Porsche 356SC. Francis Ford Coppola picked the 1948 Plymouth Explorer Concept by Ghia. Pixar director John Lasseter picked a Ford GT40 Mark III -- which will hopefully make it into the next "Cars" movie. Callum picked not a Jaguar but an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato. In a show of patriotic solidarity, the "Top Gear America" boys picked a split-window Corvette Stingray. AC/DC's Brian Johnson picked an Iso Grifo. Metallica's James Hetfield picked his own car, a cool 1948 Jaguar hot rod nicknamed the "Black Pearl" that won Best In Show at the 2014 Goodguys show. Pink Floyd's Nick Mason picked a Ferrari 250 GTO, which earned a sneer from Adam Carolla, who picked a Ferrari 250 Lusso. "Eh, the GTO," he said in his trademark nasal register. "I mean, sure, they're pretty cool, but …"

Bruce Meyer picked a 300SL Gullwing that was dusty because "I drive it all the time," he said. "Hey, I'm doing this thing at my place for Tudor watches. Reception's still going on right now. You should come!" He checked his Rolex Daytona. "Probably ends in half an hour, but you can still make it."

Truth is, even if Callum hadn't shown up, even if exhibition sponsor Jaguar hadn't "made possible" the clearing of the Petersen's Bruce Meyer Hot Rod Gallery for some gorgeous sports coupes, there would've been plenty of reasons to park a GTO next to a Zagato around the corner from Steve McQueen's XKSS. "The exhibit of cool cars we think are cool," they could have called it. "Shiny happy cars" would have been another name. And there would have been plenty of Jaguars to choose from, which probably made Callum's selection a lot harder. Among the attendees -- journalists, Petersen members, car-show circuit perennial Jay Leno, shockingly clad in something other than soft, billowy denim -- was plenty of debate on which we would have picked from the above gallery.

We had a few opinions.

"Sorry," the Petersen tweeted earlier, "Miatas aren't on the list of Greatest Coupes."

Yeah, if only they knew. Our celebrity status is under review by the secret cabal that determines celebrity provenance, which meets every Friday the 13th underneath Leno's garage.

For more information on the "World's Greatest Sports Coupes" exhibition, which runs until October 18, head to the Petersen Automotive Museum's website.

By Blake Z. Rong