Recently, I got to spend a couple of weeks in Los Angeles with my talented sister Jacquie, a film music composer, who was there on a working holiday. Both of us share a love of cars, and what better way to immerse ourselves in that passion in the City of Angels than by visiting the golden triangle of LA car displays: Galpin Speed Shop, the Petersen Automotive Museum and the Lions Drag Strip Museum. Here are eight of my favourites from our trip, and I’ll have eight more for you next time, in part two.

1. My favourite build of all time. I’ve loved the custom Mercury that George and Sam Barris built for Bob Hirohata ever since I saw a colour pic of it in a magazine as a 10-year-old, and I’d dreamed of seeing it in the metal for the past four decades. I’m forever indebted to my great mate Lee Goode and Galpin Speed Shop’s custom car curator Dave Shuten for the personal tour, and I made damn sure I immersed myself in this thing inside and out – even unashamedly smelling it!

2. Freshly rediscovered after a 50-year slumber, the Steve Scott-built ‘Uncertain T’ was believed to have been lost to time, but fortunately, it was merely kept out of sight by its second owner. Likely to be the next resurrection project for Dave and the Galpin Speed Shop team, it is currently on display to be enjoyed as-is, which is very cool in its own way. Don’t let the awesomely crazy styling fool you; this was an extremely innovative build for its time in the drivetrain and suspension departments, too.

3. A highlight while staying in Hollywood was enjoying the Friday and Saturday-night cruising along Hollywood Boulevard. No matter what your automotive preference, nearly everything is catered for here, from hot rods and all-era muscle cars through to period-perfect mini-trucks and import tuner builds. My favourites were the genuine lowriders prowling their natural environment, such as this stunning ’62 Impala, which cruised with perfect tunes blaring and at all manner of ride heights.

4. Galpin Speed Shop houses numerous iconic customs thanks to the tenacity and passion of owner Beau Boeckmann and leading show-rod builder and restorer Dave Shuten. Their first collaboration in 2010 was the restoration of ‘Big Daddy’ Ed Roth’s ‘Orbitron’ bubble-top, one of a number of Roth vehicles on display at Galpin. The back-story attached to many of these legendary builds is just as fascinating as the cars themselves.

5. I spotted this tough-as Corvette at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Built by ’Vette legend John Greenwood to race in the 1976 24 Hours of Le Mans, the ‘The Spirit of Le Mans’ (named to coincide with the ’76 American Bicentennial) features wild, downforce-inducing bodywork and is powered by a 900hp, Kinsler crossram-injected big-block Chev stretched to nearly 600 cubes, backed by a Muncie four-speed. Massive rims and rubber, not to mention those whopping-great side-exit exhausts, add to its presence. The Corvette topped out at 222mph along Mulsanne Straight during Greenwood’s ’76 Le Mans campaign.

6. Forty years ago, I bought an old 1960s Australian Hot Rodding Review mag that featured this icon, and its styling instantly intrigued me. Dubbed ‘XR-6’ thanks to its Chrysler slant-six powerplant, this was a US Hot Rod magazine build guided by then-associate editor LeRoi ‘Tex’ Smith, with design input from custom royalty, including Gene Winfield and George Barris. A high-tech car for its time, XR-6 was based around a 1927 Model T roadster, if you can believe it, and won the prestigious America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award in 1963. No matter how much it may furrow your brow, the car has serious historical significance, and it was awesome to see it up close in the Petersen Museum vault.

7. The Petersen vault is full of cars that fall into the ‘I can’t believe I’m seeing this with my own eyes’ category. While my sister was losing her mind over the red fantasy version of ‘Greased Lightning’ from Grease, I was paying my respects to the Doane Spencer ’32 roadster, originally built by its namesake 80 years ago! It is widely credited with being the first deuce to sport a DuVall windscreen and is regarded by many as the ‘perfect’ hot rod.

8. Our visit to the Lions Drag Strip Museum happened to coincide with an awesome car-park show to celebrate ‘The Camfather’ Ed Iskenderian’s 103rd birthday. I just happened to be walking past as Ed took a seat in his throne for a meet-and-greet, and with uncharacteristically quick thinking, I ended up second in line. He was amazing to talk to and still as sharp as a tack. On noticing my accent, he shared some cherished memories of being stationed with the US Army Air Corps at Amberley Air Base, west of Brisbane, during World War II.