He was an action sports icon, a social media star and one of the world’s most famous rally car drivers, and now the late Ken Block is being honored by the Petersen Automotive Museum with a new exhibition titled “People’s Champ: The Impact of Ken Block.”
“We’re celebrating his position as a pillar and a center of automotive culture,” said Michael McCardle, a curator for the museum.
Born in Long Beach, Block was the co-founder of the Huntington Beach-based skateboard and action sports brand DC Shoes, which he launched in 1994. After selling the company Block became a rally car driver at the age of 38. He quickly became a star, winning several X Games medals and racing in the World Rally Championship with the Hoonigan Racing Division, which he also founded. Block died in a snowmobile accident in 2023.
The exhibit opens Saturday, Feb. 15 and consists of several custom vehicles including a Mustang, a Porsche and even a couple of Ford Escorts that were featured in his online series of films dubbed “Gymkhana,” where he showed off his considerable stunt driving skills with sleek videos featuring Block maneuvering through various environments. The videos earned him more than 2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel.
“He had over a billion views and he was really a pioneer of automotive culture online,” McCardle said. “They are purely an exhibition of rally style driving taken to its most extreme; doing doughnuts in incredibly tight spaces, doing slides where the back of the car is hanging centimeters from an edge. It was just this fantastic visual spectacle and some of the most skillful driving anyone has ever seen, with fantastic cinematography to match,” he added.
The museum exhibition will feature cars like a 1965 Ford Mustang dubbed the “Hoonicorn,” which was in several of his films, as well as a 1,400-horsepower 2022 Porsche 911 he named “Hoonipigasus” and a 1978 Ford Escort, his first Ford rally car. It will also include memorabilia like racing suits, helmets, wheels, DC Shoes, and Hoonigan merchandise.
“We want to celebrate his accomplishments as a race car driver and building this series that’s so beloved by auto enthusiasts, but really the through line of this whole thing is highlighting the impact he had on the culture,” McCardle said.
People’s Champ: The Impact of Ken Block
When: Exhibition opens Saturday, Feb.15
Where: Petersen Automotive Museum, 6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Admission: $21 for adults; $19 for seniors 62 and older; $12 for ages 4-11, $13 for ages 12-17.
Information: 323-930-2277 or petersen.org