A Guide to the Best of Southern California : SHOPTALK : Car City, U.S.A.

WHERE CAN YOU GET24-karat-gold trim for your Mercedes-Benz, hubcaps for your ’65 Impala, a full face lift--including painting, detailing, upholstering and window tinting--for your battered old Pinto? At Hollywood Motoring Accessories.

This re-creation of 1940s Main Street, U.S.A., is worth a visit even if you don’t own a car. There’s an old Texaco station complete with a billboard, phone booth and 50-year-old gas pump. A two-lane blacktop road winds through the showroom past T-shirts, seat covers, license-plate frames, steering wheels, hood ornaments and other antique and distinctive auto accessories. The business offices are charmingly hidden behind awning-covered mock storefronts. At the other end of “town,” you’ll find the mobile electronics products: car phones, security systems and an audio department featuring Hollywood Motoring’s own line of speakers.

The Van Nuys store is similarly designed, and the newest Hollywood Motoring Accessories, in Carson, offers the same products and services minus the retro motif.

Hollywood Motoring Accessories, 5101 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 505-9169; 7006 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys, (818) 989-7690; and 22005 S. Main St., Carson, (213) 834-4222.