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A car sits along the Pacific Coast Highway in Venice Beach. |
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A Volkswagen Rogue automatic overlooks the coast on the side of the PCH. |
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LOS ANGELES SIMPLY drives from point A to point B. Out here, the car is considered a form of fuel-injected self-expression. From roadsters as suave as Bogart to growling Vin Diesel hot rods, these rolling status symbols can either get you past the velvet rope or dismissed to the social junkyard. L.A.’s car culture celebrates the notion that you are what you drive and makes the City of Angels a car lover’s heaven.
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Clockwise from top: A blue 1964 Chevy Nova owned by Chris Isaak and an orange 1971 Plymouth Roadrunner owned by Richard Carpenter; a 1969 Lincoln Continental owned by Marilyn Manson; the entrance to the museum, on Fairfax Avenue. |
The scene’s high temple is the Petersen Automotive Museum. Four floors of carbureted bliss, the Petersen traces California’s love affair with the automobile, which is revealed in the grilles, headlights, and running boards of the “Little Foose Coupe,” a 1932 Ford refurbished by famed car designer Chip Foose, or the coal gas generator of a 1938 Citroen 11. The museum’s Hot Wheels Hall of Fame evokes every auto enthusiast’s childhood, and the exhibit Encore! Cars and Guitars of Rock & Roll II riffs on the rebellious bond between cars and rock music (through February 2007).
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In Los Angeles, classic cars (like this Volkswagen Bug Mar Vista) are found everywhere, ready to roll. |
Back on the street, organized group drives, like the monthly Twilight Cruise Night at Pomona’s NHRA Museum, take place nearly every weekend. And car shows attract gearheads of all stripes looking to tinker, trade tips, and share tales of the road. This month, the annual Palos Verdes Concours d’Elegance car show brings a touch of class to the local auto culture, with nearly 200 pristine vehicles from every era on display.
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Clockwise from top: Brent Bye shows off his 1967 Pontiac GTO, the ultimate hot rod, near the Santa Monica Pier; every Friday night, vintage car owners gather in the parking lot of Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank; a Plymouth Fury, ready to go. |
And when the sun sets on Santa Monica Boulevard, it’s time to cruise up to the Hollywood Hills. Mulholland Drive, home to Tinseltown’s power brokers, snakes along the ridge from the Hollywood sign to the beach. The homes astound almost as much as the broad vistas of L.A. and the San Fernando Valley. Seeing the City of Angels from this high vantage point seems fitting.
— Greg Lalas
With all that glitter and shiny chrome, Los Angeles may be a motorist’s playground, but there are plenty of other places across the globe for auto enthusiasts to peel out. Put it in cruise control and coast into these other seven hot rod hot spots.
Hamburg: For car lovers, Autobahn translates to “no speed limits.” One hundred forty miles (230 km) down the Autobahn from Hamburg is Wolfsburg, home of the Volkswagen AutoMuseum, a gleaming showroom for more than 200 old-school Rabbits, Beetles, and other beasts. Nearby, VW’s 20-story storeroom resembles an automobile candy machine: insert euros and a robotic arm retrieves your car. In Zwickau, south of Hamburg, the August Horch Museum commemorates the Trabant, the East German–made legend that once ruled the Communist roads but now languishes in the Cold War kitsch bin.
Salt Lake City: A stock speedometer won’t cut it at the Bonneville Salt Flats, an hour and a half west of Salt Lake City. The Bonneville Speedway, a 10-mile-long straightaway cut across the wide, bare expanse, has beguiled speed demons since 1912. The last land speed record set here, in 1970, was Gary Gabelich’s astounding 622.407 mph. This month’s World of Speed (September 13–16) is an annual festival of time trials and races organized by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association.
Detroit: A trip to the Motor City is a pilgrimage every car nut worth his torque wrench must make at least once. The Henry Ford Museum, in nearby Dearborn, catalogs the industry from the 1800s to the present, displaying historic vehicles including the 1961 Lincoln Continental in which JFK was assassinated. There’s also an 1896 Duryea and, our favorite, an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. The Ford Rouge Factory Tour takes visitors behind the scenes at a now-defunct Ford complex that produced its first car in 1927. In Detroit proper, the Detroit Institute of Arts pays tribute to the hometown product with a remarkable 1933 fresco by Diego Rivera titled Detroit Industry.
Buenos Aires: Located just south of the city in Balcarce, the Museo Juan Manuel Fangio celebrates the life of one of Formula One’s virtuosos. During his lifetime, El Maestro, who died in 1995, won five world championships, was kidnapped by Cuban rebels, inspired three biographical films, and made a cameo in John Frankenheimer’s classic 1966 film Grand Prix. Farther down the tropical Buenos Aires–Mardel Plata Freeway lies Mar del Plata, a sandy beach mecca that offers plenty of sun, wine, and tango dancers.
Orlando: You can’t burn rubber on the Florida Turnpike, but you can take a leisurely drive an hour north of Orlando, to Ocala and “Big Daddy” Don Garlits’ Museum of Drag Racing. A native of Tampa, Garlits shows off his Swamp Rats, the dragsters he piloted to 17 world championships. At Daytona International Speedway, just east of Orlando, fans can smell the oil and rubber and the mystique of NASCAR glory. At Daytona USA, a 60,000-square-foot interactive complex next door to the track, aspiring Earnhardts can experience 200 mph for themselves.
Tokyo: About an hour north of Tokyo, in Tochigi, the Honda Collection Hall is a stunning example of industrial architecture housing more than 350 cars and motorcycles, including the late Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna’s 1988 Formula One world-beater. South of the city looms the Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit, which this month hosts Round 6 of the D1 Grand Prix Series, the official championship for “drifting,” the underground phenomenon that inspired the recent movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Birmingham: Driving in the UK is always an adventure, chiefly because they’re operating on the wrong … er, other side of the road. About an hour southeast of Birmingham looms the Silverstone Circuit, site of the first-ever world championship auto race: the 1950 British Grand Prix. Heading south, through the Cotswolds, the road winds among enchanting hamlets like Burford and Castle Combe. Here, a pub pit stop is a must. Nearer the southern coast, the village of Beaulieu in the New Forest is the unlikely home of the National Motor Museum, which boasts 250 four-wheeled beauties.
— G.L.
Getting There: All the destinations covered in “The List” can be reached by flying Continental Airlines. To book your vacation to these and other destinations, visit Continental Airlines Vacations at covacations.com.
