These Are The Best Cities For Car Culture

Biased, but I’m going to go with Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley, CA. Birthplace of Radwood (shoutout to the Driving While Awesome! folks), home to Canepa (RIP to their cars and coffee though), and while I hate to say it, enough money around that you find some pretty cool cars.

- Enjoy cruising? Check out woodies on the wharf or the bajillion old VWs doddling around the beach town (drove my ‘68 bus for some surf and to the office this morning).

-Enjoy some spirited mountain road driving? The Santa Cruz Mountains are top-tier

- Casual cars and coffee more your style? Check out the monthly Driving While Awesome! C&C or the weekly one at Cruise Coffee.

- Of course we’re also a main thoroughfare for everyone heading down to Monterey for Car Week, so you get your share of exotics then, or whenever the tech-bros go out for a drive.

To find good car culture you need to get out of the big cities and into the smaller towns. Places where people use their cars. Places not overrun with cyclists and cycling lanes. So the best city for cars? None of them. Get out into the country and even suburbia, that is where you find the good cars and good driving conditions these days.

Nurburg, Germany. The town only really exists because of the track and the whole place is built on car culture really. But even if you add up all of the towns surrounding the Nordschilefe I don’t think you can call it a city lol

Biased because I live here and have gotten to know the scene over 20 years, but Atlanta is such a fantastic place to be a car enthusiast.

We have two major race tracks just outside the city which offer platforms for all kinds of events even beyond the races themselves, Porsche Cars North America has their HQ & Experience Center down here, we have beautiful mountain roads to the north, fuel is still relatively inexpensive, and all kinds of subcultures within the community are well represented, from exotics, to classics, to tuners, to stanced cars, to dinks, to lowriders, to Radwood & Malaise-era, and everything in between.

Weather is quite friendly year round, and as a bonus, Georgia doesn’t require front license plates. We’re also a relatively short road trip from other enthusiast hubs like Amelia Island, Greenville, and Barber Motorsport Park to name a few.

Sure, we have our issues with traffic and crazy drivers, but that’s part of the package of any big city. I feel really fortunate as a gearhead to have grown up in Atlanta.

H-Tiiiiiiine, where even the police are rollin’ on swangas

I would say California as a whole is number 1 for car culture. The funny thing is, California as a state hates cars in every fashion but especially modified or fast ones...The specifc city since LA is mentioned, I will say San Clemente. Specifically because they host a very large cars and coffee every week (like 200+ cars) of all variety. You’ll see the run of the mill civics right next to an SLR McLaren, right next to a 60's muscle car right next to an Aventador. Sometimes a couple of Hyper cars show up to.

LA gets a lot of hate but there are a lot of car meets in and around the city. To be more specific, it’s the beach towns in and around LA that have excellent car culture.

Malibu has classic cars and coffee meetups every other Sunday with exotic classics, Venice Beach has classics and lowriders every weekend, Marina del Rey as well.

Espanola, New Mexico. The birth place of the lowrider.

Robbinsville, NC. Eastern gateway to the Tail of the Dragon.

Tokyo,

It seems to have every kind of car subculture in one big city.

As for small towns...

Hershey PA.

You can’t beat the swap meets and the like there at the land of chocolate.

I haven’t been enough places in that region, but I would suspect there are some cities with rocking car cultures in the SouthWest. Between the low humidity keeping older cars in nice shape, the mountain roads for sports cars and mountain paths for Sports Utility Vehicles, there should be some interesting vehicles in this region that are fairly common to find out “in the wild”. Add open roads and lower cost of livings than places like LA and I expect there will be a city in that area with a really exceptional car culture.

But since I haven’t been there a lot, I haven’t a clue what city would be the one to consider the best.

Metro Detroit. When you go to the woodward dream cruise you see everything from early 1900s to modern US to Chinese. Stock to batshit crazy builds. I also recommend stopping by cars and Coffee on woodward, there tends to be a unique group of cars for that. Also keep an eye out on for a Walmart meetup on a Friday or Saturday night in Troy. On top of that you have the Henry Ford, the GM Heritage Center, Stahls, and the new Pontiac Transportation Museum.

Shhh…don’t tell anyone…but the Seattle area has quite the car scene. Numerous C&C spots, many active car clubs, lots of events, several private world class collections, LeMay museum…oh, and great mix of driving roads, from mountain passes to desert views.

Terre Haute