In L.A., Car Season Never Ends – It’s a Lifestyle
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In Los Angeles, like nowhere else in the world, the car is more than transportation. It’s a medium for creativity, a unifying language and a way to connect across backgrounds. From hot rods and imports to lowriders and exotics, the city’s car culture thrives on access, innovation, and a shared passion.
The Los Angeles Auto Show returns this November in its 118th year, serving as the grandest stage to celebrate the ingenuity, enthusiasm, and diversity that defines the city’s car scene. Complementing the annual exhibition of the latest models, the show reflects the unique culture and underground stories of L.A. itself.
These are some of those stories.
Early each Friday morning, the lot outside an old roadhouse atop Angeles Crest Highway comes alive with the sound of engines and conversation. Automotive enthusiasts from every corner of L.A. make the sweeping drive up the historic two-lane mountain road to Newcomb’s Ranch, where they gather for the informal car meet known as the Good Vibes Breakfast Club. They mingle, swap stories, and enjoy an impromptu vehicle exhibition. It’s impossible to predict what might show up – rumbling exotics, heavily modified tuner builds, off-road rigs or a brand-new EV straight off the showroom floor.
It’s one of countless gatherings that animate the city every day of the week. From well-established Cars & Coffee hangouts to newer events like LumiVerse’s late-night pickleball-meets-car-show spectacle, Los Angeles is a place where a passion for cars isn’t limited to a season or a single street. It’s a year-round, citywide lifestyle.
Automotive photographer Larry Chen has traveled the globe capturing images of motorsports, shows and street scenes. Widely considered one of the world’s foremost car culture documentarians, he says nothing compares to what he finds at home in L.A., where exceptional roads crisscross the region, offering routes from winding mountain passes to expansive desert highways and coastal cruises.
“I use this place so much as my canvas for car photography,” he says. “The difference with car culture here is that it’s so diverse, and there’s so much of it. The meets, the culture, the gathering side of things – it’s probably honestly one of the best in the world, if not the best.”
The roots of this culture trace back to the postwar era, when rods roared down Wilshire and drag races took over the region’s dry lake beds. Whether cruising Sunset in a classic lowrider, showing a build in the Valley, or wrenching in a neighborhood garage, cars are embedded in L.A.’s DNA.
At Marathon Burger on Melrose, the old-school eat-in-your-car tradition still thrives, with daily drivers and dream machines lined up side by side.
“I’ve had late-night taco runs where I’ve randomly pulled up next to a Bugatti and a ’64 Impala, just coexisting in a Rite Aid lot,” says actor, racer and automotive influencer Emelia Hartford. “That kind of scene doesn’t happen anywhere else. It’s unplanned, and that’s what makes it so L.A.”
In Hollywood, where self-expression and spectacle go hand in hand, cars become extensions of identity. Hartford, who played Leah Vega in the 2023 Gran Turismo movie, says she even coordinates her red carpet looks to match her cars. “I’ve seen some good premiere events that use the cars as a stage piece. And on a regular night out, some of the best cars are parked up front,” she says. “I think that’s more common in L.A. than in other places just because so many people drive here.”
For locals, the presence of car culture is so constant it’s easy to take for granted. Sonya Klaus, a racing driver and host of the All Roads Stories original YouTube series produced by the LA Auto Show, says she grew up immersed in the city’s import scene of the 1990s. But when she moved to Wisconsin years later, she realized how rare L.A.’s year-round community really was.
“I was looking for people who shared my passion,” she says. “But it was totally different. They talked about car season – the three months when the weather was good enough to enjoy your vehicle. I didn’t realize how good we had it.”
Each fall, while drivers in other cities start thinking about putting their cars under cover, L.A.’s season of celebration begins.
The Los Angeles Auto Show, one of the oldest and largest in the world, acts as a natural crescendo. For Chen, the show offered early inspiration. He recalls going as a kid, meeting friends at a favorite vehicle and pretending to take it for a test drive.
“We’d all pile in and shake the car like we were moving,” he says. “People would walk by and ask, ‘What are these kids doing?’ We were dreaming. Pretending we were already living that future.”
This November 21 through 30, Chen, Marathon, Klaus and dozens more creators and brands will contribute stories, content, and perspectives from the 2025 Los Angeles Auto Show, connecting the convention floor to the streets that built L.A.’s global reputation.
Because in Los Angeles, car season doesn’t start or end. It just keeps rolling.
