CARS COMMEMORATIVE EDITION -- latimes.com

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

Our true heartthrob

DEARLY beloved, repeat these words: "I, Los Angeles, take thee, the internal combustion engine for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health ." More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SIX was a very big year. John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola. Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty. King Ludwig II of Bavaria died, much to the delight of Bavarians. Also having a good year were mutton chops and diphtheria. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / STAR POWER

That's me. That's my car.

The car shot. It's as American as a Texaco station. Everybody has one or two, capturing a moment with a cherished first car or the bomb they drove in college. Even celebrities aren't immune. Look at Ben Affleck with his prized Chevy or James Dean beside his legendary Porsche. The cars still glow. In these shots, the coolest vehicles have a star power all their own — an odd charisma, More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

L.A. driving on the big screen

NO modern movie about Los Angeles is complete without an establishing shot of freeway signs. It's the single image that has come to represent us on film, whether we like it or not. No matter what sights are contained within this sprawling, diverse city, it is universally recognized for the thoroughfares that snake around it. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / MULHOLLAND DRIVE

'If you ever want to fly...'

DICK GULDSTRAND punches the accelerator, pulling the Z06 hardtop fast around the first turn on Mulholland Drive. The Cahuenga Pass disappears as the Corvette claws up the grade. With a 427 V-8 under the hood, the car's a beast, and Guldstrand loves it as much as the road ahead. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

Go ahead and hack.

IN the late 1940s, a Caltech chemist took time off from studying the sweet taste of pineapples to chase down a certain home-grown stink: the bleachy, eye-smarting, lung-burning air that had started to envelop Los Angeles. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / WHEELER-DEALERS

And the pitch is ... wild

FIRST, some back story. It's World War II, and U.S. carmakers have shifted to more important products — jeeps and anything else that would help fill the Army's arsenal. With new cars in short supply, dealers become hungrier sharks, having to work harder to sell vehicles that were past their prime. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

A righteous beach baby

IT was bug-eyed and bowlegged, it buzzed like a nest of bumblebees and looked something like a bathtub on wheels. It was a tart of a car that made a statement — back in that bygone day when you could still make a smile your statement and people wouldn't take you for loony. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / HOT RODS

Rebuilt for speed

You can trace the term "hot rod" — short for "hot roadster" — back to 1939, when it was used to describe a sort of speedy vehicle certain Southern Californians were constructing out of factory-issue Detroit automobiles. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / MOTORCYCLES

Even now, the great escape

TODAY the sleepy town of Avalon is known more for yachts and margaritas than for full-throttle motorcycle racing. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

Is that a car or a Gobot?

HIP-HOP Escalades, million-dollar hot rods and hot-selling production cars — L.A. has it all, and ever since the first horseless carriages hit the streets more than 100 years ago, this city has been on the cutting edge of automotive design. Detroit, Japan and Germany may turn out the cars we buy tomorrow, but Los Angeles incubates those fanciful, even crazy ideas that shape the cars we'll see decades down the road. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / ROAD MAP

Blacktop manifesto

PARIS had its Baron Haussmann, who in the 19th century redesigned the French capital. New York had its Robert Moses, who before and after World War II redesigned that city's highways, parks and bridges. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / LOST

The race against time

Though no trace remains today, some of America's most spectacular racetracks were in the L.A. Basin in the first decades of the 20th century. At the corner of Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard — an area where today no car goes fast — was the most majestic, the Los Angeles Speedway, a 1.25-mile board track with 35-degree banked corners. There were bullring dirt tracks, B-shaped road courses and smooth drag strips. And there was mayhem. While there was a public outcry about deaths, it was soaring land values that put L.A.'s racetracks out of business. The last one, Ascot Park at Vermont Avenue and 182nd Street, closed in 1990. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / GALLERY

Classic paint jobs

Set out the flares: It's important to approach the subject of cars and art in L.A. with considerable caution. The road is dotted with potholes. We learned that the hard way. In 1984, the Museum of Contemporary Art opened a high-profile exhibition titled "Automobile and Culture" that chronicled the interplay between cars and art in Europe and the U.S. throughout the 20th century. To the surprise of many, masterpieces were few and far between. Minor works by minor artists filled the show, together with minor works by major artists, and the exhibition demonstrated just how incidental the car has been as an image for Modern artists. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / MILEPOSTS

Cowboys to carpools

1800s More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / ONLY IN L.A.

Where car lovers idle

Best drive-by bite More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / CRUISING

With no particular place to go

"Decker Canyon Road — it's up PCH about halfway through Malibu. You're there in the mountains, you're driving by these little old-feeling communities, there are some vineyards, and you're looking out over the ocean. It's a real car road. When we moved out here, I got a 10-year-old BMW convertible for my wife. So that's what we drive when we take a drive like that. There's room for the dog in back, and I kind of feel like a Californian." More...

FROM THE TIMES, MAY 31, 1897

Without horses.

Gasoline Carriage Invented in Los Angeles. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / THE REBEL

Don't drive, won't drive

I'M an English guy who's been in L.A. for 16 years. I work here. My children were born here. And still I don't drive. Some people find this puzzling. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / DRIVER'S ED

Thrills! Nausea! Bad acting!

AS memorable adolescent experiences go, viewing one of the California Highway Patrol's "Red Asphalt" films ranks right up there with your first kiss or having your parents come home early to find a kegger in full swing. For generations, the lights have dimmed, the screen has flickered, and like young Alex in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," the state's youngest drivers have been compelled to watch this strange and enduring rite of passage. More...

CARS / 125 YEARS / COMMEMORATIVE EDITION / MUSEUMS

Worshiping at the auto shrine

In L.A., not all the stars are on the big screen, or bumping around Montana Avenue boutiques. Some of our finest performers are in the museums and private collections put together by Southern California's biggest car enthusiasts. Whether you're interested in seeing a primo Karmann Ghia or an elegant Talbot Lago, you can find it in one of the following auto collections open to the public. No autographs, please. -------------------- More...