It is not often that Nutmeg revisits a post, but who can resist rumbling engines and polished cars?

Clearly, they are car buffs — Jerry and Judy Martin are proud owners of a 1954 Chevy Woody Wagon. Jerry tells us that he has been cruising since his high school days, when it was THE hip thing to do on Van Nuys Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. After a few years of visiting local car shows, they decided that the El Paseo shopping strip in Palm Desert would be a great place to resurrect the tradition of old school cruisin’. You can read the full story here.

The El Paseo Cruise Night has just launched their fourth season. The cars gather the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month (in season) from 3-4pm for a “static” display (here is the 2015/16 schedule). This is when you can take a stroll and admire the shiny bodies and shimmering trims – sorry those are the cars, not the ladies. At 4:30 pm the engines roar to life. There are some 800 cruisers registered and on any given evening you can expect about 300 cars.

For the next hour or so the proud car owners strut their stuff along this famous shopping strip. Bring a chair and stay for the show, or mix car-gawking with some retail therapy on El Paseo. The merchants and restaurant owners often have “Cruise Night specials.”

Do you want to register your car? Here, is the link.

Do you want to join the fun? This year the El Paseo Cruise Night website includes a Cars For Sale section.

It was in 1945 that Cliff Henderson envisioned El Paseo as a chic shopping strip to bring people to what was then Palm Village, a motley collection of sandy homesteads. You can read the story here.

Wondering about shopping and dining on El Paseo – here is the link.

Enjoy!

Food Travel Tags:
California, Cars, Cruise Nights, Cruising, El Paseo, El Paseo Shops, vintage cars