Welcome to LA

IN Brazil, a sign that you’ve “made it” is a helicopter that flies you safely above the fray- to and from your gated villa. In Washington, it’s a fleet of Secret Service driven Chrysler 300s that shadow your government tagged Lincoln or Cadillac.

In Los Angeles County, where the lofty image is every bit as vital as the achievement, social status starts and ends with the car. To this end, there exist far more Bentleys in Beverly Hills than drivers with the requisite wealth to own them outright.

That said, it’s a reasonable wager that Marky Mark was good for his black on black Azure.

Angelinos know their cars better than anyone.

That brilliant red 190SL that if housed in Connecticut would rust, smell of must, and might start on a warm day is in SoCal maintained as a more perfect everyday driver than it was when Max Hoffman imported it all those years ago.

And to paint an unreasonably broad picture, the same goes for pretty much any car – from vintage 80s Honda Accord to 2010 Audi R8.

Such is the dry climate that everything metallic just lasts. And lasts.

Which explains your sighting of that odd 70s Ford that you swore  the Dude drove in The Big Lebowski. As much as LA pays lip service to anyone whose fame is older than 15 minutes, the city’s highways are surprising showcases for cars that time would’ve forgotten anywhere else.

In this vein, LA makes for much more exciting car watching than, say, Miami. There might be higher concentrations of Italian exotica in SoBe, but Floridians are all about financing, leasing, or renting the latest and greatest. Angelinos pay as much respect to a mint 1988 560SEC as they do a new CL65 AMG.

But here’s the Catch 22.

There are in fact so many Audis, Astons, Bimmers, Bentleys, Caddys, Lexii, Jaguars, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis that for all the portent of these fine autos being poster vehicles for their drivers’ implied status and importance, their impact registers as white noise in the cattle herd of plodding traffic that forever clogs the 405.

Where else could spying not one, but three Ferrari Californias be considered everyday but in the city that has its own dedicated Ferrari/Maserati Collision Center? There’s a reason that every auto mag has a presence here. And a reason why every major auto maker has a design studio here.

Such is SoCal’s love affair with the automobile.

Hooray for Hollywood. And LA’s auto aficionados.