Sooner or later, every enthusiast starts to ponder how well the place they live supports a person who’s into cars. Whether you’re looking for good driving roads, cheap insurance, used cars in decent nick, or a place to park them, achieving everything you want is a tricky balance. I’ll start by taking a look at where I live, the city of Toronto, in the province of Ontario, in the country of Canada.
I’ll start by listing the downsides of Toronto because well, they’re numerous when it comes to being a place for car people. The streets are littered with potholes: twisty roads are few and far between: we get enough winter weather to justify brining the roads which absolutely fucks (that’s a repair industry technical term) anything that’s been used as a daily driver; insurance isn’t cheap; premium gas hovers around $5.46 per gallon in freedom bucks; speed cameras are occasionally a thing on main thoroughfares; parking and housing are both at a serious premium that’ll quickly eat into any budget … and oh yeah, we have the worst traffic of ANY CITY IN NORTH AMERICA.
Actually, it’s worse than that. According to the 2023 TomTom Traffic Index, Toronto has the third-worst traffic of any major city in the world, taking drivers an average of 29 minutes to drive ten kilometers (6.2 miles). Sure, other cities have worse rush hours, but only London and Dublin are consistently worse than Toronto when it comes to average travel time. In the downtown core, it can occasionally be faster to simply hoof it, which simply seems insane.
And yet, despite all of these drawbacks, Toronto’s home to a vibrant, diverse car community that covers everything from supercars to JDM imports to trackday builds to classic muscle cars, and everything in between. I’ve seen a Citroën Mehari in regular traffic, and a Jaguar XJ220, and a Toyota Alphard. Canada’s federal 15-year import rule isn’t so bad, rules on vehicle modifications are relatively lax, and we have a selection of tracks within fairly easy driving distance including the legendary Mosport, now known as the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park because of course it is.
Over the past few years, Ontario got rid of license plate renewal fees and emissions testing for passenger cars, and while that last one probably isn’t the best thing for the environment, it’s better than swinging too far in the other direction. We’ve seen how California’s ever-tightening tailpipe sniffer test standards have squeezed ’80s and ’90s enthusiast cars beyond the conceivable emissions limits for when some of those cars were new, so I’ll take Ontario’s imperfect victory any day of the week.
Plus, there’s just an indomitable spirit to car enthusiasm thriving in a locale that seems at least somewhat hostile to driving pleasure. It produces some big-hearted optimists, and heaven knows, the world needs more like them. So, how car person-friendly is the place you live? It could be on as broad a scale as country-wide or as narrow as the rules of your HOA. Let’s chat about the pros and cons, as ever, in the comments below.
(Photo credits: Tupungato/stock.adobe.com, Thomas Hundal)
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Thomas is right that it’s faster to hoof it in certain parts of the Toronto; I was passed last week by a dude in Spider-Man morphsuit on a skateboard. *Construction* in Toronto is an absolute disaster, between every tower blocking a lane with hoarding for years at a time, paying the piper for decades of water infrastructure neglect, rebuilding our bulls*hit elevated “expressway”, new subway/LRT builds… and heck, southern Ontario is garbage for interesting roads anyway, it’s all just a grid emanating from the lake.
The way to make traffic better, of course, is to give people *alternatives to driving*. In the ‘burbs official stats show that >⅔ of trips <2km (1¼ miles) are done by car. Get those trips done on foot/bike/board/bus/scooter/whatever and decrease the number of cars on the road!
All that said – I met a half-dozen dudes in a suburban bagel shop all geared up with motocross pads riding their electric unicycles, they were having a grand old time bombing around. Life, uh, finds a way.
As a resident of Florida, I think this state in general is pretty chill to car people. No annual inspections, and generally lax enforcement of vehicle laws. Never heard of a person getting pulled over for aftermarket exhausts or parts. In fact, in my area, there’s a big community of car modders.
I also live along the Gulf Coast, so there’s some scenic areas to drive. Not nearly as beautiful and fun as a winding mountain road, but if you’re looking for beach cruising, this is the spot. However, if you’ve got an electric car, you might be up shit creek relatively speaking. There fast chargers are few and far between and I truly can’t remember the last time I saw a public charging station. If you’re just commuting back and forth to work every day (there’s not much traffic here), it’s probably not a biggie because you can charge at home. If that isn’t an option, you might spend most of your time searching for a charging and waiting in a line to use it.
A most excellent point Rev.
DC is extraordinarily un car friendly. I would even say car hostile. The police don’t enforce traffic laws so the roads are lawless. Car theft and car jacking are absolutely rampant and are so big of an issue at this point that the local government/police/etc have essentially thrown up their hands. Criminals print fake temporary tags constantly and break every law in the book with 0 ramifications.
There’s a proliferation of mopeds and scooters that are unregistered/obtained on the black or at least gray market and they run rampant as well. I’ve watched a Hellcat do donuts on a main vein street in front of the police then drive away. There are now quads and side by sides roaming around freely as well. They’re unregistered, unregulated, and usually being driven by occupants in ski masks. The DC government proposed legislation to curb it but it failed because the establishment Dems claimed it was disrespectful of the culture of the riders (lmao).
Parking is a nightmare and no one leaves notes if they damage a car. It’s an absolute free for all and it’s you and you alone out there. If something goes wrong you’d better hope it’s not at the hands of someone with bad intent because the police aren’t coming and EMS is 50/50 to be there within 30-60 minutes on a good day. They’ve just straight up stopped answering the phone if you call 911.
They’re also openly trying to make the city as car hostile as possible by doing things like cutting down lanes on big streets, slowing down traffic lights, increasing speed cameras and fines, etc. They want cars to be gone. On one hand I’m an urbanist and I do think there are too many damn cars in American cities and it’s very wasteful. But on the other hand I don’t like that everyone gets punished for the missteps of a small handful of people/our public transportation is so dysfunctional from years of corruption and incompetence that it’s often much slower and, somehow, even less safe than driving.
Make no mistake commentariat, this is a miserable place to be an enthusiast…and I’m starting to really warm up to the idea of just having some sort of electrified appliance as my next car. I love my Kona N, but I get to enjoy its capabilities maybe 5% of the time I’m driving it. The rest of the time it sits in traffic, chugs gas, rides rough, is loud, etc.
I’m glad I bought it and at least I get to let it stretch its legs on the track or in rural parts of VA I frequent every now and then…but the rest of the time it’s like any other commuter, and I’m getting older. It’s worth the sacrifice for now, but it won’t be forever. I’m starting to think that driving a well equipped/luxury adjacent hybrid, EV, etc. would do a lot more to make my days more tolerable than having a fun car that’s restricted does. Hell I test drove a well equipped Santa Fe Hybrid this weekend to give my wife a report while my N was being serviced and you know what?
I fucking loved it. It was quiet. It was comfortable. The interior was as good as a lot of luxury cars. It soaked up all the bumps and got 30 MPG despite the fact that the AC was on full blast the whole time. I wanted to keep driving it…not because of how fun it was, but because of how goddamn comfortable and serene it was.
The few times I had to drive towards DC when I was in VA the last year the drivers alone made me never want to live around DC. As I have said before I was commuting into Manassas and that was already bad enough but I had to pick my dad up from Regan once and my best friend has his wedding in Alexandria and my God the people that drive around there are nuts. My buddy was even telling me there was a shooting in a near by apartment complex to him and he isn’t even in a bad area. So yeah I’ll stick with the rural life haha.
Northeast Illinois, Northwest ‘Burbs. This entire area is developed around driving cars, or at least driving cars to the train station (the nearest Metra stations are both 20 minutes away). Parking is plentiful and free. Roads are wide, compound-paved (HMA over concrete), and utilize turn lanes and stoplights at every opportunity.
We even have something that I’ve never seen before or since, right in my own town- a stoplight intersection with triple left-turn lanes on both sides. Now that’s car-centric.
On the other hand, there are some downsides. This part of Illinois requires a P-code free OBD-II scan in order to get plates, tested every other year for for ’97s and newer. Gas taxes are very high, but we need them to pay for roads that are beat to death by both winter and A SHITLOAD OF TRUCKS. Insurance is also mandatory to apply for plates, which I guess really isn’t a bad thing.
There are plenty of cameras for red-light infractions, but I’ve never seen a speed camera- at least not in my part of the ‘Burbs.
Yeah my dad lives outside Chicago (Brookfield) and he always gets gas when he stops by my house in Indiana since it is normally like 50-60 cents cheaper a gallon. My fiance will have some Dr appointments in Chicago and I always avoid getting gas there. Also I (or my fiance) did get a ticket for a speed camera on Chicago recently (screw those things hah). But besides that the suburbs of Chicago have a really nice car culture and lots of cruise nights you can go to.
Yeah the city is a different animal. I know there are A LOT of cameras of both types.
And yes, you often see on a weekend huge convoys of classic cars all headed in the same direction. Once I counted over a hundred Vettes, all C3 or earlier, headed toward Volo.
Well,SW Florida is very much a two-edged sword when it comes to car-friendliness. We don’t have state inspections here and well-maintained enthusiast vehicles abound on the roads. But traffic, especially in winter, is brutal. Insurance is insane as well. There’s no great twisty roads to explore either as every single road is built to connect one gated community with another. But Naples has a world-class car museum (Revs Institute), some great shows/Cars and Coffees and a culture that embraces enthusiast vehicles wholeheartedly, even if there isn’t anyplace great locally to drive them to.
Michigan – Another plug here for my state. Southeast Michigan, and the state as a whole is very car friendly. Other than our salty winters as others have said, it’s quite nice driving. There are good roads to be had for cars and motorcycles, just need to leave the more populated areas to get to them which for the most part, it’s an hour drive from anywhere in SE Michigan (this is the Detroit metro area btw).
The only thing that sucks is having to pay sales tax when we buy a car, any car. I would say there are folks that are less than truthful about the sale price of a car, and it’s expected here that if you’re doing a private sale, you leave the “sale price” box blank on the title. I think it stinks because the sales tax has already been paid on the car when it was sold new, so it’s a double dip (or triple, quadruple, more…) at 6%.
We have a plethora of enthusiast minded license plate options, insurance isn’t bad since they changed the PIP law a couple years ago, and we don’t have inspections or emissions testing. We used to have emissions testing, but I think it’s been gone for 25 years or more.
The downside to that, as others pointed out, is that there are some REALLY janky cars on the road. But, considering the value we get from not having those inspections, you take the good w/the bad. The janky cars don’t really affect me, other than often feeling really bad for the folks driving them who clearly can’t afford a car in a city that you cannot navigate without one.
We have zero viable public transportation anywhere in the state, and likely never will, so a car is a must.
Jim
“I think it stinks because the sales tax has already been paid on the car when it was sold new, so it’s a double dip (or triple, quadruple, more…) at 6”
Our sales tax is 9.3%
I’m located north-east of you in Ottawa, and while we don’t have as MANY enthusiasts here, there’s no shortage of places to cruise and the traffic is pretty ok (when not stuck behind drivers that merge at 60km/h).
We also have Calabogie Motorsports Park roughly an hour away, or 5 hours if we’re measuring distance the GTA way.
We’re also pretty spoiled for available shops. Between Ottawa Clutch and Ottawa Driveshaft & Steering, we can get a lot of automotive parts rebuilt locally.
The law in Michigan is extremely friendly to modding, there are no state inspections and you have to be really reckless to get pulled over in most counties. In the 6 months that aren’t Winter, most roads have a lot of trees on either side, which makes for a really pleasant cruising atmosphere.
It’s a great place to prowl around in a Scat Pack looking for Camaros to race.
However, there are no curves anywhere, the roads are covered in deep potholes all year, salt half the year and construction the other half, and the lack of inspections enables a plague of vehicles sporting prehistoric tires and frames held together by a few layers of hardened Rustoleum and a prayer.
It’s a terrible place to drive around in a Boxster.
I’m playing Midwest on hard mode, but at least there’s an autocross scene to get into.
Metro Detroit:
Waze: “car on shoulder ahead”
Got it.
Next day
Waze: “car on shoulder ahead”
Yep, same one.
And repeat.
I think at least half of the permanent Waze landmarks down here in SW Florida started out at the other end of I-75.
In the more rural areas, summer means salting the dirt roads to prevent dust. Add rain and the chemical package has a binder to insure long lasting and terminal corrosion.
Whoa that’s nasty. Yeah the dirt would act like glue!
Im in Southeast Arizona, no rust, plenty of decent driving roads both on and off road. Weather is decent 11 months of the year beyond extreme heat on occasion. Even though Im a small town we have SCCA here and tracks within an hour in a few different directions. Insurance is cheap and no inspections. Only thing I dislike is being far away from dealerships and specialized mechanics beyond the mainstream Big 3 and Honda/Toyota. No luxury brands here or even Subaru.
“Weather is decent 11 months of the year beyond extreme heat on occasion”
Having been to Arizona I think “decent weather” and “extreme heat” are very subjective metrics.
True, I assume extreme cold to me would mean something different to someone living in Minnesota as well. At least in the extreme heat you can still get out and drive vs blizzard conditions in other states.
“At least in the extreme heat you can still get out and drive”
‘Till the tires and pavement melt anyway..
Am also in Toronto – my neighbourhood is relatively car friendly, although being near the intersection of two train lines kind of screws things (because traffic gets funneled into just a few crossing points). On the other hand, I’m only about ten minutes from the 400/401, so escape isn’t terrible if I time it right.
Also, given that there seemed to be no political will (from any administration) to tighten the emissions test standards, it’s probably not that big of a loss. It was so permissive, I had a car nearly pass while missing a catalytic convertor. With your average car dying off by about 15 years old through some combination of rust and minor repairs exceeding its value, the amount of cars failing had to be so miniscule, it was just a waste of everyone’s time.
On one hand, inspections help keep people from self-deleting emissions hardware. And should incorporate basic safety checks (brakes/tires/etc…). Both for the greater good.
On the other, they’re really annoying, and can be expensive to fix relatively minor infractions. Which, sadly, allows unscrupulous shops to prey upon people who can’t afford to replace or properly fix their car.
Where’s the line?
IIRC: Ontario’s was every two years, and maybe that’s a reasonable line in the sand.
I’ve never seen anything to suggest people were removing emissions equipment in any real capacity. If anything, ongoing safety inspections have considerably more merit than the emissions inspections (and frankly, would probably do just as much to get the worse emissions offenders off the road).
Maybe it just needs to be a ‘once every 10 years’ to do a sweeping check of everyone for a few years and then go away – clearing the backlog of the worst offenders.
It’s harder and harder, nowadays, to delete emissions hardware without your car throwing up errors.
Everything in the us is car friendly. None of it pedestrian friendly.
Um, no. Take a drive down Michigan Avenue on a sunny summer day and just try to get anywhere, it ain’t happening.
You proved the point. You shouldn’t be driving anywhere there are pedestrians. The mere fact that we have given cars control of rights of way is proof.
Grade separations for pedestrians at every intersection? Hope you like stairs.
Exactly the same as in Europe. Except for in every single way.
I live in New Orleans, between the potholes and flooding issues it’s frustrating. At least 25% of the drivers don’t have insurance and red light running seems to be popular activity. But there is a love for cars around here and the lack of rust belt problems leads to a fair amount of older cars staying around.
Oh man! Red lights! People run red lights and stop signs here in OK like it’s their job!
But most people don’t speed. I was behind a guy who I witnessed running two stop signs and two red lights, but he never went faster than 7mph under the limit.
Here, hold my Hurricane…
The roads to too third world to speed! I’m glad to be in a pickup truck when it’s flooded.
It is SO car friendly that its downright mean to any other forms of transportation.
My area is pretty good,with a good mix of highways and smaller roads. The cars are pretty good as well with pretty much everything represented. Only downside is that the gas prices are really high and we have a lot of speed cameras along with quite conservative speed limits.
My area isn’t too bad. The traffic can suck, mostly due to the undersized roads when you get closer to downtown, but outside of downtown the roads are larger to accommodate the population and still includes features like bike lanes to still be friendly to pedestrians and folks that prefer their self-powered transport. We also have some nice driving roads in the area, and parking is pretty good outside of downtown.
With that said, the car culture here is hit or miss. There’s a fair amount of enthusiast vehicles in the area, but you really only see them at car shows. Being near the mountains means a lot of folks cosplaying as overlanders and rock crawlers, but few actually do anything off-road which makes the local car clubs pretty reclusive and hostile to new folks.
Um, I have a couple acres of unincorporated property in the country, so, relatively friendly on that front.
However, the state does charge a “document fee” when you first register any vehicle in your name, which is assessed as a percentage of what they think its worth, regardless of what you paid for it, or even if you’ve already owned it out of state for years. And they are pretty strict on emissions, anything 1976 and newer has to have an OEM spec catalytic converter in place, so non-US market imports from countries that didn’t require those until much later can’t be registered, and everything 1968 and newer has to have some form of emissions test every 1-2 years. Also, they’re starting to get weird about anything with a Japanese VIN and are pretty strict about making sure paperwork and factory markings are in order for trailers, as a means of combating high trailer theft rates
At least it is a fee up front I guess? When I was in VA I learned they charge you a yearly property tax fee on your vehicle based on what they assess it at which is either black book or blue book value forget which. Glad I never registered any of my vehicles there and kept them registered to Indiana.
Yeah, that’s right, its basically an absurd workaround to maintain the status of not having sales tax on anything by pretending it costs the DMV more to print out the registration documents for a more expensive car than a cheaper one, could be worse, but, still, I’d rather things be called what they are, it isn’t a “document fee”, that would be to recoup actual expenses involved in generating the documents, just call it a registration tax and be done with it
Yeah I think that is what people do not understand when they hear no sales tax or no property tax in a state. The government will find a way to keep money rolling in either by charging some stupid “document” fees or by cutting cost somewhere.
California with absurd registration fees and other matters is not in-general car friendly and the wastes/costs for the amount of work commuting done is bad, bad for everyone. However here in San Diego/East County we have weekly summer cruises in three towns, a dragstrip and circle track are twenty minutes away, there are probably a dozen great drives through the mountains and deserts you could take on a given day (car-clubs and journalist groups love ’em) and of-course the weather will probably be gorgeous. With that, there are the most amazing enthusiasts everywhere. There couldn’t really be a better place for a car nut.
I do miss Cajon Speedway though. The train races were epic hilarity!
Where I live the car is hated. Pedestrian zones in what used to be main traffic streets, bicycle lanes, bus lanes, you pay everywhere to park, etc. The lanes and roads are narrow and traffic is horrid. I avoid the car unless I am leaving the city.
(Barcelona)
Tulsa, OK area.
Pros
Some of the cheapest gas in the country.
Absolutely no vehicle inspections of any kind.
Some decent motorsport facilities in the area.
Snow and ice is pretty rare, so not much salt on the roads.
Traffic isn’t awful most places.
Cons
It’s estimated that 20-25% of the vehicles you encounter on a given day are uninsured.
Many roads are crumbling. Our bridges are also REALLY bad.
You know that whole no inspections thing? I have seen some truly unbelievable piles of parts cruising the streets. Probably uninsured.
I lived in San Antonio for several years, and my insurance there was double where I came from because of all the uninsured. I got hit once, and was so worried they wouldn’t have insurance but I lucked out. It drives me nuts. Between that and the fake temp tags that Texas is famous for, driving there was awful.
Do they not require insurance in OK? I know Virginia doesn’t they just make you pay a yearly fee to be uninsured which I find crazy being from Illinois/Indiana both state required insurance or you can get a ticket and lose your license. And have you seen some of the rusted hoopties on the road from the rust belt?
Oh insurance is absolutely required! But if you see a car with expired tags or a temp plate, you better keep your distance. It’s almost guaranteed they don’t have insurance.
Insurance is required everywhere unless you are (A) not operating on public roads, (B) In New Hampshire (and they might have done away with this), or (C) Operating in California and have posted the $35,000 bond to the state to cover state minimum liability requirements.
Requiring insurance doesn’t mean people carry it, of course. Varying states have varying degrees of legality around automatic license plate readers, mandatory reporting to the state as to insurance status, and whether or not lack of insurance is a primary offense. And whether not carrying insurance is an infraction, misdemeanor, or the status changes depending on whether the lack of insurance comes to LE attention through an accident, injury, or other means.
In any case, for those of you who like statistics, this is the estimate of state-by-state number of uninsured drivers, with DC and New Mexico topping the list for highest number of uninsured drivers. And here’s a list of state-by-state rankings for hit-and-runs if you’d prefer a different proxy. And there’s some obvious confounds with some of the methodology here, but it’s an interesting data set.
Ah okay yeah VA might require it but they have a work around fee that you can pay to have which I think was like 500 bucks a year and you can drive without it which like I understand because insurance is expensive but to me that is just a really crappy policy. Also thanks for the stats that always is helpful
I think that Virginia’s Uninsured Motorist Fee option goes away on July 1. It used to be considered a decent compromise between no requirements and mandatory insurance that people wouldn’t get, because the fee goes to a fund that reimburses insurance companies for claims they pay out to policyholders to cover damage due to uninsured, underinsured or hit-and-run drivers. I’ve made use of my own uninsured / underinsured coverage rider three times and will never go without it.
To clarify NH. You do not need Insurance but if you chose to not be you have to bonded for the minimum coverage (25-50k). The idea if you have the ability it is cheaper to get insurance.
Guess how many uninsured drivers read the first part and ignore the second part?
What is your take on Gov. KevinS titt trying to take away the Tribal Nations license plates?
I’m not a big fan of Stitt. He really seems to have it in for the tribes and their ability to govern themselves.
Same here. Tribal Plates are one thing that make Oklahoma unique.
Not very. Anything without a V8 is considered dumb, stupid, ricer, and “slow”, among other, more vulgar, statements. Yes, beat the V8 pick-ups in anything without a V8 and they’ll still call it…. slow.
I’m honestly surprised that the locals who have EV’s haven’t been burn at the stake yet either. The amount of anti-EV people locally is pretty high, and people tend to be pretty damned right-winged.
Rural Texas?
Nope. “Southern” Central NY. It’s a kinda confusing place.
Come to Europe (except perhaps Germany and… Italy?) and you will soon miss your place!
I mean, give me a set of keys to a 5-cylinder Cupra Formentor and dammit I’ll be set!
If you’ve got to try the forbidden fruit, I’d rather give you the keys for something from our neighbours up north: an Alpine A110. 😉
Very. I live in the Louisville area, on the Indiana side of the river. We have no vehicle inspections, no emissions inspections, and I think they’ll register anything with a VIN number. We don’t have an HOA in my neighborhood (someone tried and literally zero other people wanted it) so I’m free to work on my cars as I please. Roads are okay, people here like to bitch but clearly they’ve never been up north. Lots of twisty roads as things get rural pretty quick as you drive outside the city. Gas is inexpensive, and there’s quite the automotive community around here, though I’ll admit I’m not very active in it.
Yeah I live in one of 2 counties in Indiana that does emissions testing why only 2? Don’t know. But luckily registering my firebird as a classic gets it out tod emissions testing. Besides that yeah it is a pretty friendly state for cars besides the winters but guess that is why you get yourself a winter beater. Luckily I live on 20 acres in a rural area of the county so I don’t have to worry about nosie complaints or anything of the sorts. There are nice cruise nights in the area and when the weather is nice I always see some sort of classic or nicer cars on the roads. The roads are not as bad as when you get closer to Illinois/Indiana border and heading to Chicago.
Though I would have liked to have stayed in Virginia the roads were so much nicer out there but the drivers around DC were some of the worst I had ever seen.
It’s because Lake and Porter are in the Chicago air quality attainment area per the EPA.
It’s not a state thing, and despite numerous challenges there’s nothing Indiana can do about it. Very frustrating.
Did not know that but makes sense but yeah it is goofy that the EPA can tell the state what they can or cannot do because of their proximity to a city that isn’t in their state. But at least they make it easy to not have to do emissions testing on classic cars because no way in hell my firebird would pass haha
What is even worse is that I’ve heard (not sure if it’s true) that the area only fails because of the truck traffic on 80-94, which obviously has nothing to do with the locals or emissions from their personal cars.
Doesn’t really surprise me. Also I currently work for a truck manufacturer in R&D and what they can get away with emissions wise because they have a few EV’s is ridiculous. And I oh so love 80/94 /s do not miss my commute back into Illinois from Indiana haha
Winters here in New Albany/the Louisville area in general aren’t that bad (any more, according to long time residents we used to get a lot more snow around here. I’m 31, grew up in Louisville, and even I can tell.) But I’ve noticed that they put more salt/brine down on the Indiana side of the river than in Kentucky. They’ll brine all the roads if it’s going to be 40 with a chance of flurries–and I’m not kidding, that has happened before. But we are far enough south in general that you don’t really need a winter beater.
Yeah they do that liquid salt up by me also. I always forget how long Indiana is so I’m sure you guys get much more mild Winters down there. I’m near the lake so I get that lake affect snow it’s terrible but my FJ is fun in snow at least.
These past several years winter has been so mild (weeks in the 40s and even 50s) and summer so hot and humid that I almost prefer driving my 1972 Super Beetle in the winter. The heat works fine, and it’s better than no a/c on a humid 98 degree day. But then they go and brine the roads for no goddamn reason, and I won’t take the Beetle out if there’s salt down.
Other than a lack of twisty roads and obviously winter, the exurban Midwest is a pretty good place to enjoy cars.
Michigan is pretty friendly, other than the insurance costs. Some of the roads suck, but congestion isn’t bad. Gas is cheap. There’s a great car culture. Insurance costs are insane, especially in a metro area.
Detroit: Amazing car culture.
Also Detroit: Potholes that will rip a wheel off your car at 10mph.
Charlotte NC area, and I’d say pretty dang good as the Cars and Coffee for Charlotte keeps having to find new venues as 1. it’s just too dang big, and 2. winners keep doing burnouts that got them kicked out of the really good spot they used to be at.
Being an affluent southern metropolis we have all the things, Hummer EVs, Supercars, classic cars with minimal rust, and even Kei cars are legal here.
I have wanted to go to Charlotte for a C&C sometime
Florida. Very friendly. Good roads, relatively cheap gas, communities for just about any sort of car kink you’re into.
My only complaint: so far I have been unsuccessful in lobbying Governor DeSantis to sentence all drivers of squatted trucks to public tarring and feathering, but it’s a small price to pay.
“Dear Governor desantis, please pick a fight with your most reliable constituents by taking away their toys.”
Yeah it’s a total mystery why that’s not happening.
Oh, they can keep them. They just have to be publicly shamed.
I already privately shame them every time I see one by laughing uncontrollably. Swear to God, I see a squat truck, I can’t help laughing.