Exploring the Colorful World of Graffiti at the Modesto Classic Car Show, 2026
- jktallallc
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
Right, so.
I've been to car shows before. Goodwood. The odd village fete with a bloke's restored MG parked next to the tombola. I thought I knew what I was walking into.
I did not know what I was walking into.
The first thing that hits you in Modesto isn't the cars, it's the heat, which arrives less like weather and more like a personal insult. I stepped out of the car park — sorry, "the lot" — and a man in a Hawaiian shirt the approximate size of a bedsheet told me to "have a blessed one," which I've since learned is not a threat.
Then the cars. Good lord, the cars. Everything here is enormous. I complimented a chap on his "boot" and he looked at me like I'd complimented his wife's ankles. Turns out you say "trunk." I said "bonnet" to another fellow and he thought I was asking about his hat. We got there eventually, mostly through pointing.
The whole show, as it turns out, is a kind of pilgrimage — this is the actual town George Lucas grew up in, the one that became the backdrop for American Graffiti, and every single person here can tell you exactly which corner Harrison Ford's '55 Chevy cruised past, with the specificity of a man describing his own wedding. Nobody in Britain has ever cared this much about a road. We have roundabouts named after roundabouts and nobody sheds a tear.
"Cruising" itself I initially misunderstood as a suggestion rather than an activity, and stood by the kerb waiting for something to happen, like a man expecting a bus. What actually occurs is that several hundred impossibly shiny cars, in colours we simply do not permit back home, colours with names like "Sunset Coral" and "Tropical Turquoise," parade past at roughly walking pace while everyone whoops.
We do not whoop in England.
We nod.
Possibly twice, if the car is very good.
Somebody handed me a corn dog, which I initially assumed was a joke item, a prop, something you'd find in a Christmas cracker.
It was not a joke.
I ate it.
I have complicated feelings about it that I am still processing.
I was, at one point, asked if I wanted a "soda," and made the mistake of saying yes to whatever was closest, which turned out to be root beer, a drink that tastes, and I say this with love, like someone has brewed a scented candle. An American nearby watched my face with the quiet satisfaction of a man who has seen this exact reaction a thousand times and never once tires of it.
But here's the thing — and I say this as someone who came fully intending to be insufferably British about the whole affair, it's rather wonderful. There is something genuinely moving about a whole town turning up, engines running, half in costume, entirely sincere, to keep a piece of film history and their own youth alive in the metal. We don't really do that at home.
We're too embarrassed.
Americans, refreshingly, are not.
Verdict: nine out of ten. Would cruise again. Still haven't forgiven the fucking root beer.
I'll get my own back.
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