The team and I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past few months about what Hollywood Car of the Year means and why we wanted to launch our own awards program when, truly, the world seems to be inundated with ‘AWARDS©”.
As someone who has covered the intersection of “Hollywood” and Automotive, I thought that this needed to happen and as a longtime Angeleno, I knew most of all it should happen. While I won’t go too deeply into our judges - we’ll announce our jurors closer to Pebble Beach Car Week - I, the team, and a lot of forthcoming jurors have spent a lot of time considering what cars mean in the Hollywood scheme of things.
Hollywood, as I’ve written about before, is a state of mind - more of a vibe than a place - and even though I am writing this from the office in my house in Laurel Canyon - a short walk, if there were actual sidewalks - from the Sunset Strip and the Chateau Marmont - I can’t place where Hollywood begins but I know it’s where the crossroad of culture - art, music, film, style - really is. For Hollywood Car of the Year it’s the end point around what makes a “Hollywood” car so Hollywood.
Is it something like a murdered-out Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, or Angelyne’s pink Corvette and when you stop and take a photo in the parking lot of Rock and Roll Ralphs, she’ll ask for 50 bucks for her signed photo? Is it a new Honda Civic Si, rolling down PCH next to a Porsche 911 GT3 and a classic VW Squareback? Is it one of the many, many, many, many electric cars stuck in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd, idling without a whisper, with their drivers glued to their phones?
Perhaps it is something more stupendous? My friend Zuckerman told me that he knew he made it in this town when he got his Mercedes-Benz Gullwing. Zuckerman told me he was driving down Sunset Boulevard, the sun was setting, the breeze was blowing cool, and he thought to himself, Zuckerman, I've made it. (ed. Note: the story sounds better when you tell it in his voice.)
That's kind of the feeling we're going for here. Hollywood is ineffable, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try to describe it, name it, place it and put our mark on it. We’ll start with cars, for now.
So aside from all the super luxury and all the super sports and all of the super duper whatevers, we're going to cover everything that makes the Hollywood Car of the Year, the Hollywood Car of the Year. Hollywood is a lot of different things. It's families, it's below the line and above the line, It's actors, writers, directors, costume designers and all of the craftspeople that make up the town and it’s everyone else that feels the vibe.
So, for Hollywood Car of the Year, we’re going to start and cover the cars that the team and I have driven in the last year or so we’ve been putting together this project. We hope you enjoy it, we’re looking forward to your comments, and, as always, this is a work in progress, but, please note, we're going to have a lot of fun while we do it.
Expect a lot of these columns in the future - sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, sometimes deeper dives, sometimes a round up - but for us, we just want to talk about the cars we think represent what a Hollywood Car of the Year means.
-- JAG
Cars Driven, Things Done, Sights Seen
I spend a lot of time behind the wheel and in the last few months alone I must have put several thousand, and mostly aimless miles, driving across Southern California in the various cars that I get the pleasure of driving. A bright spot of these crazy times.
Still, after writing about cars for the last two decades (TWO!), I am constantly surprised how certain cars make me feel, especially after putting down some serious miles. Here are a few of surprises and some of the best cars we’ve had a chance to drive.
Surprised? Not if you live here.
While I won’t go into the details of this town’s changing opinion of the five letter car company that begins with a T and ends with an A, what I can tell you is that one brand in Hollywood is simply on fire either due to the fact they make great EVs and Hybrids or the fact the marketing is really good or that there are some serious incentives on these vehicles. What I will say, I’m deep into this brand and, in this town, it seems every other car on the road is a Hyundai. But can a Hyundai really be a Hollywood car? The Hollywood car-loving public has displaced the notion of the mid-80s 5K Excel as part of the brand, and over the past 40 some years, the company has transformed itself into the juggernaut that encompasses Hyundai, Kia and Genesis.
If you haven't spent time in one of the new Hyundai cars, you are missing out. Personally, the two N models I drove - the gas-powered, manual-gearbox Hyundai Elantra N and the “they made it too good” IONIQ 5 N EV - are both excellent.
We’ll start with the Elantra N — the tricked-out sport version of the brand’s sedan — which I took up the Crest to Good Vibes a while back. For thirty-six grand and some change, you get yourself something that looks sharp, is plenty fun to drive and is a sleeper car, which in this town is very desirable, where folks like to flex, but under the radar. Up the Crest, it kept pace; even with 276 horsepower, it never felt too underpowered and through the straightaways and esses of Little Tujunga Canyon, it was a little carver.
Even better than the Elantra was the all-electric IONIQ 5 N, which, to this guy, looks like the lovechild of an early-90s Lancia Delta HF Integrale and an early-80s Ford Escort RS 1700T. I loved this electric hot hatch - with its manual-gearbox, infinite acceleration and wicked-looking stance. Whenever I valeted the Performance Blue Matte IONIQ 5 N across town, it always got parked up front, a true sign the car has something going for it. I really loved this car - it’s a contender in one of our HCOTY categories - and if I was in the market for a $67,000 hot hatch, this would be my pick. The IONIQ 5 N is subversive - from the design and styling to the electric drive package - and acts at the Halo for the brand. This extends down into the mainstream lineup of the brand, the electric Kona, an economy-driven electric car, which has an edge to it and punches above its weight as does the small hybrid Tucson SUV. Both are high-volume cars, but in my eyes, are near entry-level luxury. There is a reason why you see a lot of these rolling around town.
But there was something about the 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy that got me over the ten days I recently spent with the car. The boxy style was polarizing at first, but after cruising around town - to the pickup line at my kids school in the Hollywood Hills, to driving across town for meetings - I started noticing a lot of them on the road and would nod to the other Santa Fe drivers.
Ontologically speaking, it reminded me of the Subaru Outback wagon - not in looks or drive - but in how it crosses socioeconomic boundaries and is a car for everyone. If you spend enough time talking to people in the industry, it’s a bad look, in uncertain economic times, to flex too hard, that you need to show up a bit less flashy, but still convey that you know what you are doing. The Santa Fe transmogrified into that car for me. A week in, I valeted at Cecconi’s and didn’t feel self-conscious in the sea of high-end cars; it felt right. The fact that I was seeing 50+ MPG on the mostly downhill drive from my house was a bonus. Sometimes making a statement in Hollywood is not making a statement at all.
