Hello,

My name is Yann and I live in Switzerland and I own 2 S2000 (1 for track and 1 for street). I will come to Los Angeles in February (16 to 19 of february) and I would like to see some car scene related to Honda or not, have you any advice for me (meetings, cruise, etc...)? As I live in Switzerland, we have beautiful mountains roads here, my goal is to go to NewCombs Ranch to drive on Angeles Crest Highway and see some nices car and scenic views, is it worth in February? Which other road can you advice me around LA?

Thank you for your help!

Pics of my cars for attention:

 

Hi Yann, nice cars! Are you transporting one of your S2000s to America for this trip or are you just renting a car?

I'm very familiar with Angels Crest, I was part of a group that ran it regularly, we called ourselves the ACEs - Angels Crest Enthusiasts. We would depart at the base of the Crest right at sunrise after meeting at the Shell gas station at the intersection of the 210/Angels Crest highway. The plan is to meet at Newcombs for breakfast where many other car and motorcycle people meet after the drive. It is a beautiful and a fun drive. There are many other roads and paths you can take as well around the mountains. There were a couple times that we decided as a group to turn back because the roads had some ice forming but that was really high up in the mountains and everyone was on summer tires in some sort of 2 seat sports car. You can keep going past Newcombs and depending on your car and driving aptitude if there is a bit of ice on the road it won't matter. But if you will be in a sports car, just be cautioned that the Crest is unforgiving, we had several accidents in our group like large rocks falling right in front of someone totaling their BMW, my buddy totaled his 911 turbo right in front of me driving it up the side of a cliff, and several S2000 owners have lost their lives up there over the years. Not to mention keep your eyes peeling for wildlife like deer jumping right out in front of you on hairpin turns.

If you're going to spend the day, I do recommend departing at the base at sunrise for two reasons - 1. the sunrise is beautiful and 2. Safer, not as many bicyclists are on the road yet, so you by the time you start making your way down the mountain they are coming up on the other side.


We once went up for a midnight long exposure photo shoot up there as well:

 

Thank you for all these information, that's great!Yes I have seen that there are a lot of crashes on these roads, it's necessary to be careful.

I will not transport my car to America, but it would be great to do that! I will rent a standard car at the airport and I will be with my eleven years old daughter, it means it will be a quiet ballad and not a sporty one

You are very lucky to have such beautiful landscapes and weather around you for driving!

 

What area are you staying in? Perhaps I can make some more recommendations on scenic drives or things to do that would be fun also for your daughter? I spent years living in and driving all over California in my S, so perhaps I can pass it forward with some suggestions to make the most of the limited time you have... I see you're there a few days during the week, which will be great for site seeing to avoid the weekend traffic and tourists.

I moved from Los Angeles a couple years ago to the free state of Arizona, and one of the things that I do miss is the near perfect weather year round in Southern California. Of all my travels around the world, there is no other place on the planet with more perfect weather.

 

I will stay very near Santa Monica, if you have some recommandation on funny things to do with my daughter, it would be great! I think we will go one day to Universal Studios, this is the only thing planned yet.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Yann

 

there are canyon drives near santa monica as well.

 

Yann, here are some suggestions and recommendations I have. Since you are staying in Santa Monica, look at the Santa Monica Pier, it's impossible to miss as there is basically a huge ferris wheel and all kinds of activities there. About 3 blocks of a short walk is the 3rd Street Promenade, it's a closed off to cars street with all the shopping you cold possibly want to do, I would go here instead of the Beverly Hills mall for all my shopping, lunch, street entertainers... if your daughter wants to do some shopping, go there. Also before I forget, everything is based on avoiding rush hour traffic, morning from 730-930 and evening 500-700 ish just stay off the roads and highways, try and plan to be at your destinations before or after these hours as you'll be wasting valuable trip time. I do hope you rent something at least semi-sporty to enjoy the various twisty roads and canyons in the entire area. What I suggest below can be done over the course of several days

I will make some assumptions, but if you do the Angels Crest Drive, do it early in the morning on Sunday, that will be the best time and day based on your travel dates, it won't be as much fun during the week because of traffic. If you then plan on heading back to Santa Monica (and not do Universal Studios because it's close by to the Crest). When you're heading back from this drive there are a couple options but if you want to see quite a bit, look at map with arrows below for reference. You can take the 134 West to Forest Lawn and to Barham Blvd South, stay off the highway and follow it to either Mulholland Blvd and take that to the 405 South and back to Santa Monica, it's an amazing twisting fun road or the other option is to take Highland South. Also note you can take the other route from Angels Crest and see Griffith Observatory.

Highland South intersects with Hollywood Blvd, where they have all movie stars placards in the pavement, you can see Mann's Chinese Theater with the movie stars imprints in the concrete and Kodak Theater on your right as it's right there, you can park and walk around. Then keep going south on Highland and two other options, turn right onto Melrose Blvd, this is more of the trendy and funky shopping and living or keep going down Highland once you pass 3rd Street you get into Hancock Park. This is where all the old money lives and was founded before Beverly Hills when it was still called Hollywoodland and Los Angeles was a city founded on oil, go left 2-3 blocks and be amazed at the 100 year old estates. If not keep going to Wilshire Blvd. If you take Melrose turn left on either La Brea or Fairfax down to Wilshire.

Head West on Wilshire and if you took it from Highland or La Brea you will see (and smell) the La Brea Tar Pits. It's a park and museum with dinosaur bones and they are real live tar pits, the smell of rotten eggs is the sulfer bubbling up (this is where the lava comes up from the Tommy Lee Jones volcano movie). Keep going west and on the corner of Fairfax is the Petersen Automotive Museum, can't miss it as they have a car mounted on the side of the building. Across he street is the LA County Museum. Keep going west another 2 miles and you get into Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, the Beverly Hills Hotel is right there on the intersection, famous for the movie Pretty Woman and where many US Presidents stay when in town. Rodeo, El Camino, Cannon, Beverly Dr, if you want to rub elbows with the rich and famous, see exotic cars and women, and super high end shopping go here. The area is quite small, and you can walk the whole thing in a couple hours. From there skirt up to Sunset Blvd and take it West, another awesome twisty road that takes you to the coast.

Last part, the Coastal driving. As suggested you can really enjoy the Canyons of Santa Monica and Ventura by either going north on the Pacific Coast Highway and then just picking a canyon road to go up or when you're coming from The Crest or Mulholland as mentioned earlier, you can take the 101 Ventura freeway and then pick a canyon to follow down. Malibu is a short drive from Santa Monica, so if you want to enjoy a killer coastal drive, follow the PCH all the way to NAS Point Mugu. There are SOO many places to stop right on the beach for scenic pictures.

Ok, I think that's enough for now lol. If you google any of the names I've mentioned there will be entire write ups on it from other sources, but these are some good ways to see a lot of the city and not get stuck doing really lame touristy things. There are restaurants absolutely everywhere, so that'll be up to you. Let me know if you have any questions. Lastly if you've noticed I recommended some of the best city/canyon driving as I spent a lot of time carving out these roads over the years, hence my suggestion for something a bit sporty of a rental. Finally, the amazing thing about LA is you can ski up in the Angels Crest mountains in the morning and then drive down to the coast and surf in the Pacific a few hours later...

 

Hi Thomas,

Thanks a lot for all this information, it will be very helpful for me I will take time to check your propositions and prepare this trip, Google Maps will be my friend. Reading your message, I just cant wait more to go there again, I already went 2 times in California (13 years ago....time flies) and I'm in love with it.

About the car, I did not have time to deeply check, I just check standard rental and the only "sporty" car proposed is the Mustang, perhaps I will take one (my daughter would be happy I think).

There are a lot of things to do there, unfortunately my time there is very short (only 4 full days on site), I will try to see the maximum of things during this trip. This is good to have the feedback of a local.

Thank you one more time for your help, this is very nice from you.

Yann

 

@Thomas Guide gave some really good tips/advice. Newcomb's Ranch is most definitely worth the drive! I really enjoy their breakfast burrito. Please note that they are closed Monday-Wednesday, so February 17th-19th would be a disappointing drive for you if you were planning on visiting Newcomb's Ranch; Sunday, the 16th, should be perfect though.

Here are some photos from a drive I did back in March of this year:

 

Very nice, thank for the pics, I will go there on 16 of February (Sunday), I have rent a Mustang finally )