Recently in Crusing on Van Nuys Boulevard Category

For more photos of the last Van Nuys Boulevard cruise night, click the image below. The link works this time:

Tonight — Wednesday, Aug. 12 — is the night for this month's Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard event.

The center of the action is at the old Rydell Chevrolet lot at the corner of Van Nuys and Burbank boulevards in Van Nuys. The guy in charge of the event, Reid Stolz, tells me that the Rydell lot opens at 6 p.m., with people starting to arrive at 5:30. The lot fills up by 7 p.m., he says, and I saw plenty of cars in the lot across the street just west of Ralphs market.

Cruising starts at 8 p.m. The group aims to have the Rydell lot cleared out by 10 p.m., so make sure you get there to soak up all that vintage steel.

Many, many cars — vintage, classic and otherwise — will be actually cruising Van Nuys Boulevard, just as they did (depending on how old you are, fill in your own number) decades ago.

The cruise night, which has been taking place on the second Wednesday of every month, has been good to local businesses, which looked pretty full on July 8, the night of the last event.

This morning, Four N' 20 Pies even had a "Welcome Van Nuys cruisers" message on their sign outside the Van Nuys Boulevard restaurant.

While walking the dog (infamous early-riser Poppy), we pretty much stumbled upon last month's Cruise Night, and I can safely say this is the coolest thing to happen to Van Nuys in much longer than I could ever remember.

I was amazed at how well the event ran. From that fact alone, my hopes are high about the event continuing. If you're in the area, come on out and see a whole bunch of really cool cars and the people who pour their lives and money into keeping this tradition alive.

• Official Van Nuys Cruising Association Site
• Dailynews.com story on the Aug. 12 Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard event
• More photos here and here.
• Van Nuys Cruising Association on Twitter
• E-mail the Van Nuys Cruising Association
• Rydell Chevrolet (the Cruise Night cars are at the OLD Rydell lot at Van Nuys and Burbank, not the new one on Oxnard).
• Come on Feel the Nuys photo gallery of July 8, 2009's Cruise Night

Click the picture above for my photo gallery of July 8, 2009's night of cruising on Van Nuys Boulevard.

Van Nuys Boulevard — and the recently shuttered Rydell Chevrolet lot at the corner of Van Nuys and Burbank boulevards as well as the kitty-corner lot between Ralphs and Four 'n' 20 Pies — was blanketed by vintage cars of all kinds last night during what wasn't the first (and hopefully isn't the last) Cruising Van Nuys Boulevard night.

We stumbled upon it (Ilene has the full shiz) and got to see what looked like a few hundred sweet rides, everything from '20s coupes to '80s lowriders, parked for all to see and then cruising a street that hasn't seen such unbridled but exhaust-filled excitement in many a decade.

More pictures tomorrow.