Temecula Rod Run 2026

Every first weekend of May, Old Town Front Street stops being a tourist district. The wine bars stay open. The antique shops stay open. But for two days, five hundred-plus classic cars take over the brick-lined street, and the people who built them stand beside their machines ready to explain every decision they made.

The Temecula Rod Run ran May 1-2, 2026, at Old Town Front Street in Temecula, CA. Free admission both days. No tickets. No registration. You just show up.

Friday is Cruise Night (5-8 PM): the cars move. Engines running, owners driving slow through the crowd. You hear it before you see it — that low, purposeful rumble that tells you someone spent years on that motor. Saturday is Show and Shine (9 AM-4 PM): they stop. Hoods up. Now you can look. Model A's. T-Buckets. T-Birds. Roadsters built from donor frames with period-correct details. Projects mid-obsession. Finished machines that took decades. The owners are standing right there.

Old Town Temecula is worth the trip on a normal weekend. The first weekend of May is when the regulars stay home and the car people come in. Family-friendly, free parking in public lots and surrounding streets, Old Town shops open both days.

Missed it? Rod Run 2027 will be the first weekend of May — always is, every year. This is the kind of event where the people who know about it have been coming for decades. The people who find out about it once tend to come back.