Cruise control Sunday-night auto aficionados work to steer away from unwelcome elements they say aren’t a part of their tradition By: Zoe Pierce Posted: 1:37 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

The red 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee out for a cruise on Portage Avenue draws admiring eyes from onlookers on a recent Sunday night, many of them seeing a specimen of the now-rare muscle car for the first time on a Winnipeg street. Or any other street, for that matter.

Longtime car enthusiast Bob Sudoma was behind the wheel, participating in the decades-old show-offy summer tradition.

The Sunday night cruise is built around a simple idea: proud car owners take their beloved vehicles for a spin to meet up with others of the same autophile ilk.

Less-fortunate appreciators, or just curious folks, also gather along the route to watch the highly-polished parade. Portage Avenue is one of cruise night’s best-known stretches.

From inside the car, the appeal of Winnipeg’s cruising culture is easy to understand. Tooling around, surrounded by beautiful, well looked-after automobiles, has a distinctly nostalgic feeling, like travelling back into a different era.

The avenue becomes a moving showcase of restored classics, vintage trucks, hot rods, modern sports cars, sleek motorcycles and even, an occasion, a rare supercar.

Police are part of the scene, too, keeping an eye on the traffic and the less-than-elegant behaviour that sometimes accompanies it.

“The car culture in Winnipeg and this area has always been very huge, so it’s neat to come out and sport your car a little bit,” said Sudoma, who has been part of Winnipeg’s car scene since the late 1970s.

There is also the generally unpleasant side of the cruise, and it’s hard to ignore.

As the Free Press interviewed people along Portage, conversations were periodically drowned out by vehicles revving their engines as they passed.

They are momentary interruptions, but there are many, and for people who live along the route, the noise is a regular and annoying element of a summer Sunday night.

And that tension between a passionate car community and the small group of drivers whose need to crank up the cacophony has long been a part of the Sunday-night tradition.

“A few bad apples” was a phrase that came up repeatedly in conversations with people in the car-appreciation community.

They acknowledged the problems — noise, speeding, racing and other anti-social vehicular behaviours — but wanted to make clear that those drivers represent only a fraction of a community built around restoring, driving and showing off its adored autos.

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The Sunday night cruise has undergone changes over the years, but the reason people are attracted to it has not.

Ren Cherlet, founder and events co-ordinator of Winnipeg Cruising Culture, said the ritual has a long history in and around the city. Once upon a time, it could mean root beers and burgers at A&W, or ice cream at the BDI or Skinner’s before heading back to Portage Avenue, by then lined with people ending the weekend by watching the cars go by.

“What it used to be, say, in the early ’50s, was that cars would cruise around, and that was kind of a way for (owners) to show their car, because back then there weren’t a lot of places to go,” Cherlet said.

Sudoma recalled a time when the Sunday gatherings were far less organized.

“We used to meet up, and it wasn’t quite as structured as what they have now. You’d meet there Fridays or Saturdays or whatever, and throw a Frisbee around and watch the other cars go by and stuff like that,” he said.

As the scene has grown, opportunities to gather have changed in nature and multiplied, and the social part of the culture has moved into organized shows and meets.

On a recent Sunday afternoon at the Winnipeg Cruising Culture car show at Grant Park Shopping Centre, the community was on full display.

Hundreds of cars — from vintage vehicles to newer sports cars — were on show in the parking lot. Lots of aficionados and a few curious first-timers wandered among them, stopping to talk with owners and admire their work. The weekly event begins at 3:30 p.m. and shuts down at 9:30, continuing through late September.

For the overwhelming majority of the people there, the appeal has nothing at all to do with racing or otherwise drawing negative attention.

“Cruising is more than just driving. It’s camaraderie. It’s hanging out. It’s car shows. It’s gathering. It’s also meeting people, too,” said participant David Meier, who has been part of the community since 1995.

Meier was gifted a Chevrolet Nova by his grandfather that year and began taking it out on weekends. He’s still at it three decades later.

He said the soon-to-be 11-film Fast and Furious movie franchise that began in 2001 attracted more people into cruising and street-racing culture, but also contributed to a perception that the two are synonymous.

“Everybody thinks cruising is racing,” Meier said. “Yeah, no. Absolutely not.”

He said the distinction has become harder to maintain as a small but disruptive group has intruded into cruise night with racing and burnouts.

“It’s like bad apples,” he said. “A few bad apples have tainted it.”

In an email to the Free Press, the Winnipeg Police Service said many of the vehicle enthusiasts officers encounter respect road-safety laws and the residents of neighbourhoods where they gather.

They pointed to the Pony Corral Cruise Night as an example of an organized event where organizers work with WPS to promote safety and encourage compliance with Manitoba’s road laws.

As a result of that collaboration, police said the number of tickets issued for offences at organized events is minimal, and the focus instead is on “prevention, education and promoting voluntary compliance with road-safety laws.”

Kendall Bingeman, displaying his Ford Model A Business Coupe (manufactured from 1927-32) at the Grant Park car show, said the community is, by and large, a warm, respectful and welcoming one that wants to grow.

“We’re kind of custodians of these cars. We don’t see ourselves as owners so much,” Bingeman said. “And if we don’t get the next generation passionate about it, it’ll die with us.”

The cars themselves reflect the range of people drawn to the hobby, from vehicles that have barely been restored to those that have had large stacks of cash poured into them. Motorcycles have a place, too.

Jocelyn Diamond brought her motorcycle to the show, with her French bulldog, Zora, riding along in a pet carrier.

Diamond has been watching cruise nights since she was a child, when her father would take her along on his motorcycle.

As a teenager, she remembers Sunday nights on Portage as “the cool thing to do.”

These days, she prefers to watch from the sidelines.

“Portage, it can be a little hectic and crazy,” she said, adding the noise can take away from what she likes about the tradition.

“I don’t like the constant revving of the engine. I’d rather appreciate a classic car driving by.”

She said the community is a supportive one.

“You’re kind of like a family. You’ll do anything. You always help your fellow if they need some help or something.”

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The cruise has a distinctly different flavour for people who live near Portage Avenue and are subjected to the frequently raucous soundtrack every Sunday from their backyards and balconies.

A Crestview resident, who lives several houses off Portage, said the gatherings themselves aren’t the problem; the noise, however, is disruptive.

“The noise is every Sunday night from spring to fall,” said the resident, who asked not to be identified, adding that it can be difficult to enjoy nice weather in the yard and, past 10 p.m., it can be tough to sleep.

“It would be great if noise ordinances were enforced by police or, better, self-enforced by the community so those who are just out to enjoy an evening in their backyards can, without being constantly disrupted.”

Police say complaints are numerous from residents and business owners about increasingly large groups of vehicles gathering in parking lots and other areas around the city.

Meier explained that rising gas prices and shifting habits have meant people tend to spend more time parked together in lots rather than driving around all night burning fuel.

The complaints the WPS received last summer and to date this year include excessive noise, disturbances, dangerous driving, trespassing, mischief and property damage exceeding $5,000.

In response, police said they’ve adopted a different approach through enhanced enforcement efforts under MPI’s Cruise Night Campaigns.

That has included signage, a visible police presence and closed-circuit video to help identify people involved in infringements. Where appropriate, police said drivers or registered vehicle owners can later receive notices for offences including petty trespassing, operating an unregistered vehicle, obscured licence plates, driving with an invalid licence or while disqualified, producing unnecessary smoke and improper equipment use.

Police said the approach has been “largely effective” in reducing the negative impacts on businesses and residential communities, and that they have received positive feedback from those most affected.

At the same time, the WPS said it will continue to work with motor-vehicle enthusiasts and organizers who “demonstrate respect for the community and comply with Manitoba’s laws.”

Coun. Evan Duncan, whose ward includes part of the Portage Avenue cruise area, said he has noticed a similar shift among residents this summer.

Last year’s police enforcement sent “a clear message” to people who were being disruptive, Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) said, and his office has since received far fewer calls and complaints related to cruise nights.

Residents’ concerns have centred on noise, dangerous driving and other suspected illegal activities in some parking lots, he said. Some businesses along Portage have hired private security to prevent large gatherings from taking over their properties.

But Duncan said he does not think cruise night, itself, is the issue.

“Cruise night, when it’s being respectful and when people are out there to show off their cars… that’s not a problem,” he said. “It’s the troublemakers that make it a problem for everyone. I don’t ever want to see something where we eliminate cruise night altogether because of the few that make it a problem. I’d rather have us crack down on those few.”

As happens in almost any large group, some people just don’t know when to quit, Sudoma said.

“There is always somebody that has something to prove, and you know they get into accidents,” he said.

The question, then, is how to keep that small group from overshadowing the better-behaved community of enthusiasts.

Duncan said better speed-enforcement technology could help, but Manitoba legislation currently limits how it can be employed. For noise complaints, he said police need to be on the scene, while bylaw officers can enforce noise complaints after 9 p.m. under the city’s neighbourhood livability bylaw.

Dr. Evelyn Vingilis, a retired psychologist, professor emerita and adjunct research professor in Western University’s department of family medicine in London, Ont., said the tension between celebrating car culture and dangerous driving is not unique to Winnipeg.

Vingilis has studied street racing and risky driving behaviour for close to 20 years. Her first paper on street racing, published in 2009, described it as a neglected area of research.

She said street racers and stunt drivers make up a small subgroup within the broader car culture, and research from Ontario has found that tough penalties, when enforced, can deter street racing and stunt driving.

“The majority of individuals, you know, go to these meets, and we park our cars and walk around admiring other people’s cars. But yes, there is a small group of the car meets; they’re the ones that’ll be burning rubber,” she said.

Her research has found that people who engage in racing and stunt driving tend to have higher levels of risk-taking and sensation-seeking behaviour.

Vingilis said younger men, particularly those between the ages of 16 and 25, make up the largest group of street racers, although she stressed that risky driving isn’t limited solely to youthful males.

“For them, street racing on a track isn’t necessarily exciting. It’s more exciting to weave in and out of traffic,” she said.

“It’s fascinating. That’s their identity.”

Cherlet said Winnipeg Cruising Culture promotes local race tracks as an alternative to hastily staged heats on public roads.

“Show your car at the car shows, and then keep the racing to the track,” she said.

Vingilis said sanctioned tracks can be part of the solution, although she hasn’t seen research showing they actually reduce the prevalence of street racing.

She also suggested replacing cruising with static car shows, which could preserve the social side of the community while reducing noise and traffic concerns.

But that would mean transforming a tradition in which the appeal has always been tied to the movement itself — the cars rolling down Portage, the people watching from the sidewalks and the feeling of being part of something happening across the city.

For the people who have spent decades in Winnipeg’s car community, that’s what makes a cruise different from simply parking a car at a show.

Take David Atkinson, talking to the Free Press next to his wife, watching the cars pass by on Portage. He still drives in from Selkirk every Sunday, a tradition he says is more than 40 years old.

His night starts at the Grant Park show before heading to Portage Avenue to grab some coffee and settle in for his favourite part of the weekly ritual.

“Sitting here and watching,” Atkinson said.

zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca