By A.J. Baime

For the 11(th) straight year, The Wall Street Journal has profiled car and motorcycle lovers in the weekly My Ride column. This year's stories have featured everything from a 1925 Rolls-Royce that makes its home on potholed New York City streets to a "crown jewel" of a lowriding legend. Here are 10 favorites from 2024.

This Pink Mustang Has a Story as Distinctive as Its Paint Job

It was a family mystery -- a pink Ford Mustang with a white and black houndstooth top. Sam McGee's grandmother had owned it before her death in 1973. This car had been built as a Color of the Month promotion in 1968, and as far as McGee knew, it was the only one of its kind made. To honor his grandmother, he went searching for it, located it in Kansas, and spent 20 years convincing the owner to sell. McGee, the owner of a wealth-management firm who lives in Boerne, Texas, finally acquired his grandmother's Mustang in 2022. When he drives it, "it's almost like she's with me," he said, "even though I never got the chance to meet her."

This '54 Chevy Bel Air Is a Crown Jewel for a Lowriding Legend

Oscar Ruelas started a car-themed social club in Los Angeles with friends back when he was barely a teenager. Today, it's known as Duke's, and it has chapters as far off as Japan and Australia. A retired longshoreman in L.A., Ruelas has been customizing cars for over 65 years, and this 1954 "Mr. Lowrider" Chevrolet Bel Air is the one he uses most these days. It has everything from door lock buttons that look like bullets to custom etching to paint that "changes color when the sun hits it," Ruelas said. It's a fitting tribute to the passion for automobiles that has driven Ruelas for most of his life.

To Buy This Rare Bugatti, He Needed Money, Patience and a Trip to France

Bilal Hydrie grew up in Pakistan. His entire life, he dreamed of his ultimate ride: a Bugatti. When he finally had the opportunity to buy one, he flew to France, where company officials interviewed him to find out if he would be a worthy owner. Now the energy company president and CEO, who lives in Calgary, Alberta, owns the last standard 1,500-horsepower Bugatti Chiron that will ever be built, a model that once set a speed record of over 300 mph. "With temperatures at minus-25 degrees Celsius, it's currently in hibernation mode," Hydrie explained. (That's minus-13 Fahrenheit.) "But I can't wait to bring this beast out again in the summer."

She Won Her Classic Corvette in the Weirdest Way Possible

Janet Long, a retired executive recruiter living in University Place, Wash., was at Disneyland in 1989 with her fiancé when they encountered a 1961 Corvette filled with yo-yos. The car was part of a contest; people could guess how many yo-yos were in it, and whoever came closest could take it home. Long's number was around 2,300. Ever since, she has been driving this first-generation Corvette, with one of the yo-yos still hanging from the rearview. The vanity license plate reads: THXDSNY. "This Corvette has always struck me as stunningly beautiful," she said. "I have been driving it now for 35 years."

The Bravest Driver in New York City Gets Around in a 1925 Rolls-Royce

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Jay Gatsby drives a yellow Rolls-Royce. Matt Moran's yellow 1925 Rolls-Royce Twenty once belonged to his godfather. Now Moran, a manager at the Metropolitan Opera, drives it on the streets of New York City, where he lives, and has driven it all over New England and as far as Louisville, Ky. "The brakes are not much stronger than a bicycle's," he said. Currently the car is in a shop in Vermont. But, he says, the Rolls "will come back to New York City when she's good and ready."

A Private Detective Found His Trans Am. It Was Under a Tree in Alabama.

Joe Gransden, an Atlanta-based professional trumpet player and singer, always missed the 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am he owned when he was a teenager, a model he first saw in the same color scheme on screen in the movie "Smokey and the Bandit." He missed it so much that he hired a private investigator to find it. The investigator found the car in Alabama, where it had been sitting under a tree for about 20 years. Gransden bought it, had it restored. It finally arrived home this past July. "It will stay in the family," he said, "this time, forever."

She Owns Several Showstopping Cars. This Rare Ferrari Comes First.

The late Robert "Bob" Lee was traveling through Italy in 1955 when he met Enzo Ferrari, owner of the Ferrari factory in Maranello. The two began a friendship that lasted a lifetime. A year after they met, Lee bought a 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Boano for $9,500, a fortune at the time. That purchase is today a centerpiece of the Robert M. Lee Automobile Collection. Lee died in 2016, but his wife, Anne Brockinton Lee, a former advertising executive who is a Reno, Nev., resident, maintains it. "For Bob, and for me," she said, "the Ferrari 250 GT Boano Cabriolet is what started it all."

This 1966 Wildcat Is So Pristine, It Still Has Original Air in Its Tires

"When I was about 5 years old, I remember my grandma picking me up from the dentist in a big green car," Anson Renshaw recalled. "I couldn't see out the windows." Renshaw grew up in Alaska with lots of memories of this Buick Wildcat. He ended up at Kansas State University, "and the Kansas State Wildcat emblem looked just like the Wildcat on the Buick," he said. In the mid-1990s, while he was still a student, his grandmother gave him the Buick. The car only had 6,993 miles on it. He has kept the car just as it was. However, after his column ran in March, the real-estate valuation officer living in Mesa, Ariz., finally replaced the original tires.

His Family Put 20,000 Miles on a '57 Chevy in One Road Trip

When Kamran Khan was 14, his family went on a 20,000-mile road trip in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. They traveled from England through Europe, to Jerusalem, all the way to Pakistan. "This trip opened the world to me," he said. "I also thought this 1957 Chevrolet was the most beautiful car ever made." In 2018, Khan's family bought a 1957 Bel Air for him for his 70(th) birthday, in the same color scheme as the one he recalled from his youth. These days, the retired civil servant living in Travilah, Md., drives it about 20 miles a week "to keep everything in good shape," he said. "It's a head-turner!"

These Teens Built a Winning Race Car That's Gritty in Pink

In 2021, four Florida high-school students formed a racing team, ultimately naming it Material Girls Racing after the Madonna song. Katie Ortengren, Sam Sentell, Gia Privitera and Teresa Pearlman set out to compete in the Grassroots Motorsports $2,000, a competition where teams build racing cars for under $2,000. With the help of Ortengren's father, they bought a 2013 Ford Taurus Police Interceptor, put a 1985 Ford Ranger body on it, and turned it into Rangerus. This April, Rangerus won the competition. All four team members have since gone off to college. But they intend to compete again next season.

Write to A.J. Baime at myride@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 29, 2024 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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