On May 30, Visit Tulsa (the tourism organization for the city of Tulsa) invited thousands across the country to participate in a record-breaking parade.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Route 66, the organization gathered attendees to break The Guinness World Record for the longest parade (by number) of classic cars. This record was previously held in Dorado, Puerto Rico with 2,491 cars. The 2026 Capital Cruise succeeded in breaking this record at 3,596 cars. The parade hosted drivers from 42 American states and even saw participants from Canada and France.
The only requirement for these cars to be considered classic was that they had to be at least 30 years old, meaning they had to have been made before 1996. To participate in this cruise, vehicles had to be insured, roadworthy (running), and able to idle at certain points on the route. Gaps between cars during the parade could not exceed two car lengths. The cruise traveled around Tulsa’s Expo Square with registration being held in the Expo Center.
I had the pleasure of participating in this cruise; Although I do not own a classic car of my own, I was able to ride along in my boyfriend’s 1979 Fiat X/19. We stayed nearby and drove into the city separately, as the car was just barely road-ready, so I could get breakfast while he registered. I found it rather easy to find the expo center, however my boyfriend’s GPS sent him to a different exit, and he ended up on the other side of the Square. This landed him in the parade’s staging line, which he could not get out of because of the parade roadblocks. This line did not move for over an hour. My phone was not working, making communications while trying to register his car incredibly difficult.
To register vehicles, the driver had to be present to verify their driver’s license. The simplest solution would have been to just change drivers and verify my license since I was there, but cruise attendees seemed rather strict on registered drivers, and I could not drive his car because it’s a manual transmission. I stood in the registration area for nearly two hours until the parade line began moving, and an incredibly helpful volunteer walked out with me to find my boyfriend and verify his license. However, many were not as fortunate as we were.
Although there was a pre-registration process that allowed drivers to prepay their fees online, they still had to verify their driver’s license in person at the registration area. Because the registration area was in the Expo Square and the parade route ran around the square, many drivers ran into complications not unlike ours and were completely unable to register and therefore unable to participate. My boyfriend was likely the last driver to register at number 4,754. The Tulsa Route 66 Association was incredibly apologetic to all registered drivers and even issued refunds of the registration fees.
Apart from the confusion and complications, the cruise yielded a rather fun day. As expected with classic cars, the smell of exhaust fumes hung heavy in the air during points of idle. When I walked out of the Expo Center to find and verify my boyfriend, the smell immediately hit me like a brick wall. Fortunately, it wasn’t so heavy when we got moving. We had removed the convertible roof since his car doesn’t have a working AC system, so the sun beat down on us when we idled. There were many cars that stalled along the way and a handful that even needed push-started. We even saw a square-body Chevrolet truck blow its thermostat.
Fortunately, there were no accidents and the parade line moved relatively quickly. We finished our part in the cruise before noon, and we spent the rest of the day thrifting and even visited the Philbrook Art Museum. Overall, the Capital Cruise was an event to remember. I will definitely be on the lookout for more events like this in the future.
Jessiekah Cook is a third-year Creative Writing major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
