What Is The Best State For Gear Heads? Question Of The Day

Whether driving, collecting or photographing your classic car, its difficult to find the single best state, unless you talk to its residents.

Question: What U.S. state Is the best for car nuts?

Answer: It depends on who you ask.

Where to live as a car nut depends a lot on how, where and under what conditions you like to drive. The U.S. has close to 4 million miles of paved roadways and each of them is unique. Texas has the most miles of roads in America with 305,692 miles of paved roads. California is a distant second for roads, but remains close to many car fanatics for its sunshine, diverse landscape and generally dry climate.

“California car enthusiasts may be the luckiest in the world,” said Scott Martin, a photojournalist and California native. “Where else can you surf and ski in the same day? And to get us there, we have some of the cleanest, rust-free vehicles (around).”

Certainly car culture remains strong in California, America’s most populated state, but other states offer many the benefits of California rust-free zones with even more photogenic vistas.

Clear skies and warm weather is what helps draw so many enthusiasts to Arizona. A longtime favorite of car collectors, home of the famed Barrett-Jackson automotive auction and blessed by a famously dry climate.

“Arizona is great for car freaks,” said Joe Sage of Arizona Driver Magazine. “The roads (are) clear, dry, smooth, pothole-free and freshly striped (for) smooth sailing.”

Postcard destinations fill Arizona such as the high alpine of Flagstaff, the red rocks of Sedona, and, of course, the Grand Canyon, said Sage.

If the enthusiast in you means you view speed limits as suggestions, you may want to avoid Illinois, where the maximum speeding ticket costs $2500. Virginia is notorious for putting speeders in jail.

Perhaps those drivers should consider Tennessee whose max fine tops out at a mere $50. Hawaii offers unparalleled views and because of the state’s 60 mph max speed limit, you don’t miss a thing. While in Texas, some rural interstates allow drivers to cruise through at legal top speeds of 85mph.

Or could one of the country’s smallest states be the most appealing to passionate motorists?

“There’s nothing like getting into your 550-horsepower Jaguar F-Type 6-speed and lurching along the freeway at 15 miles an hour,” said Scotty Reiss, founder of SheBuysCars.com and president of the International Motor Press Association. “That’s why you need back roads filled with hills and dales to put your dream car to work. This is one of the things that makes Connecticut such a great place to drive: the back roads. The cars of choice in Connecticut run the spectrum from Bugattis and Ferraris to Jeeps and souped up Hondas.”

Regardless of where you end up, you’ll never be far from an enthusiast. There are official car clubs in every state of the union and the less official, “cars and coffee” style meetups everywhere from Anchorage to San Juan, Puerto Rico. And with online forums uniting gear heads from all ends of the globe, you can connect with other enthusiasts without even starting your engine.