More than 100 vintage vehicles rolled into the parking lot outside Forest Lawn-Glendale's Hall of Crucifixion-Resurrection on Sunday, turning a cemetery lot into a morning showcase of classic cars, free coffee and doughnuts, contests and prizes. The occasion was Forest Lawn-Glendale's third annual “Classic Cars & Coffee,” a gathering that pairs the polished chrome of privately owned collector cars with the memorial park's own fleet of vintage Cadillac funeral coaches.
The event, held August 9, 2026, was documented by Los Angeles Daily News, whose photos by Gene Blevins captured the scene at the Crucifixion-Resurrection parking lot. Forest Lawn's own collection of vintage Cadillac coaches was part of the display, according to the outlet, giving visitors a rare close-up look at the hearses that have served the memorial park for decades.
Among the standout vehicles was a 1950 Meteor-Cadillac dubbed the Statesman, which features rear fins styled after a World War II P-38 airplane and is powered by a 331-cubic-inch V8 engine producing 160 horsepower, per details reported by Beverly Press & Park Labrea News. The fleet also includes a 1959 Cadillac Park Row, a 1963 Cadillac Crown Royale, a 1965 Cadillac Silver Spirit boasting a 340-horsepower V8, and a 1967 Cadillac Victoria, according to details listed on the event's own page at forestlawn.com.
A Working Fleet Behind the Scenes
Keeping those decades-old coaches running falls to Forest Lawn-Glendale's internal Automotive and Mechanical Maintenance Department, the same crew responsible for servicing the heavy machinery that moves over 30,000 cubic yards of earth annually across the memorial park's 250 acres of lawns and gardens, Beverly Press & Park Labrea News reports. It's a detail that underscores how the vintage hearses aren't museum pieces trotted out once a year but part of an operation built to maintain both grounds and fleet year-round.
The show-car parking area required advance sign-up this year, with vehicle owners hoping to display their classic cars needing to RSVP by July 31 ahead of the August 9 event, according to ColoradoBoulevard.net. General admission remained open to the public without that requirement.
A Backdrop Built Around a Massive Painting
The parking lot chosen for the show sits directly outside the Hall of Crucifixion-Resurrection, home to Jan Styka's 1890s panorama painting “The Crucifixion.” The painting measures 195 feet long by 45 feet high, making it the largest religious painting in the Western United States, according to the Forest Lawn Museum. The hall was built specifically to house the artwork after its discovery in 1943.
Car show attendees also got a bonus this year: free access to the Forest Lawn Museum's closing day of “Convergence: Contemporary Artists of Armenian Descent,” an exhibition featuring works by more than 20 artists exploring diaspora identity, as reported by The California Courier. The pairing tied the car meet to Forest Lawn's broader arts programming and to Glendale's large Armenian-American community.
Three Years Running, Rooted in a Regional Tradition
Forest Lawn launched Classic Cars & Coffee as an annual summer gathering in August 2024, held its second edition on August 10, 2025, and returned for this third installment on August 9, 2026, according to the event listing on forestlawn.com. The format echoes a Southern California tradition that dates back to the early 2000s, when informal Cars & Coffee meets began in Crystal Cove before moving to Irvine and eventually spreading into a worldwide automotive custom, per Capital One.
That a cemetery hosts such a festive public gathering traces back to the memorial park's founding philosophy. Forest Lawn-Glendale was founded in 1906 across 300 acres, and in 1917 manager Hubert Eaton pioneered the “memorial park” concept by replacing traditional upright tombstones with flat ground markers set into a park-like landscape, according to Britannica. Eaton's vision favored optimistic spaces built for the living, a philosophy that still shows up in events like this one.
Forest Lawn-Glendale is the flagship of the Southern California memorial park chain and is the final resting place of cultural icons including Walt Disney and Elizabeth Taylor, according to the Santa Monica Review. That legacy, combined with its architecture and art collection, draws more than one million visitors to the grounds each year, the outlet notes.
