It’s funny to see the place so empty. Walking inside the Agger Fish warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, I spot Wheels of NYC founder Oren Hod. He’s standing so far away that he looks like a Lego figurine. This is where Wheels of NYC held its first really big event last year, the pre-launch for Nike’s Air Max DN8 x Victor Victor, which packed this warehouse with the most desirable cars of the ‘90s and ‘00s. Co-hosted with Hypebeast, it was a mix, not a clash, of the sneakerhead and gearhead worlds.

The star of that show, if not the sneakers, was a silver Ferrari F50, a peak point for the late analog/early digital automotive era. It was not quite the kind of car that defined Wheels of NYC at its beginning. “I started Wheels of NYC as an Instagram page of parked cars in the city,” Hod explains from the spare office up a very industrial flight of stairs. “No events, only photos.” New York City is America’s densest urban metropolis, one of the few places in the country where you can live a full life without owning a car at all. But there is a vibrant car scene here, and with little in the way of garage space, even enthusiasts often leave their vintage classics to suffer through on-street parking. “New York also has one of the most interesting car cultures in the world because it’s so diverse and it’s so inclusive. And for example, you can see in one street, actually street parked, a Japanese imported car, a really nice E30 BMW and a vintage Porsche,” says Hod. “And the same people will get excited by each of those cars.”

Hod ran Wheels of NYC as a carspotting account for “probably two years,” but realized that something was missing. Inspired by Humans of New York, Hod wanted to start cataloging the owners of all these oddball classics filling up his page. “As much as cars are important and interesting and everything, I think the owners are as interesting, if not more,” says Hod. “Especially in New York, a car is not really a prestige thing. It’s a taste, it’s a story.”

Taking pictures of street-parked cars, Hod could seek out his subjects. To connect with their drivers, he had to get them to come to him, and in 2021, he started putting together a weekly meetup in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the Manhattan skyline in the distance. They were an instant hit. “You have to remember, it was a year, two years almost, of people not being able to meet each other…the first event, it was packed. And I saw for the first time that what I have is not only followers, it’s a real community. It’s real people who met, became later friends and collaborators.”

These early meets were a burst of energy on the NYC car scene. There had been a real hunger for something like it, featuring cars of every style and era, daily drivers and weekend cruisers alike.

“And then we evolved from there,” says Hod. “I decided to take this platform a step further and create a new type of event,” says Hod, “in which cars are in the centre, but it’s not a car show. It’s not a car meet, and it’s not a car event. It’s a cultural experience.”

Hod wanted Wheels of NYC to reflect the broader interests of a new generation of car collectors. An izakaya night, for instance, brought cars into a hip Japanese restaurant and partnered with a streetwear brand and a local sake producer. The $75 tickets got you hand rolls and sake while a DJ spun in the back.

“What I saw in our events is that they care about cars a lot, but they also care about other analog stuff like watches and turntables and cameras, especially Leicas,” explains Hod. “And fashion and music and art. So that’s what I love about the car culture here. It’s really creative.”

This video of a subtly restored and modified 1999 Mercedes SL500 is Wheels of NYC’s most-viewed post, in no small part because the owner matched his outfit to his car, re-wrapped in an exquisite brown.

Even a simple cars-and-coffee meetup, a style of car show that kicked off in an era young enthusiasts now find nostalgic, is different here. While most cars and coffees are held in quiet, out-of-the-way parking lots, you can run into a row of rally cars at a Wheels of NYC event if you happen to dip out for a coffee and some window shopping in the Lower East Side one morning. It’s a different atmosphere.

Car enthusiasts have been gravitating towards shows that look beyond the usual static, brand- or era-specific meet-ups in parking lots or open fields. Pebble Beach’s Car Week, which offers luxury activations and vintage racing across the Monterey Peninsula, has been bursting at the seams. Increasingly dynamic events like it have been popping up all over the world, like February’s F.A.T Ice race in Big Sky, Montana, showcasing seven-figure classics and well-worn youngtimers in a high-end ski town.

I leave Hod to prep for his next event, the debut of a short film about a small family-run shop in Japan that restores some of the rarest and most desirable Ferraris in the world. After that, he has the big Spring fling on the calendar, on April 4th, here at this very warehouse. There will be cars, for sure, but also a vintage clothing and watch marketplace, too. 

With its diversity of people and interests, Hod thinks New York is becoming the leading car scene in the world. NYC is a high fashion capital, a streetwear capital, a gourmet destination, and a cultural powerhouse. Of course, it would all spill over into the automotive landscape, with owners who integrate their everyday style into their cars. As Hod puts it, “Love is love, and passion is passion.”