Tulsa is planning a massive car parade for the Route 66 centennial in May, and community leaders are hoping it will be one for the history books — literally.
City and state leaders announced Friday that the Route 66 Capital Cruise, a 5.5-mile classic car parade celebrating the Mother Road’s birthday May 30, will be an official Guinness World Records attempt for the most classic cars in a single parade.
“We want to celebrate this momentous year and this momentous occasion in a manner worthy of the capital of Route 66,” said Jonathan Huskey, senior director of communications at Tulsa Regional Tourism. “What better way than doing something that has never been done before?”
The current world record for the largest parade of classic cars is 2,491 and was set in Dorado, Puerto Rico in April 2017, Huskey said.
“Our goal is 3,000,” Huskey said. “We don’t want to just break the record. We want to blow it out of the water and make sure we hang on to it for a while.”
Any car with a model year of 1996 or older can participate in the cruise, Huskey said. The parade will stage at Expo Square, then travel downtown along Route 66. The official count will take place in front of Mother Road Market.
“If you’ve got a ’96 Camry and it runs, sign her up,” Huskey said.
A parade to ‘unite this country’
Several speakers at Friday’s event, including Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, members of the Tulsa Route 66 Commission and representatives of Visit Tulsa, called the Route 66 Capital Cruise a chance to spotlight all Tulsa has to offer.
“The eyes of the world will be on our city, and there’s no better time to maximize on the momentum and the good fortune that our city has right now,” Huskey said.
Brian Paschal, CEO of the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation and vice chair of the Route 66 Commission, said the Guinness World Records partnership will elevate the May 30 centennial celebration to “another level.”
“There is no road more famous than Route 66 and there will be no celebration along the route quite like the Guinness World Record Capital Cruise to honor it,” Paschal said.
Christian Bengel, District 6 city councilor and chair of the Route 66 Commission, said Tulsa will host tourists from all over the world.
“We intentionally set ourselves on a collision course with May 30,” Bengel said. “As I said back in October, it’s time for us to start cleaning our house here in Tulsa as we welcome and invite visitors from not only across America, but also across our great oceans.”
Alongside Route 66’s centennial celebration, Pinnell noted that 2026 also marks the 250th birthday of the United States. Route 66 is known as the “main street of America for a reason,” he said.
“I think it’s the road and it is the centennial that can absolutely unite this country at a time when we desperately need it,” Pinnell, a Republican, said. “It’s a divisive time. There’s always divisive times in America … but there is this road that winds through all of it. It’s for everybody. It’s not blue, it’s not red, it’s purple. It’s that linear road that runs through the entirety of the American storyline.”
Pinnell views the centennial as a chance for everyone who loves the Mother Road to have “an adult conversation” about who we want to be as a country.
“What do we want to be as Americans?” Pinnell said. “I think Route 66 gives us the opportunity to have that conversation with people from all across America and all across the world, from all walks of life.”
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