Survey Says: Americans Rank Muscle Cars Above Baseball as a National Symbol
Hagerty's 2,000-person survey found the road trip and the muscle car both out-scored baseball, apple pie, and rock 'n' roll on "iconically American."
A Hagerty-commissioned survey of 2,000 American adults, fielded in May 2026, found that more respondents rated muscle cars and "the road trip" as iconically American than rated baseball, apple pie, or rock 'n' roll the same way. The sample skewed slightly female (52%/48%) and was spread fairly evenly across generations, with an average respondent age of 46.
The driving-culture numbers underneath the headline finding are just as telling: 86% of respondents currently hold a driver's license, and roughly two-thirds of licensed respondents say they drive daily. Just over half say they can drive a manual transmission — and 10% of those who can't say they'd like to learn.
Surveys commissioned by a company with an obvious stake in car culture's popularity always deserve a little skepticism about the framing. But the underlying numbers on license-holding, daily driving, and manual-transmission literacy are concrete enough to stand on their own, independent of whatever headline Hagerty chose to put on top of them.
For the First Time, All 20 BMW Art Cars Are Under One Roof in Munich
A free exhibition at BMW Welt brings together five decades of the automaker's Art Car program, from Alexander Calder's 1975 Le Mans racer to Julie Mehretu's 2024 hypercar.
RADwood Brings Its '80s and '90s Car Show Back to Tacoma, This Time Free to Spectators
The traveling nostalgia show that turned Fox-body Mustangs and Radwood-era Japanese coupes into concours material returned to Griot's Garage in Tacoma on July 18, with Hagerty video host Jason Cammisa as the marquee guest.
Lamborghini Will Gather Over 40 Miuras on Pebble Beach's 3rd Fairway for the Car's 60th Birthday
For the first time in the Concours d'Elegance's history, a fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links will be opened to a single-marque tribute, as Lamborghini assembles what it calls the largest gathering of Miuras ever staged.