![]() ![]() The heaters, which blow warm air into the car, are powered via a cord running from a pole outside that can be rolled up in the window or closed into the door. “If you’re lucky enough to have one nearby that does stay open, don’t forget about it in the wintertime, because it could be a good experience as well,” Sherer said.īesides, he added, you don’t need bug repellant in the winter to keep your family from being eaten alive by mosquitos: “That’s one advantage.”īerean recommends that people bring a blanket with them to the show, but Ford does offer complimentary in-car electric heaters that users should set on their vehicle’s floorboards. Still, he conceded, with some blankets and some of those pocket hand-warmer things, a winter drive-in could prove to be a novel experience as the drive-in during the summer is in its own way. Plus, he noted, he’d moved away from Ohio to Las Vegas in the first place because he didn’t exactly love the cold. Sherer said he could imagine how ambient light from ice and snowfall could pose a problem and diminish projection quality of a film in your car. They can be found in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington, while the others are in more temperate Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. Kipp Sherer, who runs Nevada-based, said there are currently about 43 drive-ins open through winter time, though only three are in cold-weather states. But the Ford isn’t the only drive-in among the estimated 335 in operation nationwide that stays open year-round. “It’s chilly, but people still turn out,” said theater manager Virgil Berean, noting that Valentine’s Day weekend was one of the busiest of the season.ĭriving past the Ford as the big screen glows in the frigid winter’s night is quite a sight if you’re not expecting to see it. Not that the Ford typically needs all that space during the winter months, when operating days drop from seven to just Friday through Sunday and attendance dwindles by around 75 percent - down to just the diehards who really love the drive-in experience. ![]() And not just any winter, mind you, but the blistering, bullying winter that blows across the Detroit River from Canada.įormerly known as the Ford-Wyoming drive-in theater - before dropping the Wyoming along with four of its then nine screens in 2010 - the quintuple screener can still accommodate some 1,500 cars at a time. The 66-year-old Ford Drive-In, located in Dearborn, Mich., just outside the capital of American car culture known as the Motor City, is not only billed as the largest remaining drive-in theater in the U.S., it’s also one of a precious few that stays open throughout winter. Related: Drive-ins Dwindle But Nostalgia Is Still Strong ![]() ![]() But as stone-cold crazy as the story might sound, you can watch a good old-fashioned outdoor movie from your car in the dead of Upper Midwestern winter. CARS.COM - John Travolta would’ve been singing a very different tune if instead of Los Angeles, Olivia Newton-John stranded him at the drive-in in Detroit … in January. ![]()
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