This famous stretch of road is the world’s best joyride

In a city obsessed with cars, there’s arguably no more romantic road in Los Angeles than Mulholland Drive. Winding along the craggy ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains for 34 kilometres, it’s the ultimate stretch of tar for a joyride, with scenic turnouts that have lured forbidden lovers and Hollywood bad boys burning rubber for decades.

Mulholland Drive … “You feel the history of Hollywood in that road.”

“You feel the history of Hollywood in that road,” said David Lynch, director of the eponymous murder mystery of 2001 that celebrated Mulholland Drive’s dreamlike mystique. “It’s a mysterious road. It’s rural in many places. It’s curvy, it’s two lanes, it feels old. It was built long ago, and it hasn’t changed too much. And at night, you ride on top of the world.”

Like the Hollywood sign, Mulholland Drive began life in 1924 as a means of opening up real estate, a link to the rural outskirts of Los Angeles. But with its celestial heights and views over Downtown, Hollywood and the Valley, it soon became one of the most desirable addresses in itself, attracting movie stars (Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson) and mobsters (Bugsy Siegel) alike.

The young stars of Hollywood were also drawn to the parkway’s infamous curves. James Dean used to practise his car-racing skills on its hairpin bends; while the script for Dean’s opus magnum Rebel Without a Cause was inspired by “chicken runs” – where two cars drive towards each other at speed, with the loser first to swerve out of the way – through a tunnel on Mulholland.

Laura Harring and Naomi Watts in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

By the 1960s, street racing on Mulholland was a regular occurrence, with the short stretch between Laurel Canyon and Coldwater Canyon – unofficially named the “Mulholland Raceway” – the after-dark epicentre of mayhem, car crashes and police pursuits.

While Porsche 911s may have been the model of choice for these reckless drag races, I’m headed to Mulholland Drive in a slightly less salubrious vehicle – a Toyota Corolla rental. I’m driving the parkway from east to west, but finding the correct entrance is easier said than done, with my GPS directing me to the shortest, rather than the complete route.

After battling my way through horrendous LA traffic, I eventually negotiate the tricky on-ramp, via a bridge off Cahuenga Boulevard East; but just as I settle into the uphill climb, I overshoot the first overlook, forcing me to double-back. But it’s worth the frustration – the view from the Jerome C Daniel Overlook is sensational, with views of the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Sign, the skyscrapers of Downtown and beyond to the Pacific – an incomparable make-out spot.

An incomparable make-out spot along Mulholland Drive.Credit: Alamy

Then the fun begins, with the sensual S-bends a test for the handling ability of any vehicle (even a Corolla). The nicknames given to the challenging switchbacks during the racing heyday speak volumes: Deadmans Curve, Sweeper, the Corkscrew and Carls – named after a racer who was killed on a blind hairpin. But after the logjams of the soulless interstates below, driving Mulholland is sheer bliss, a dynamic invitation to freedom.

“I think because of the views, Mulholland gives you a semi-religious feeling of being up there and in control,” says writer David Thomson in his essay, Beneath Mulholland. ”It is where Satan would take you if he were to offer you the city.”

At the Universal City Overlook, I spy the turrets of Hogwarts at Universal Studios Hollywood; while a few kilometres on, I linger at Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook, named after a resident who, for 60 years, campaigned to stop development of Fryman Canyon, now a popular recreational parkland that provides vital habitat for bobcats, grey foxes and mule deer.

But Mulholland Drive saves its best views to the bitter end. Beyond the 405 freeway, the road peters out, reduced to a gravel track leading to the remote San Vincente Mountain Park, a former Cold War missile launch site that has been returned to wilderness, with picnic areas and hiking trails.

Climb the spiral staircase of the original radar tower for 360-degree views across the canyonlands of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Encino Reservoir and the San Fernando Valley – a breathtaking vista that challenges the perception of Los Angeles as an over-developed concrete jungle.

The details

Drive
Midway Car Rental Los Angeles has an outlet at LAX as well as several throughout Los Angeles. See midwaycarrental.com

Fly
Delta Air Lines has a direct daily flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. See delta.com

The writer was a guest of LA Tourism. See discoverlosangeles.com