Route 66 in Popular Culture: From The Grapes of Wrath to Cars
by C. V. Wooster · October 5, 2026 · 4 min read
Plenty of American highways are longer, busier, or more scenic than Route 66. None of them has a theme song. Over a century, a road built to connect Chicago and Los Angeles became a symbol, of escape, of hard times, of freedom, of nostalgia. That transformation happened largely through books, songs, television, and film. This post traces the main stops on that cultural journey, and how a book about one desert driveway fits into it.
The mother road
The most famous description of Route 66 comes from John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck followed the Joad family, Dust Bowl migrants driving from Oklahoma to California, and he gave the highway a name that stuck: "the mother road, the road of flight."
For Steinbeck, Route 66 was not a vacation route. It was the road that hundreds of thousands of displaced families took west in the 1930s, carrying everything they owned. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and John Ford's 1940 film adaptation brought those images to millions more. The desert crossing near Needles and Barstow is part of the Joads' journey.
That origin matters. Before Route 66 was nostalgic, it was a road of necessity.
Get your kicks
After World War II, the mood changed. In 1946, songwriter Bobby Troup wrote "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" while driving west with his wife. The lyrics are essentially a list of towns along the road, including Kingman, Barstow, and San Bernardino. The Nat King Cole Trio recorded it the same year, and it became a hit. Since then, it has been recorded by a long list of artists, from Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones.
The song captured the postwar boom: new cars, paid vacations, and a whole country eager to see itself. Route 66 became the road to the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and the Pacific, lined with motels, diners, and roadside attractions that competed for travelers' attention.
The TV series
From 1960 to 1964, CBS aired a drama called Route 66. It followed two young men driving across the country in a Corvette convertible, taking odd jobs and getting involved in the lives of the people they met. The show was filmed on location in many states, and despite its title, much of it was not shot on Route 66 itself.
The series reinforced the idea of the open road as a place of freedom and adventure, just as the interstate system was beginning to replace the old highway it was named for.
Decline and revival
As Interstate 40 and the other interstates opened, Route 66 towns lost their traffic. The road was officially removed from the U.S. highway system in 1985. Many businesses closed. Some towns nearly disappeared.
Then came the revival. In Seligman, Arizona, barber Angel Delgadillo helped found a state Route 66 association in 1987 to bring travelers back to the old road. Similar groups formed in other states. Signs reading "Historic Route 66" went up. International visitors, especially from Europe and Japan, began arriving in large numbers, drawn by the myth.
Congress later created the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, run by the National Park Service, to help preserve historic buildings along the road. And in 2020, it established the Route 66 Centennial Commission to plan for the road's 100th anniversary on November 11, 2026.
Bagdad Cafe and the European road
One film did a great deal to draw European travelers to the desert stretch. Percy Adlon's 1987 film Bagdad Cafe, shot at a diner in Newberry Springs, became a cult favorite in Germany and France. The diner took the film's name and became a pilgrimage stop. Our post on Bagdad Cafe and Newberry Springs tells that story.
Cars
For many younger travelers, Route 66 means one thing: Pixar's 2006 animated film Cars. Its fictional town of Radiator Springs, a forgotten stop bypassed by the interstate, was inspired by real Route 66 places and people. The filmmakers took research trips along the road, and Angel Delgadillo's story of a town losing its traffic helped shape the film. Cars introduced the old road to a new generation of families.
Why the myth lasts
The stories above share a few themes that explain why the road keeps its hold. Route 66 is a road with a clear beginning and end, Chicago and the Pacific, so it feels like a journey rather than a commute. It passes through small towns rather than around them, so it is full of people and places with names. And it was replaced, which gives it the pull of something lost. A road that still carried all the traffic would just be a road. A road that was bypassed becomes a story about what progress leaves behind.
Where the small stories fit
The big cultural images of Route 66 are about movement: migrants heading west, vacationers on the road, two young men in a Corvette, a race car lost in a small town. Less often told are the stories of the people who stayed, who lived beside the road and depended on it, and who had to decide what to do when the traffic moved somewhere else.
Mrs. Orcutt's Driveway is one of those stories. Bonnie Orcutt was not passing through. She lived on 100 acres east of Newberry, on a driveway that met old Route 66, and when the interstate survey crossed that driveway, she wrote letters. Her story is a reminder that every mile of the mother road ran past someone's home.
Celebrating the centennial
If you are marking the centennial, there are many ways to do it: read The Grapes of Wrath, listen to a few versions of the song, watch Bagdad Cafe or Cars, and, if you can, drive a stretch of the old road. Our Route 66 passport is a fun way to collect the famous stops, and our trivia page tests what you know.
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