Jim Reinders studied Stonehenge while living in England. At the memorial for his father, Herman, in 1982, on the farm north of Alliance where Herman had lived, he proposed building a copy of it at the same size and in the same arrangement, out of cars. Five years later the family gathered for a reunion and did it: nearly forty old American cars, some set upright in pits and others welded across their tops as lintels, in a circle about 96 feet across, all sprayed gray. A 1962 Cadillac stands in as the heel stone. It was dedicated at the summer solstice of 1987.
Alliance did not want it at first. Neighbors called it an eyesore and asked for a junkyard fence, and the city judged it an improper use of the land and ordered it torn down. In September 1989 supporters formed the Friends of Carhenge to bring it into compliance and keep it, and a zoning variance settled the matter. Reinders gave the group the ten acres. In 2011 they put the site up for sale, and on October 1, 2013, they gave it to the city.
Other sculptures made from cars and car parts have joined the circle, and the grounds are now called the Car Art Reserve. A visitor center opened in 2006. On August 21, 2017, the site lay in the path of the total solar eclipse, and an estimated 4,000 people watched from it.
The closest stops worth working into your route