Cruising returns to LA's legendary Van Nuys street

LOS ANGELES - As tricked-out old cars rumbled past on Van Nuys Boulevard, Reid Stolz still had trouble believing what he'd done.

This was not just any crowded six-lane urban thoroughfare but the storied street immortalized in the 1970s film Van Nuys Blvd. and in folk tales as the place where cruising may have begun.

But much has changed here in the land of cars since then. The cruisers left long ago, driven away by police. In the years since, they and their gas-guzzling cars were replaced by the big worries of global warming and costly gasoline.