On Friday, August 7th 2026, the Santa Barbara 4 Wheel Drive club pulled the seven major sponsored floats in this year’s old Spanish days fiesta parade thus continuing a decade’s long commitment of volunteerism to the city of Santa Barbara and the Old Spanish Days Committee.
With an estimated 50 to 75,000 spectators lining Cabrillo Boulevard, our annual fiesta parade is the largest equestrian event in the country with horses from around Santa Barbara County, Santa Ynez, Ventura County, Los Angeles and more.
This year’s Grand Marshal was none other than our local and longtime news reporterJohn Palminteri. There were many other dignitaries in the parade, including mayor Randy Rowse as well as past fiesta royalty.
The Santa Barbara 4 wheel drive club’s commitment to this event goes far beyond just a very long day that takes place starting at 6 a.m. on parade day.
When we pull the decorated floats out from the Carriage Museum.on to Cabrillo boulevard where they are staged.
There all of our 4WDs are then carefully decorated and eventually we pull the actual designated floats slowly down the parade route giving all aboard a safe,smooth ride.
The following day we pull all the floats back to the carriage museum by 7a.m..
The SB4WDClub for decades did our utmost to maintain the older float bases but when it was time for them to go, the SB4WDC volunteered to completely redesign (thank you Tim) & reconstruct all new float bases from the ground up, providing all the labor as well as maintaining them into the future.
We also do all the, un-stacking and restacking before and after the fiesta week.
The current set of new float bases should now last for many years to come.
Back to the Parade, a few more shots of the team in action:
Many thanks to our volunteer float pullers this year, Tim, Kirk, Darrell, Richard and Christina, Doug and Debbie, Matt, Liz & Bill. Additionally, special thanks to our invaluable alternates, Oliver and Kristina and our emergency backup, Mr. reliable, Dick Hoppe.
All in all, it was a fantastic day enjoyed by thousands as well as our club volunteers.
Until next year, viva la fiesta.
