It’s Monday night at Sun Day Carwash, and business is booming. Upon driving in, each customer is handed a happy face air freshener that looks more like the logo for a matcha shop than a drive-through car wash. Half of the twelve vacuums are taken, mostly by men detailing their midrange SUVs. Soaring Googie signage advertises the soapy services performed below in a zippy atomic font—a midcentury relic, like the workaday structure itself, acquired from Highland Park Car Wash in June 2024.
In addition to this first LA outpost in gentrified Highland Park, Sun Day currently operates four auto spas in San Luis Obispo County. Offering “self-care for you and your car” and multitiered memberships, the company aims to disrupt the $15 billion car wash industry through a waxy formula of millennial minimalism, inspirational branding, and venture capital. It just might work: A coat or two of #aesthetic can go a long way in these parts.
The prototype of Sun Day, as seen on the website of LA architecture studio Design, Bitches, goes heavy on millennial moderne, boasting deco arche…