Going to drive-ins became a popular pastime in Cape Town during the 1960s and 1970s, although most were restricted to white audiences. Towards the end of this period, however, the arrival of television and emerging cinemas in ‘Coloured’ areas pushed white cinema owners throughout the city to apply for permits for mixed-race audiences and to transform the white-only status of their venues. This article focuses on drive-ins, an overlooked dimension of South African cinema history, and proposes that these venues are an important lens through which to examine the racial politics of cinema during apartheid, particularly from the late 1970s. As spaces that contrasted with the homogeneity of walled cinemas and their urban audiences, the drive-in became both a symbol of segregation in the city and a placeholder for transition. The opening-up of all Cape Town’s drive-ins in 1980 signalled new commercial horizons of non-racial audiences, making desegregation a popular buzzword and revealing the complex dynamics of racial integration before the end of apartheid.

在 1960 年代和 70 年代，开车兜风成为开普敦流行的消遣方式，尽管大多数仅限于白人观众。然而，在这一时期的末期，电视和新兴电影院进入“有色人种”地区，促使整个城市的白人电影院所有者为混血观众申请许可证，并改变其场馆仅限白人的地位。本文重点关注南非电影史上一个被忽视的驾车影院，并提出这些场馆是一个重要的镜头，可以用来审视种族隔离期间，尤其是 1970 年代后期以来的电影种族政治。作为与围墙电影院及其城市观众的同质性形成鲜明对比的空间，汽车影院既成为城市隔离的象征，又成为过渡的占位符。