‘You almost feel like you’re on parade:’ Mokes offer locals, tourists a new way to see Newport Beach
Ever wonder what those colorful little cars cruising around Newport Beach are? The electric low-speed vehicles commonly associated with the Caribbean and Agent 007 are Mokes, and, boy, does local business owner Sadie Marta own a lot of them.
She’s got them in hot pink, baby pink, red, blue, yellow and white — what she calls “bubblegum” shades — ripe for the picking for anyone who’s interested in renting one for a few hours for an open-air spin around town.
Newport Beach Moke is the result of what Marta’s husband, Chad, jokes is a “crazy idea” she had a year ago after a trip to a spring trip to Solvang.
“I just thought they were cute,” said Sadie Marta. “They made me smile. I was like, ‘Look at those things!’”
Two weeks after that trip she and her husband were sitting on the couch at home, reflecting on the fact their kids were pretty much grown up and out of the nest.
“I went, ‘Is this what our life’s going to be like?’” she recalls saying that day.
“I’m used to kids coming in and out of the house,” she explains. Now that life had quieted down a bit at home she wanted something interesting to do. She reminded Chad of the little vehicles they’d seen in Solvang and told him she thought they should look into operating a fleet closer to home. A new business, Newport Beach Moke, was born.
“I couldn’t believe we didn’t have them in Newport Beach,” she said. “So for two weeks, we had a handful with nowhere to park them. We parked them in our neighbors’ garages. Our dealer had to hold onto some of them while we went on the manhunt for leases.”
Today, people can see Mokes parked in front of the Subway and Jack’s Surfboards on Newport Boulevard, with Marta’s staff on hand to teach riders how to operate the vehicles.
Rental costs for the four-seated vehicles range from $175 for two hours to $400 for five hours. The Mokes are street legal, though users are limited to driving around on Newport Beach’s surface streets up to a 40-mile radius and they may not exceed 35 miles per hour.
People cannot use them to travel on the sand at beaches, the piers, sidewalks or boardwalks.
Marta describes them as a Duffy boat on wheels.
“You can see a whole other side to Newport that you can’t see on a boat or a Duffy,” said Marta. “You can see Lido Marina Village from the water, but you can’t see those cute little cobblestone paths.”
Orange resident and blogger Zineta Dukaj said she heard about Newport Beach Moke through Instagram. Dukaj said she’d grown up in Costa Mesa and spent a lot of time in Newport, but she never saw anything like Mokes until this year.
“My daughter [Aisha] actually thought it was a pink Jeep. She would always mention how she wanted to ride in a pink Jeep, so when I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is perfect,’” said Dukaj. “It’s something she’s always wanted to do.”
Dukaj said renting a Moke had been on her to-do list since February. When the day came in May for the family’s outing, they arrived in outfits color-coordinated to match their ride.
“We got so much attention while on the Moke. They told us, ‘Honk your horn; wave to people,’” said Dukaj. “Everyone came up to us.”
Marin Blom said she and her husband, City Councilman Noah Blom, rented a Moke on Easter weekend.
“We have a restaurant on the peninsula. I saw a lot of the Mokes driving around and they’re so cute and colorful,” Marin Blom said, adding that their Easter run, during which the family organized a scavenger hunt, was the second time the family rented from Newport Beach Moke. The first time was in July for her mother’s birthday.
“There’s something so fun [while you’re] in a Moke,” Blom said. “People wave at you. You almost feel like you’re on parade. ‘I’m so cute in my hot pink Moke.’ There is something so wonderful about it being open air. It goes faster than a golf cart.
“You are keeping up with traffic in a safe way to be on Newport Boulevard or Balboa Island; it feels very beachy,” she continued. “It definitely brings that peninsula vibe. There is something about it that people just smile when they see it and it makes them want to get the Moke.”
Blom said she’s often telling people about the business, fielding questions on where she rents them.
Marta said one of her favorite things to do in a Moke is to cruise throughout Lido, but she also likes to drop by the Balboa Island Museum and say hello. Other days, she likes dropping by the Wedge or any park that she can find to watch the sunset.
Business is busiest on weekends and holidays, Marta said, noting Mokes are beginning to make their rounds in other towns popular with tourists. While Marta plans on continuing operating in Newport, she also has her eyes set on establishing a location in Palm Springs in the near future.
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