Drive-in cinemas are rare these days. But the last one in Melbourne’s north still draws a faithful crowd

The drive-in demands little of its audience. You can lie down, bring your dog and talk without fear of being hushed. Mridula Amin spent a night at one of the last of a dying breed Between a funeral parlour and a sink factory, a queue of cars slowly disappears down a driveway. Most arrive with plenty of time to spare – to turn their backseats into beds, tune their radios to the film audio and let children play on the bitumen or finish their takeaway dinner. By the time darkness falls, hundreds of cars are pointed towards a screen that has outlived almost every other drive-in in Melbourne. “There’s something about watching a film under the stars, in the night air,” says Michael O’Neill, a car detailer who lives in Echuca, a five-hour return trip from the Coburg Drive-In. At the peak of their popularity, there were more than 300 drive-in cinemas in Australia. Now, the Coburg Drive-In is the last one left within an hour of the Melbourne CBD. O’Neil has been coming to the drive-in for 20 years, and when the light-up sign comes into view, it’s not unlike the feeling of coming home. He visits monthly. People back home have often jeered, telling him it’s a waste of time. Bu