Abstract: Effective large content files distribution in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is very challenging. Motivated by the fact that there are large amount of long time outside parked vehicles in urban areas, this paper proposes a collaborative parked vehicle based multimedia content distribution strategy, which does not need any roadside infrastructure, but leverages outside parked vehicles as the natural infrastructures to maintain content and provide content distribution services for moving vehicular users. At first, to each road, parked vehicles both at roadside and off-street are grouped into a cluster. Secondly, content distribution patterns based on parking clusters are presented and algorithms are designed to efficiently distribute content over VANETs. Simulation results based on a real city map and realistic traffic situations show that collaborative parked vehicle based multimedia content distribution (CPVC) achieves the highest data delivery ratio with low delivery delay and network overhead in comparison with other comparison algorithms, especially in sparse traffic and multiple subscribers conditions.