The community of Cerritos was named after the original Spanish land grant Rancho Los Cerritos.

The community was dominated by dairy farming until 1963, when local laws were changed to permit construction of houses on lots of less than five acres. The name was changed from Dairy Valley to Cerritos four years later, and the community grew quickly.

During 1979, the Cerritos Redevelopment Agency worked on the improvement of Studebaker Road, and in October S & J Chevrolet broke ground for the first auto dealership in the Cerritos auto mall, directly west of the 605 Freeway, between 183rd and South streets. In 1988, the Los Cerritos Redevelopment Agency purchased the 8.5 acres from the General Telephone Company and spent $1.2 million for road improvements, landscaped medians and parkways, rocky waterfalls, and decorative street lights. The site was soon the new home of Moothart Chrysler-Plymouth and Victory Pontiac-GMC. Eventually it would be joined by other dealerships in buildings that featured a distinctive "New Orleans" style. Cerritos Nissan opened as Moon Nissan in 1979 and changed names in 2001.

The Auto Square, the world's largest with 27 dealerships, provides the City with approximately $10 million a year in sales tax, and is the single largest source of revenue for Cerritos. In 2005, the Auto Square sold 52,856 automobiles, totaling over $1.2 billion in sales.