2004 Woodward Dream Cruise, Part III

The weather both cursed and blessed the past week’s Tenth Annual Woodward Dream Cruise. Officially, the Dream Cruise only happens all day the third Saturday of August.

Because it is still a spontaneous "people" event — despite numerous corporate sponsorships and hangers-on — the parade of mostly Golden Oldies cars really goes on unofficially every night all the preceding week.

So Friday night it rained, putting the damper on top-downs, and forcing the thousands of previewers under their umbrellas and tents along the 16 miles of Woodward Avenue . This year the Michigan State Fair, just south of Eight Mile within Detroit’s city limits, wisely opened a week early to anchor the bottom of the Cruise stretching all the way northwest to the loop of what for a long time was Wide Track Boulevard in Pontiac.

But Cruise Day dawned sunny and pleasantly cool, a real break for the thousands of vintage cars and hot-rodded engines which have a hard time avoiding overheating along the miles of parking lot that Woodward’s eight lanes become. Creeping must be hard, too, on the clutching left legs of drivers of the mostly stick-shift cars.

I live in an old Royal Oak neighborhood, Vinsetta Park , which stretches along the east side of Woodward for half a mile. When the subdivision was laid out around 1916, over what are now Woodward’s northbound lanes lay the double main tracks of the Grand Trunk Railroad, and double interurban rails ran through what is now the grassed-and-gardened median. Only what is now the southbound side was a roadway then for motorized and, yes, animal-powered vehicles.

Thus it’s fairly convenient for me to duck through the numerous neighborhoods Cruise parties and Cruise parkers to cover the event for TheCarConnection.

My assignment this year focused on motoring oddities. The trick is to capture them photographically because the one you want always seems to be three lanes away and clear shots are difficult with the constantly shifting traffic, even if merely snailing along.

What the Dream Cruise brings out especially is an odd combination of true creativity with a wonderful sense of humor. An outstanding example of the latter was a '70s Dodge full-size passenger van covered with Teddy Bear dolls. I don’t know what the message was, but it sure looked cuddleable and the passel of kiddy passengers were sure enjoying themselves. In a similar funny vein was a '60s Cadillac Coupe de Ville covered with beer-bottle caps.

Then there were the half dozen miniature mid-Fifties Fords and Chevys I saw, immaculately cut down to fit over golf cart chassis. Their license plates proclaimed, "Honey I Shrunk the Car."

Another category of oddities were those with Hollywood memories: a Batmobile, platform indiscernible across six lanes; a Back to the Future DeLorean, and several Blues Brothers Mopar black-and-white police cars complete with occupants in shades, fedoras and black suits. Probably unintentionally, for me there were some others with movie memories, for example, an original-appearing Humphrey Bogart Big Sleep '38 Plymouth business coupe.

Walking a couple of miles up and down Woodward, one can only catch a small slice of the panorama of curious cruisers. I noted license plates from as far away as Georgia and Colorado and as close as Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Windsor, Ontario, actually lies across the river south of Detroit rather than north as so many Americans think of our Canadian neighbors. Even considering its proximity, judging by their showing at the Cruise there must be a treasure trove of collector cars in Ontario . Of special interest at the DC were the unique-to-Canada Ford and GM products that flourished in the Forties and Fifties. Canadian Ford dealers offered a medium-priced Mercury called the Monarch, Canadian Mercury dealers (now kaput) sold a Ford-sized Meteor, and Canadian Pontiac, a Chevrolet-sized Parisienne.

The vast majority of Cruisers are muscle cars, street rods, and especially modifieds those that pretty much maintain original appearance but have been re-powered and re-suspended. I noticed that modifiers now are turning to vintage Chrysler products for their artistry, for the simple reason that they are in ample supply and are, well, cheaper to buy.

Another newly fertile field for modifiers and their cousins, the rodders, appeared to be unit-bodied Square Birds and giant Lincolns and Continentals of the late '50s. Some of these have been very artistically chopped, channeled, cleaned and sensationally painted. The expertise of those I’ve been known to demean as "shade tree mechanics" was demonstrated in both design and metalworking skill at the Cruise and herewith I offer my apology.

You don’t see too many of the truly antique Cruising. I spotted perhaps a half dozen Model Ts that had not been cut up and remade into rods, and a few Model As likewise. Generally, the Cruise is no place for true classics, either, though on Friday night I trailed a neat '36 Cadillac convertible coupe with side-mounts and on Saturday, there was a handsome '38 Lincoln Zephyr four-door convertible. The curious thing about the Ontario-plated silver LZ was that it had been modified — inside only — with unusual hand controls for the driver, no steering wheel. Indeed, why shouldn’t a handicapped driver be able to experience fully the fun of old cars?

And just because the '67 Lincoln Continental was the last legitimate four-door convertible didn’t stop the folks showing their like wares off to the Woodward throngs. I saw two: a never-was '59 DeSoto four-door with the top neatly cut off and an '80s Mercury Colony Park wagon, likewise with the top cut off, somewhat more crudely (work in progress). Indeed there were quite in few WIPs in the Cruise, at least one plainly so labeled.

Finally, there was the category of what I’ll call grandmother or estate-sale cars — the well-preserved decades-old two- or four-door sedans that make you feel like you’re in a time warp. Let’s hope we can keep the choppers and the modifiers prospecting in junkyards rather than probate courts.

Altogether, as I’ve written before about this event, it’s hands-down simply THE greatest free car show. Period.