2021 Woodward Dream Cruise - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

2021 Woodward Dream Cruise

Enjoyed our 27th straight Woodward Dream Cruise last week, which started in 1994 when Ferndale, MI Mayor, Pamela McCullough told resident Nelson House that their city did not have money for a soccer field, but encouraged him to start a fund raiser for a new field. So House and a handful of volunteers conceived the idea to relive and recreate the nostalgic heydays of the 50s and 60s, when youth, music and Motor City steel roamed Woodward Avenue, America’s first paved 4 lane highway. Expecting about 40,000 spectators, 250,000 showed up for that inaugural cruise. The annual dream cruise is now the largest automotive event in the world, drawing 50,000 classic cars and 2 million spectators along its 16 mile route from Detroit to Pontiac. Nearly 100 area charities benefit from the sale of official Dream Cruise merchandise and refreshments each year.

Click this link for previous blogposts about the Dream Cruise. And here’s a video of this year’s cruise. Note that our cruiser, a 2004 retro-Tbird, is shown at the 4:10 mark.

Unofficially, Dream Cruise Week starts out on the Sunday before when various car clubs caravan up and down Woodward. The Thunderbird Club we belong to typically has 30-40 classics for that Sunday cruise, which finishes with dinner at a local restaurant.

The heart of the Dream Cruise is the Irish restaurant pictured here. A local oldies radio station broadcasts out of the location all week and on Saturday, only plays classic car tunes.

Here’s Ted, my retired barber, aka Theo the Thief, touring Woodward in his ’49 Ford.

Here’s my favorite Dream Cruise photo as it shows a red ’62’ Chevy just like my first car documented in this previous blogpost.

Here are some more photos from this year’s cruise:

Say what?

Edsel in front of Berkley’s classic movie theater

Beast in show

A giant boar greets as you walk up behind this 1952 Ford truck turned Rat Rod. Approach it from the front and be prepared for sharp red metal teeth that encapsulate a giant drill bit. This is the Beast and Barry Robinson, 60, of Brownstown is the mastermind behind it.

He used to be into show cars but then got hooked on finding unique additions to the truck. Like the whiskey barrel he has in the cab that holds the gas tank and the glass skull that retains radiator overflow.

“I’m having more fun with this than the fancy cars,” he said.

It’s easy to miss fun, spooky additions to the truck at first glance. There are lasers that pop out of the eyes and mouth, for example. Inside are rats stuck in traps, on the back sits an artillery shell topped with a red light and for extra oomph it has school bus “stop” tail lights.

Perhaps the best feature: “When you go over a big bump the teeth chomp,” Robinson said. “It’s made to look all rusty but it’s almost all new parts. It will never be finished. It’s a work in progress always.”

Fun times along Woodward - till next year.

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Woodward Dream Cruise (cont’d) - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Woodward Dream Cruise (cont’d)

When my wife described last week’s blog about the Woodward Dream Cruise to her Mother, the two reminisced about the summer of 1971 when we first dated. My 1969 Nova SS pictured in last week’s blog had a set of Trush mufflers installed that made it quite loud. My Mother-in-law recalls when I dropped off her daughter after a late night out, the car’s roar would wake her up, which meant she also knew the time. She claimed the noise was audible until I crossed the railroad tracks on Rangeline Road heading back to Ft. Loramie.

Here are some of my other favorite cars at this year’s Dream Cruise. First is a Shelby Cobra, a car I always wanted but never owned primarily because I couldn’t fit in it; no leg room plus my head stuck up over the windshield! The fact that an original model now goes for $250,000 was a minor technicality, but lower cost replicas were available. Today some of the replicas actually have more leg and head room.

Other favorites were the 1969 GTO Judge and Olds Hurst 442. Friends at the time drove both classics that were really fast and had the distinctive monikers that made them instantly recognizable then and now.

Another favorite viewed at the Dream Cruise was the Hemi Under Glass Barracuda that could do amazing wheelies.

I also loved the fastback, boat-tailed Riviera from that era.

The Ford Sunliner was a really cool car with a retractable hardtop that would transform into a convertible. A high school friend had one of those. The hydraulics to raise the trunk lid and store the hardtop were an engineering feat I appreciated, but caused innumerable operational problems at always the wrong time.

The very first car I can remember was Dad’s 1951 Chevy; painted cream color with absolutely no options except 4 doors to allow us kids to pile in. It wasn’t nearly as nice as this restored beauty.

My first Ford vehicle was a 1971 Mercury just like the one below. We bought it with the money from selling the Nova SS about a year after we were married. Time for a family car, I guess.

When Ford purchased Jaguar, we owned two at one point; a 1959 XK150 and 1999 XK8, both maroon convertibles, or drop tops as the Brits call them.

Aretha Franklin’s funeral was held in Detroit this past week, and in her honor, an entourage of pink Cadillacs were included in the funeral procession in recognition of her album Freeway of Love.

Speaking of Aretha, she was in one of my favorite all time movies, the Blues Brothers singing her hit Think. In this years Dream Cruise there was a replica of the old Dodge police car the Blues brothers used in the movie, large rooftop speaker and all!

Speaking of movies, another favorite commemorated at the Dream Cruise was a Delorean featured in Back to the Future with its gull wind doors, flux capacitor and all.

Maybe they’ll make some movies about any of these strange vehicles spied during the Dream Cruise.

Mighty Mouse Cartoon.

Oops!

Rub-a-dub-dub!

Can’t wait till next year’s Cruise!

Woodward Dream Cruise - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Woodward Dream Cruise

The Original Woodward Dream Cruise

As a retired automotive engineer, the annual Woodward Dream Cruise here in Michigan each August represents the perfect time to reflect back on the cars and trucks that I had the privilege to work on as well as own over the years.

The 2018 Cruise was exceptional in that Debby & I were invited to the Roush Racing pavilion right on Woodward north of 13 Mile Road, literally at the epicenter pictured in the aerial photo below of the annual automobile pilgrimage.

We were invited by a fellow Ford retiree who now works for Roush. An informative blurb about the Company and it’s founder, Jack Roush, can be found by clicking on this link.

In addition to the ample food and refreshments that we enjoyed, Roush had set up elevated bleachers right on Woodward offering a perfect vantage point to observe the classic cars passing by. Most brought back some memory or another that I’d like to share with you in this blogpost.

An old Thunderbird was spotted which was like the first test car assigned to me upon starting work at Ford in 1973.

As a member of a team to develop an improved air conditioning system, Ford recruited me from Frigidaire in Dayton, which was the General Motors division responsible for GM's A/C system. At the time, Ford purchased many of their air conditioning parts from Frigidaire, and it irritated boss Henry Ford II that he had to pay his prime competitor for these parts. He directed our group to fix the problem, and after a couple years, we were quite successful. For example, the price of one part came down from from $110 per car to $55 while being 50% lighter. Plus we totally eliminated a $10 part, while also cutting the power draw from the A/C by 50%. I earned a patent on that idea!

To this day, Ford does not buy a single part from GM, or any other competitor for that matter. By 1977, I had moved into the management ranks at Ford so was able to lease my first Thunderbird, a two-tone red on white beauty like shown below that I recall driving down to Columbus for the Loramie Redskin State Basketball Championship game, which we fortunately won! To this day, we still have a Thunderbird; this 2004 model with only 6000 miles that we drove in the cruise this year.

Next to come along was a yellow Plymouth Satellite that looked a lot like a car my sister first drove, but when I texted her a photo, she said it was a yellow Plymouth Duster. I think she eventually totaled that yellow beast, if memory serves, but she was Ok! Her boyfriend at the time, now husband, had a really cool Plymouth Road Runner.

As a Ford guy, Mustang’s have always been one of my favorites, kindled by my first exposure to the pony car in the spring of 1964 at Eagle Park in Minster documented in this previous blogpost. We also had a yellow classic, our first ’68 Mustang, like this one that my wife drove. And Roush was exhibiting some really cool Mustangs in their corral, including one honoring their founder called the Jackhammer.

Probably the most popular vehicles in each cruise are the Corvette’s. The most iconic ‘Vette is the split window coupe, one of which I owned years ago. It sure was fast and loud with a big block engine and side pipes.

My favorite Corvette was a maroon ’65 convertible pictured below. This vehicle came into my hands after my brother-in-law married my wife’s sister and she wanted new furniture. So the Vette had to go, but on the condition that he could someday buy it back from me at the going rate. Whenever my brother-in-law and his family visited, he always gave his kids rides in the Corvette, but when it came time to give his wife a ride, for some reason the car wouldn’t start! Somehow it knew! Fast forward about 20 years, after babying that car for all that time, I received a call from my brother-in-law about a week before the Dream Cruise that he was ready to buy back the ‘65. Sad day for me; happy day for him! He’s since given the Vette to his son, who cruises around Russia, with his kids.

A blue ’59 Chevy came rolling past just like my first car, a hand-me-down from Dad. It even had the same black wheels and whitewalls. Hated that car!

A ’62 Chevy was also spotted, a lot nicer than my red Impala that I bought used from a high school classmate’s brother documented in this previous blogpost.

A gold ’69 Chevy Nova SS was my first new car, purchased for $1800 after trading in the ’62.

The Nova was special as I met my wife while driving that car. We had it for our first year of our marriage before a fraternity brother bought it. He eventually trashed it, then crashed it, so no classic life for that memorable car!

Look for more Dream Cruise photos and memories next week.