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Mark Phelan: Cruise still a success
August 19, 2006
Email this Print this BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS AUTO CRITIC
It was what the Irish call a soft day.
The rain didn’t fall so much as it condensed on faces and windshields as people and cars moved along the 12th annual Woodward Dream Cruise from Ferndale to Pontiac.
Saturday’s gloomy weather kept some folks home, but didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of thousands of cruisers and spectators who still turned out.
Like the previous 11 years, the car-crazed event was a success.
Como’s restaurant in Ferndale opened at 7 a.m. for a special Dream Cruise brunch and had customers waiting at its door by 6:45 a.m. Most of its patio tables were full by noon.
“People started rolling in at 8 a.m.,” said Ferndale Police Sgt. Steve Jennings. “A few people left when the rain began, but they’ll be back.”
“I love the Cruise,” 26-year-old Sarah Marcotullio, of Brampton, Ontario, said as she toweled off her blue 2005 Ford Mustang. “Last year’s weather was really bad. This is nothing.”
Marcotullio and friend Natalie Brunet, 40, drove their Mustangs four hours from home and waited another 2 1/2 at the border in Windsor to join the large Canadian contingent in Mustang Alley on East Nine Mile.
Their trip barely rates compared to Chevrolet SSR owners who came from as far as Massachusetts, Texas, Florida and California to display their convertible sport trucks in the Chase Bank parking lot just north of I-696.
“Tomorrow, we’re all going to Lansing to have a picnic with the workers from GM’s Craft Center plant who built the SSR,” said club member Ray Hobbel, 55, of Waterford. “The workers invited us up for a special plant tour and ceremony when they built the last SSR. We’re hosting the picnic in return for the favor they did us.”
This is the SSR club’s second year at the Cruise, so they’re just beginners compared to the Classic Muscle club, which has participated all 12 years and was grilling food for the 35 members bringing cars to its all-day shindig.
“This is like a reunion every year,” said Roger Baker, 55, of Crystal City Mo. “My fraternity brothers from GMI (university, now Kettering) in Flint get together here every year,” he said, wearing a black T-shirt commemorating the 2003 power blackout as “The Dream Cruise Unplugged: No Power, No Problem.”
Cruisers and spectators lined Woodward Friday night as well.
Road-worthy for all of 24 hours before it hit Woodward, a 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air two-door sedan was the fruit of months of work by father and son Kurt Hagler, 51, and Dan 26.
“We finished work yesterday and trailered it up today,” Dan said. The Haglers and friend Eric Mszyco, 19, had just arrived from Pittsburgh for their first Dream Cruise.
“This is the ultimate cruise, added Kurt Hagler. “It’s unbelievable. There’s just about every car you can imagine.”
It’s also an annual family outing for father and son Gerald, 54, and Jonah Lyon, 26, of Portland, Michigan, who watched from lawn chairs with Nancy Lyon, 54 and Melanie Luna, 25.
“We come for a couple of days every year,” Gerald Lyon said. “People couldn’t be nicer to us.”
“I’m here all week,” Alvin Shivers, a 58-year-old retired firefighter from Detroit, said from his prime parking spot in Huntington Woods. “I remember the days when the boys cruised 8 Mile Road and Livernois. I had a ’58 Chevy Impala convertible. My cousin sold it to me for $125 when he went into the service.”
That car’s long gone, but Shivers and his wife, Linda, have five classics, including the souped-up 1980 Chevrolet Malibu they drove Friday.
“It’s not one of the cars I grew up with,” he said. “I bring it here to show the young guys something they can relate to.
Shivers planned to cruise with his 11-year-old grandson Saturday.
“He’s been here since he was in the cradle,” Shivers said. I have three grandkids and one great-grandkid. I gotta bring them all out and indoctrinate them like my daddy did me.
“You pass it forward.”
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Photo caption:
Photo by Amy Leang/Detroit Free Press)
Riding in style: A classic car is reflected in a puddle Saturday as it heads north on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak during the 2006 Woodward Dream Cruise. Gloomy weather didn't damper the spirit of cruise-goers.
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