It’s pretty obvious memory and dreams “drive” the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Is there a real male out there who doesn’t dream about the car he learned to drive in, or his first car, or the car he wanted but couldn’t afford or parents wouldn’t allow?
A Cruise driver minds his business. It’s stop 'n go, idling, keeping an eye on gauges, traffic and crowds.
I think that’s the basis for the love of old cars, at least the ordinary survivors, not the ultra high-priced classics.
And it’s pretty obvious memory and dreams “drive” the Woodward Dream Cruise.
I’ve been “covering” the Dream Cruise since its inception, easy since I live only a couple of blocks off of Woodward. But it was more than four years ago that my son, a Navy doctor, said to me upon his graduation from flight surgeon school at Pensacola, “Dad, I’ve been thinking about getting a ’65 Mustang. What do you think of that?”
So I responded, “I’ve got a better idea, let’s go in together and get a ‘65 Comet convertible, like the first convertible I ever had.”
It took me nearly a year to find a good one, thanks to help from Jerry Robbins, president of the International Mercury Owners Association, for which I have been a historical consultant. I wanted a nice car that didn’t require any obvious re-habbing because I’m a story-teller and a writer, not a mechanic.
The result was a Tiffany Blue 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente with 289-2V engine and C-4 three-speed automatic, white top and wsw tires and two-tone blue trim inside. Very pretty car–my wife calls it a chick car. It hasn’t acquired a pet name yet. Maybe I should hold a contest.
Anyway, this was the third year I’ve driven it in the Cruise, and my passengers this year were TDB editor Ken Zino and photographer Len Katz. You get a very different view of the Cruise from a vehicle participating than as a bystander comfortably ensconced in a lawn chair at the side of Woodward, maybe even under a sun- or rain-screening tent fly.
But a Cruise driver has to mind his business. It’s stop and go, idling endlessly and keeping an eye, as Ken reminded me, on the temperature and oil pressure gauges. Not to mention the car in front that might stop unexpectedly on account of the oozing traffic flow. It would be humiliating beyond recovery to bump another collector car—or even some civilian driving the family Camry, clogging serious car ogling.
My wife doesn’t care for the constant roar all week long of Dream Cruisers practicing for the Saturday event. But for me it brings back memories of the late Fifties and Sixties, when, even from a mile away in a different house, I could hear the originals racing up and down Woodward of a summer evening, when the windows were all wide open for ventilation before air conditioning. Then there was the time when I was test-driving a ’60 Corvette roadster and a drenching rain storm arose and the top wouldn’t come up—so we drove down Woodward homeward bound to Royal Oak from a party in Pontiac while the rain filled the Vette’s bucket-seats and the Cruisers, thinking we were making a statement, cheered us on.
Memories still count.