Who wouldn't want to own the fastest car on Woodward Avenue, says Harold Sullivan, now owner of the 650-hp Plymouth Silver Bullet.
In the days when he’d be out doing some late-night cruising, Harold Sullivan would use Brylcreem to slick back his hair. On this grey and gloomy Detroit afternoon, however, it’s the steady drizzle that’s soaked back his thinning mane. But like a million others who’ve turned out for the 16th annual Woodward Dream Cruise, Sullivan barely seems to notice the weather.
The on-and-off rain has done little to dampen the yearly event, the world’s largest gathering of muscle cars, hot rods and classic cruisers. It’s bumper-to-bumper on both sides of 8-lane Woodward Avenue from the northern terminus of the Dream Cruise, in Pontiac, Michigan, all the way back to the notorious 8 Mile Road border of the City of Detroit.
And the crowds have packed the shoulders of “the Avenue,” as well, some squeezing under tents and umbrellas, others simply ignoring the weather as best they can.
“I love cars and I like getting wet,” explains 12 year-old Donnie Myers, of Royal Oak, as he gives a thumbs-up to a passing Pontiac GTO.
A rain-soaked Pontiac GTO.
A year ago, the rain might have washed things out. It was, after all, a gloomy year for the Motor City, with the economy in the doldrums and U.S. auto sales slumping to their lowest population-adjusted levels since the Great Depression. Two of Detroit’s Big Three had just barely emerged from bankruptcy with the help of a federal bailout, and the third maker was struggling to make it through the downturn on its own. The domestic makers largely abandoned the Dream Cruise and seemed ready to vanish entirely.
"This may be the first funny car," says Bob Lees, of High & Mighty II. Based based on a '49 Plymouth, it dominated the hot rod circuit in the late '50s and early '60s, until it was banned by the NHRA. Photo: Len Katz
Times are still tough in Motown. State and local municipal budgets are nearly broke, forcing some communities along the Woodward Dream Cruise route to pull out of the event. Jobs are still scarce and real estate prices continue to tumble.
But there’s a growing sense that the worse just might possibly, maybe, perhaps be over, a feeling accentuated by solid recent profits at General Motors and Ford, as well as Chrysler’s announcement that it was hiring at some of its plants.
An estimated 60,000 muscle cars, hot rods and cruiser turn out for the Woodward Dream Cruise, some immaculately restored.
So, in many ways, this year’s Woodward Dream Cruise is both a paean to the past as well as a hopeful look forward. As always, it celebrates an era when Detroit iron ruled the roads, but it also seems to be a collective wish for a day when the Big Three can again compete with the best – and Detroit doesn’t have to be synonymous with decay.
The Dream Cruise itself dates back to 1995, when a local car club decided to shift gears. Rather than the standard static display, members chose to cruise up and down the long Woodward corridor, a route once know as ground-zero for American muscle car fans.
Of course, it also helps to have a sense of humor when you're customizing a cruiser. Photo: Len Katz
In the ‘60s and early ‘70s, before the Avenue was swallowed up by suburban sprawl, the largely tree-lined boulevard was a mecca for cruisers. They’d start out at one of the many burger joints, like the long-gone Totem Pole, then race back and forth until they ran out of gas or got pulled over by the over-worked cops.
Occasionally, there’d be a ringer in the crowd, someone like John DeLorean, the legendary General Motors engineer, who would often show up in some soon-to-be-introduced prototype, possibly a Pontiac GTO.
Rain, rain go away... Photo: Len Katz
Loyalties were intense, and bitterly contested whenever the light turned green, recalls Sullivan, now a well-heeled businessman from Bloomfield, Michigan. In his teens, he was a wannabe-cruiser, watching from the sidelines as his friends raced up and down Woodward. Today, however, he has one of the largest collections of classic Chrysler muscle cars in the country.
Just before the economy started to slide, he sold off a number of them, but he hung onto the Silver Bullet, a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX, with a 650-horsepower Hemi V8, that he got his hands on a few years back.
The (imitation) Blues Brothers ride again. Photo: Len Katz
“Who wouldn’t want the fastest car on Woodward Avenue when you were a teenager?” he asks, as a procession of fans gape at the immaculately restored muscle coupe.
Terance Mathews, from the Detroit suburb of Highland Park, certainly wouldn’t mind. He’s been wandering through a collection of classic Fords, Mustangs and Galaxies and Comets, fantasizing about driving one home. But not this year, he says, a frown briefly crossing his face, as he points to his elder son Joshua.
Mike Albu spent five years getting his cruiser restored. Photo: Len Katz.
“It’s great to look at the old cars. They bring back memories from when I was a kid. But until he goes off to college, I just won’t be able to afford it,” says Matthews.
Economic realities don’t always matter to serious cruisers – like Jerry Johns, of Berkeley, Michigan. He spent five years restoring his ’67 Ford Galaxie 500, The Purple People Eater, “And that’s why I don’t own a home. I’ve got all my money tied up in it,” he laughs, as he nudges through Woodward traffic.
The Woodward Dream Cruise is celebrating its 16th year. Photo: Len Katz
While the annual Woodward Dream Cruise may be a Detroit celebration, it routinely draws fans from all over the country, indeed, all over the world. Several years ago, a group of Australian collectors shipped their cars over to the States so they could drive up and down Woodward with the rest of the crowd.
“I finally get to see the cars,” says Andrew Jaferosie, who has just arrived from Saskatchewan in an old Ford pickup.
Mike Albu’s car of choice is an old Plymouth police cruiser – the same model, in fact, that was driven by John Belushi and Dan Akroyd, in the film, The Blues Brothers. Albu and a friend have done it up just like the movie and they’re playing the parts to perfection, cruising through Royal Oak with a blues track blaring through their speakers.
If it's not the rain, it's the "heat." Photo: Len Katz
For most of its 16 years, the Woodward Dream Cruise has been scheduled for the same weekend as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (Click Here for coverage) arguably the world’s premier classic car show. For fans fortunate enough to be able to jet coast-to-coast, the Cruise comes a week later, this year.
Though both events celebrate the glories of the automobile, they couldn’t be more different. The California Concours is, by comparison, fastidious, rewarding only the most exclusive and well-restored automobiles. It’s not unusual for an owner to spend millions getting a Bugatti, Talbot-Lago or Horch ready to compete.
A rare Dodge Hemi Challenger in mint condition.
Stand along the sidelines long enough and you’ll see some beautifully maintained and lavishly-restored muscle cars during the Dream Cruise, but you’ll also see rusty Gremlins, dented GTOs and partially-finshed ’32 Ford hot rods driven up and down the cruise route with an equal amount of pride.
Over the past 16 years, there have plenty of skeptics who viewed the Woodward Dream Cruise as a passing fad, much, they have said, like the muscle car era the event celebrates. But despite the rains, the summer heats, crackdowns by “the heat,” even a regional power outage that one year shut down all the local gas stations, the Dream Cruise has never lost its momentum.
No surprise. The automobile remains a centerpiece of American life and few events capture that as well as this annual Motor City phenomenon.