WRITTEN BY MARIE AND JOHN
Still basking in the glory of our “International Long Distance” win, we set out on the journey to the next rodding event doing some tourist sightseeing along the way. We had a couple of days in the Kentucky State Capital, Frankfort, visiting Bourbon distilleries, Daniel Boone’s grave and a unique and poignant Vietnam war memorial. Then it was on to Newport/Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio where we took in the U.S.A.F. air museum, another must see if you happen to be in that area, before settling into a motel in Dearborn, Michigan and giving Wyvonne a much-needed wash and brush up before the next Street Rodder Road Tour.
Marie’s meticulous planning had established that we would have a free day before the start of the Tour and she had found a couple of local rodding events that we could take in. The first was a show in Rochester, a “city” just north of Detroit. The local Lions club organises the Rockin Rods ‘n’ Rochester show, and Wyvonne joined about 200 other cars in the centre of the town. Judging of the award winners is a task given to all entrants and we made several circuits of the show area selecting our preferred pick in each category. We were surprised and pleased to find that the majority of our “picks” subsequently became award winners. Even more pleasing was the “Longest Distance out of State” award that went to Wyvonne.
The Rochester show finished about 4.00 pm and we hot wheeled it 28 miles to Milford township for the Bakers of Milford Sunday night cruise. Bakers is a restaurant that holds a weekly event for rodders during the cruising season and when we arrived the car park and overspill area were full of customs and rods with a smattering of pickups and late models. Finding a freshly vacated spot we parked Wyvonne and went for a walk around.
A DJ was playing “tunes” from a stage at the side of the restaurant and as we walked by, he called out to us over the PA system “the couple with the lady in the black hat, come over here”, we turned, “yes you, I remember you from Louisville. You’re from Australia and you won the long-distance award”. There was no escape as all eyes were on us and we were “instructed” to come up onto the stage where we spent a few embarrassing minutes being interviewed by the DJ and the owner of the restaurant Chris Baker. There was added agony when the DJ cued up “Tie me kangaroo down sport” and we had to decline, politely, requests for us to sing along. A greater embarrassment was to be awarded “Best in Show” when we thought there were other cars far more worthy of that title.
It’s 8.00am Monday and we are in the breakfast room of the Comfort Inn, Dearborn attending a drivers’ meeting. Wait a minute, haven’t we done this before? It must be déjà vu. No, we’re now in Dearborn at the start of the Street Rodder Amsoil Woodward Dream Cruise Tour and Jerry Dixey is giving out his follow- my-instructions-to-the-letter spiel. We’ve heard it all before in Lincoln, Nebraska albeit this time the week’s schedule is very different and not quite as hectic.
By 9 o’clock we were on the road, with a new group of roadtourians, to Motor City Solutions in Taylor, Michigan where Jerry had organised a shop tour. All cars participating in the tour were lined up in front of the building for a photo shoot and a “live” internet interview with each owner. Then it was on to the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum where we saw vehicles “that played a part in Ypsilanti’s automotive history, including Tucker and Hudson”.
We had lunch in the town before the short drive to Kalitta Air for a behind-the-scenes look at the pilot training facility and the opportunity for several roadtourians to take to the air via a flight deck simulator and land a Boeing 737 at Kennedy Airport. It took the “millennials” in the group to complete this task successfully and with a fair degree of accuracy. The older hands should stick to driving cars as they missed the airport let alone the runway!
The last visit on the day’s itinerary was to “Fair Lane” the 55 room Dearborn mansion that was home to Henry Ford and his wife Clara.
One of our fellow tour members was Herb McCandless who is well known in U.S. drag racing circles as a former competitive driver and engine builder in the 1970s. He now has a museum in North Carolina and had brought two cars from his collection for the Tour. One, a Plymouth, to be driven by him and the second, a Dodge station wagon, piloted by his two grandsons (the millennials mentioned above). Both cars are in immaculate condition, and we took a photograph of them alongside Wyvonne at Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, our tour destination on the second day.
Ford was an avid collector of historical items relating to his past and also significant events in American history. His intention was to create a living reminder of times past and the can-do spirit of America. He succeeded with his development of Greenfield Village and the Museum of American Innovation alongside it. Another must see if you’re in the Detroit area.
Next day we drove out into the country to Hickory Corners near Kalamazoo to visit the Gilmore Museum. One of Jerry Dixey’s favourite museums, most of the 300+ vehicles are housed in historic wooden barns on this 90-acre facility. Again, VIP parking had been arranged and we spent most of the day viewing the exhibits before moving from our Dearborn motel to one in Madison Heights.
At the Gilmore Museum.
Two tours were scheduled for the following day; first a visit to Lingenfelter Performance Engineering and then on to the Jack Frost Auto Museum before what became the highlight of the day with an invitation for the tour members to attend a party at the home of Bob and Gina Adams who are regular Road Tour participants.
In a nutshell Bob and Gina know how to throw a party. There were probably 200 people there and those with hot rods were invited to park on the lawn at the rear of the home (daily drivers were relegated to a paddock adjacent to the property). Caterers had been called in to provide food, there was an open bar and children could help themselves from an ice cream stand. A band had been hired along with a DJ and we immediately recognised him from the Bakers of Milford cruise! Fortunately, there was a real celebrity for him to interview and the unpretentious Herb McCandless entertained everyone in his Carolina drawl about his life as a drag racer and engine builder.
Friday 16th August was the final day of the Road Tour and at the morning drivers’ meeting VIP parking passes and wrist bands were handed out for Memorial Park in Royal Oak which was to be our staging post for the following day – The Woodward Dream Cruise. After the meeting we visited the now abandoned location of Ford’s Highland Park Plant where millions of Model Ts had rolled off the world’s first moving assembly line. There’s not much left to see apart from the decaying four storey administration building and commemorative plaque in what is a less than salubrious area of Detroit.
We took a “selfie” of Wyvonne at the plant and then made our way up Woodward Avenue to Memorial Park to check the location of the Road Tour parking area and hospitality tent before hitting Woodward Avenue again for a short cruise before the big day.
Woodward is a very lengthy (21.5 miles) stretch of 8 lane highway (four in each direction) that starts near the Detroit River and runs north westerly through downtown Detroit and many suburbs to Pontiac where the two carriageways diverge and form a loop around Pontiac CBD. The cruise route covers a 13.5-mile stretch that starts just south of 8 Mile Road in Ferndale and passes through six other suburbs to Pontiac where cruisers utilise the loop to return to the starting point.
Unofficially the two kerbside lanes in each direction are “reserved” for cruisers with other traffic being advised to use the outer lanes. We found that this recommendation was being ignored by minivans and family cars whose occupants wanted a better view of the static displays alongside the Avenue which reduced cruising speed to a dead crawl and caused Wyvonne to overheat. We pulled off the Avenue into a side street to let her cool down and to take down the convertible top so that we could really cruise in style. This done we re-entered the traffic, which had slowed down even more, and it wasn’t long before the high-pitched whine of the cooling fan drowned out AC/DC booming from Wyvonne’s CD player. We put up with this for a short while before calling it quits and headed to Memorial Park.
With Wyvonne positioned inside the road tour VIP area we took a walk around part of this large park that was filled to capacity with cars of all makes and types before making our way on to the Woodward “sidewalk” where there was plenty to see within easy walking distance. It was a very warm afternoon and the length of the Avenue was crowded with spectators sitting in folding chairs or on the specially erected “bleachers” alongside the road. In previous years spectator numbers had been estimated to be in excess of 1 million and we don’t think this year’s tally would have been any less. It’s touted as the largest one day automotive event in the world with participant numbers around the 40,000 mark – a truly awesome event aptly titled the Dream Cruise.
"Cruising Woodward used to be illegal - now it's celebrated."
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