Woodward Dream Cruise
Auto Americana may have an uncertain future, but aficionados celebrate life raucously through the rear-view mirror
DAVID MENZIES
DETROIT
They began arriving early on Saturday, along with the rising sun. With their coolers, chairs and canopies, the throngs quickly staked claim to the best spots along the eight-lane stretch of blacktop that is Woodward Avenue, Motor City’s main drag. It wasn’t long before every vantage point was claimed. More than 1 million spectators converge on this boulevard every August to take in the rollicking mobile museum that is the Woodward Dream Cruise. It is doubtful any auto aficionado left disappointed.
What a sight to behold: DeSotos and Packards and Studebakers; pink Cadillacs and little red Corvettes; souped-up Shelby Mustang Cobras and fleets of Chevelles, Chargers and Challengers. It all made for a flotilla of vintage Detroit iron, festooned with mag wheels and rear-wheel drive and powerful V8 motors that roared lustily of yesterdecade — before oil embargoes, imported econoboxes and the EPA.
So began Woodward Dream Cruise 2009, the world’s largest one-day automotive event and a must-see for anyone who adores the internal combustion engine. At times, Woodward Avenue took on the look of a blacktop shrine, with growling big-block engines, voluptuous tail fins and rocket-shaped taillights. Bumper-to-bumper and curb-to-curb, many of the world’s most iconic automobiles strutted their stuff amid buoyant thumbs-up salutes and desperate pleas from children imploring drivers to “light ’er up!” (cruise-speak for revving one’s motor and burning rubber). It was enough to make Al Gore feel faint.
The muscle cars, street rods and antiques were either lovingly restored to their former glory or outrageously customized to near-unrecognizable excess. After all, the Dream Cruise celebrates an era when much of the product that came out of Detroit was big and bold and badass. The pedigree posted on a 1960 Lincoln Continental Mark V proudly noted “2,290 inches — largest American production car ever built.” A purple Barracuda displayed a bumper sticker warning, “Fear this Mopar.” A tangerine Pontiac GTO featured a decal that solemnly stated “The Judge.”
But the cruise is more than a car meet. It’s a mobile expression of Americana, wrapped in nostalgia and powered by high-octane patriotism. And in one respect, it’s a bittersweet reminder of the glory days — those pre-OPEC decades when the domestic automobile industry was the envy of the world.
What changed?
The world changed.
This was a point driven home upon visiting the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in nearby Auburn Hills. On the second floor, two exhibits chronicle the ascension of the American automobile. One is a diorama depicting suburban America as many would like to remember it: a quaint house with the de rigueur white picket fence; father emerging from his new 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer, dangling the keys from his outstretched right hand; mother rushing to the driveway to greet the triumphant breadwinner; daughter looking excitedly out the window. An observer is left pondering if things really ever were quite that ideal.
Down the hall is another head-turning display: an enormous floor-to-ceiling mural from five decades ago. It depicts Detroit in the next millennium (in other words, today) as a stunning metropolis. A monorail (the “Jet-O Magnetic Line”) whisks passengers to an Oz-like downtown. Below the gleaming tracks are vast networks of gridlock-free expressways, the opposing lanes divided by lush evergreen trees. In the deep blue, smog-free sky, sleek jets rule. It’s a breathtaking vision and yet it represents a technological utopia that never did materialize.
It eventually dawns on a visitor that the Woodward Dream Cruise is truly a celebration of life through the rearview mirror: a Detroit before race riots and burnt-out city blocks; before the downtown was abandoned; before “Murder City” supplanted “Motor City” as Detroit’s unofficial nickname. The cruise is steeped in chrome-coated nostalgia, and it exists as an annual remembrance day for a Detroit that once was and never will be again.
And yet … hope abounds. On the eve of the cruise, GM announced that its upcoming Chevrolet Volt will deliver fuel economy in the range of 230 mpg. In the here and now, GM can’t keep up with the demand for its new-age muscle car, the Camaro. [See “The Camaro Returns,” August-September.]
Meanwhile, the Achilles’ heel of Chrysler has always been its inability to produce a good small car. Now that Fiat controls the company, that likely won’t be an issue anymore. And in July, Ford posted a surprise $2.3 billion second-quarter profit.
Could it be that after decades of squandered opportunity, the American auto industry in 2009 has been “scared straight”? That there’s finally a realization there will be no more second chances, no more bailouts?
Time will tell. But for now, there will always be the Woodward Dream Cruise, a raucous reminder of those halcyon days when Auto Americana ruled supreme.
David Menzies writes on classic cars and the auto industry for Boomer Life from Toronto.