| Woodward Dream Cruise - The World's Largest One Day Cruise!! The week before Dream Cruise is just the warm-up for the big day on Saturday. A lot of people have actually been cruising for a couple of weeks already. On Monday night, CJ and Bob Longstreth and Joe Elsasser met at the parking lot at 13& Woodward (which will become the DaimlerChrysler display area for the Cruise). There were already hundreds of cars parked at the lot with thousands of owners and spectators walking around admiring the cool hot rods, talking and enjoying the beautiful evening. Of course, besides the cars in the lot, there were hundreds of hot rods cruising Woodward. Harve Disner and a friend showed up in his red cat and hung out with us for the evening. We saw another yellow cat in the lot, and tried to flag the guys down, but they just wanted to cruise. The local police started to shoo everyone out at about 10:00 pm. Bob and I cruised up and down Woodward for a while and headed for home. There were lots of people who were sitting along Woodward just watching the cruisers go by!!
On Tuesday and Wednesday of cruise week, it rained on and off, so I did not get out to Woodward. On Thursday night, I was joined by Ray Szull, who rode shotgun in the Candy Cat, Joe and Jill Ellsasser, Mike and Karen Gatlin, John Schulz, Ken Gensheimer, George and Geoff Jensen, Harve Disner, John Baker and a couple other Prowler owners we flagged down. We cruised and parked on Woodward and had a great time visiting and checking out each other’s cats! We left about 9pm and cruised to Big Buck Brewery for a late dinner. We had a great time visiting, trading stories and learning John Schulz’s salt trick!!
On Friday, I picked up the Prowler owners and we cruised to the Conner Avenue Assembly Plant for some shopping. Bob and Colleen Hacker joined us and John Buherle (Dayton) met us at the plant along with the Clarks! From there, we had a great lunch at Michelle’s Restaurant and Bakery...........their bakery items are to die for!! Next, we cruised over to the PT Cruiser event at DaimlerChrysler. Since it had been raining, we had piled into my Pt Cruiser, Bob’s Durango and the rental Sebring that George Jensen was driving. We got everyone in and a chance to drive the PT Turbo on the test track! We made a trip into the Chrysler museum to check out the gift store and then we went back to the hotels to freshen up for the Black Tee Party.
The Black Tee Party was held on Friday night at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum on grounds of the DaimlerChrysler Headquarters. The party was very well attended and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The singing group “Horizons” were back again............they are fabulous. Lots of 50's rock and roll music. Dance contests and a hula hoop contest. Lots of food, drink and ice cream. Movies were being shown in a drive-in display set up behind the museum. They had a number of cars set up on the hill so that you could sit in them and watch the movie, including an orange Prowler and the Electric Blue Prowler that was at the SEMA show last year. The main focus for the party was on the PT Cruiser Turbo, but I thought it was interesting that the first prize for winning the dance contest was a Prowler for the weekend. Second place was a PT Cruiser. Elvis made another appearance, as did Diana Ross and Marilyn Monroe and Buddy Holly!! It was a beautiful night, weather was perfect and a great time was had by all!!
On Dream Cruise Day, a number of the Prowler owners headed down to Pontiac to start a loop down Woodward. Bob and I jumped on at Square Lake Road at about 9:00 am. We cruised up and down Woodward a couple of times before we parked at the Visteon display. Met up with the Scholtens and the Ellsassers. There were already thousands of cars and thousands of people sitting along the street watching and cruising in their rods. This is the place to see everything and anything!! Saw a lot of Prowlers on the streets, although we didn’t recognize all of them. It was a cloudy/sunny day that turned very hot and humid!! The threatened rain never showed up, however! Later that evening, Bob and Colleen and John Schulz came to our home for a pizza party. We spent the evening visiting and laughing a lot!!! The evening ended on a great note with some new friendships formed............Bob.........sorry about the neighbor’s sprinklers!!! Oops!!!
Thanks to all the Prowler owners who hung out with me and Bob for the Dream Cruise event. It was great to see everyone that attended and look forward to seeing all of you again soon!!!
The last 17 pictures were taken and submitted by John Schulz. |
