Pardon me if I sound like a wet-blanket, but I really don't enjoy any of these cruise events all that much, and there must be someone else who feels the same way?
Going to one of these cruises with an Imperial tends not to be all that much fun, that is unless your idea of fun is listeneing to some of the beer-soaked white trash scream one of the following:
Awesome Cadillac mister! (At least this is well-intended)
What a F*%$ing BOAT!
BURN RUBBER!
I drove my '61 in one of the first cruises, and after having the front-end sprayed with loose gravel from the late-model Mustang who decided to do a burnout in front of me, I stopped going; At least with the Imperial...
The next year, I thought "Maybe things will be better if I drive a musclecar." No, they only got worse.
This time, my wife drove our recently restored Charger while I rode shotgun. Before long, some jerks were running out into the street and throwing bleach onto vehicle tires (for the uninformed, this produces a "better" burnout). Before I could even react, there was some idiot slopping bleach all over the side of my car (mostly missing the tires anyways).
I managed to obtain some satisfaction by calling him over to the passenger's window as if to speak of the virtues of pulling 440s from big ol' boats. As soon as he was close enough, I got my hands around his neck, and give him a pretty good scare by choking him. However, this would have no doubt turned into a disaster if we hadn't been able to quickly leave the scene. (The large crowd didn't seem to enjoy what "I" deemed fun.)
Point of the story is; who needs this stress? Same thing pretty much goes for the Gratiot cruise, except it's smaller scale and you have to pay $15.00 to use the "cruise" lane. Just to make it more fun, the neighboring city of Roseville HATES the Gratiot cruise, so they've got every cop on the force out there to write tickets for looking the wrong way. In contrast, the cops in the host cruise cities seem to be under orders to look the other way at anything short of an actual murder.
The only cruise I'll rate as "half-decent" is the St. Clair Shores Harper Ave. cruise night, because:
It's smaller
It's done for charity
It's hosted on a weeknight, so the crowd isn't as rowdy.
You can actually cruise.
More "Imperial-like" cars show up, so it isn't the same '73 Chevelle with a 454, over and over again.
However, I even have some mixed feelings about this event. Since this is my "home" city; one that I like very much because it's generally so quiet & unhip. It's really sad to see how these cruisers just trash the street from one end to the other... Garbage everywhere, tire marks all over the street, etc. It's mostly bunch of senior citizens who keep neat houses, so I'm sure they love cleaning this mess up every September.
As a separate issue from the above, it always just strikes me as rather sad... These rolling displays of nostalgia in the Motor City of Detroit, MI... Working in the auto industry, knowing the "real" facts.... We're all out there enjoying our 20+ year-old cars in the former car capital of the world, while the rest of the world laughs at us. I guess if Chrysler were something other than a name-badge for future Mitsubishi/Hyundai junk, if our best selling cars weren't trucks... Don't get me wrong, I love old cars, but it seems kind of like partying on the deck of the Titanic... Sorry, I guess this one is just some personal baggage.
So am I just an old fuddy-dud (at 29) or what?
Carmine F.
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