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| Dream Cruise celebration to add days, Detroit events |
4/18/08 |
Dream cruisers still won't rumble south of 8 Mile.
But the Woodward Dream Cruise will deepen its ties to Detroit this summer with a classic car show to be held near Comerica Park right after a Tigers game -- and two days before the big cruise in Oakland County on Aug. 16, organizers decided this week.
Other Detroit auto events from past years will get new dates and more promotion, informally linking them to the Dream Cruise to create a nine-day celebration aimed at bringing more tourists -- and their dollars -- to southeast Michigan.
The Dream Cruise still runs from Ferndale to Pontiac, the stretch that Woodward cruisers traditionally drove, said Dale Dawkins, volunteer president of the nonprofit Dream Cruise operating board.
"But this is a way to optimize the role of Detroit. It is, after all, historically the auto capital," Dawkins, a Bloomfield Hills city commissioner, said Thursday.
Plans for the series of Detroit events, to be called Cruisin' MotorCities, are still being confirmed, said Bill Chapin Jr., a consultant to the nonprofit group MotorCities National Heritage Area in Detroit.
Chapin, whose family name is synonymous with cars -- his father was chairman of American Motors; his grandfather founded Hudson Motor Car Co. -- said Thursday that Big Boy restaurant operators in metro Detroit hoped to open a Big Boy World's Largest Drive-in at the State Fairgrounds in Detroit. "Somebody will skate up to your car and take your order," at the drive-in tentatively planned for Wednesday through Saturday of Dream Cruise week, Chapin said.
The expanded role for Detroit also includes moving the date of the Detroit Festival of Speed and Style, at the Campus Martius area downtown, to Aug. 10. It had been held two weeks after the big cruise, said Marvin Towns Jr., founder of the festival.
Towns said Thursday his event will add a charity motorcycle ride from Pontiac to downtown Detroit, with a goal of having up to 3,000 bikers joining the festival's show of an expected 250 classic cars -- up from 130 cars last year.
But Towns and other Detroit boosters still hope that someday the official cruise will come their way.
The Detroit Convention & Visitors Bureau is taking part in planning the Dream Cruise-linked events in Detroit and elsewhere, and its officials would be delighted if the cruise came south as well, said Renee Monforton, communications director.
"We are not actively taking a lead on extending the Dream Cruise down" into Detroit, "although in theory we think it's a great idea," Monforton said Thursday.
Contact BILL LAITNER at 248-351-3297 |
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