Motor City Blogman
By Todd Lassa
Forget global warming, at least today. Weather was perfect Saturday for the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise in Metro Detroit. Sunny, with a high in the low-70s. The old Detroit iron doesn't easily overheat in this stuff, so it can idle and nose along in slow traffic as thousands of spectators gaze at all manner of mid-century engineering marvels. Good day for breathing in the exhaust fumes.
Foreign cars seem to be getting more attention and more respect, here. But really, this is about GM, Ford, Mopar, Nash-Rambler, and the occasional Studebaker.
My wife, Donna and I started at Athens Coney Island, courtesy some General Motors passes that include shuttle rides from an off-site parking lot by E85-fueled Chevy Suburbans. Thanks, GM.
We finished there, too, where we caught up with seasoned auto journo Peter Robinson, contributor to our short-lived labor of love, Motor Trend Classic. This was the Aussie's first Dream Cruise, and he was ecstatic, getting a chance to see all the late '50s Yankee iron he grew up seeing in ads in The Saturday Evening Post as a teen. He'll be back. Talk yourself into missing Pebble Beach next year and come to Detroit. You'll be hooked, too.
Now it's Dream Cruise party time. Photos, captions, and then we watch the film "Black Test Car."
About Todd Lassa
Detroit Editor, Motor Trend
Todd Lassa has more than 17 years experience as a journalist. He began his career covering crime stories and school districts for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Quad-City Times. Later he worked and wrote in San Diego (1987-92) and Washington, D.C. (1992-96), finally landing at AutoWeek late in 1996, serving first as features editor, then news editor. He joined Motor Trend (which happens to be the very first car magazine he ever bought in 1970, age 12) in August 2000. Lassa is Detroit Editor, in charge of the magazine's News section, where he continues to write about all things cars and trucks.