The Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise has roared off into the sunset for another year, but it has left a lot of smiling faces in
the exhaust. “The whole experience was very nice,” said Dan Gorney, who volunteered for the first time this year at the Bloomfield Township Classic Car Show held at the Mercedes-Benz dealership. “It was a really nice day all the way around,” Gorney said. “I was impressed.” The township car show is held in conjunction with the Dream Cruise, which rolls by in front of the dealership on Woodward. Leslie Helwig, an organizer of the township show, was delighted with this year’s event. The township show featured about 30 classic cars at the Mercedes-Benz lot and another 36 or so at the nearby Comercia Bank lot. All the cars were owned by township residents who paid a small fee to participate. Proceeds – somewhere around $4,000 – from the event will be donated to charity. The show stopper was Larry Smith’s 1936 Stout Scarab. Only of a handful of these remarkable cars still exit. All were handmade and were the first cars to have fiberglass bodies. While some called them ugly, others praised their Art Deco styling. Although the city of Birmingham did not officially participate in the Dream Cruise, it was packed with car lovers Saturday.
“Overall, the event very well,” said John Heiney, executive director of the Birmingham Principal Shopping District.