WOODWARD DREAM CRUISE Status Report

[Hisserman]

I thought I would start a link where members could post their pictures and experiences at the 2006 Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit.

For those of you that don't know, this is the world's largest automotive event. Last year there were 1.7 million people and over 40,000 custom, specialty and hot rod cars involved on the actual day of the Cruise. It takes place over 16 miles of four-lane each way roadway stretching through 9 municipalities. This year the projections are to exceed last year's numbers.

The actual cruise is Saturday, August 19th, but it has gotten so large that it really starts the whole week before. Monday and Tuesday evenings there were people lining the street to view the cars. That's part of GTSnake in the lower right of this picture.

We cruise, or sometimes we just park our Vipers with the others and go watch.

You see a little of everything. We even saw one of those funny black hooded Viper mules last night, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture.

It runs late into the night, every night.

As we get closer to the actual Cruise day, it gets wilder and wilder. Today people started lining up around noon to get prime parking and viewing spots.

Every available parking lot begins to fill up with car crazy people (it's not always great for adjacent businesses!). The Cruise Director counted 14,000 car trailers parked in the Woodward area today!

Trying to describe it is useless -- "Who cares about a bunch of people driving up and down the street in their fancy cars!" You have to experience it to know the scale of the event.

The Motor City Viper Owners have their Pre-Woodward Dinner tomorrow (see photo below of last year's event). We'll post some more pics to show how that came out.

In the meantime, anyone feel free to add to this post and share your Woodward experiences!

 

[Wayne Finch]

Arriving tomorrow

 

[GTSnake]

The actual cruise is Saturday, August 19th, but it has gotten so large that it really starts the whole week before. Monday and Tuesday evenings there were people lining the street to view the cars. That's part of GTSnake in the lower right of this picture.

Thanks for getting my better half! I'm not half the man I used to be.

 

[SylvanSRT]

it was just packed tonight! moving very slowly!!! lots of very cool cars out

 

[Hisserman]

Tonight, Thursday the 17th, was the MCVO dinner. Forty-five cars and 80 people showed up. Great fun and a great cruise -- here's a link to the other post on the topic:

http://www4.forum.viperclub.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB14&Number=722124&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=&vc=1&PHPSESSID=

After wearing ourselves out in the jammed packed cruise, different clusters of snakes slithered over to their dens and enjoyed good friendship and refreshment!

It's late tonight, tomorrow I'll post pictures of the PreFix Open House -- what an event!

 

[Hisserman]

The Prefix tour was also on the 17th. Here's a link to the other post on that topic:

http://www4.forum.viperclub.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=genvipdis&Number=722324&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=&vc=1&PHPSESSID=

 

[JGK95]

Thanks for posting! More Pics!!

and of the mule too!

 

[Hisserman]

It was a full day on Saturday, the 19th, the actual day of the Cruise. It started out with rain until about 3:00 pm and then it shifted into high gear!

At the end there were numerous parties to end out the week of Cruise activities.

The parties have made me too tired to post a report on the full day's activities, but there was some exciting stuff out there! I'll make a full post tomorrow (actually, later today), but here's a little teaser on some of the things we saw . . .

Yep, that says McLaren (an AMG Viper??)!

 

[Hisserman]

Sorry for the delay in posting the actual Cruise (it was a late one last night), but we had to have some fun today too!

Since this is a Viper forum, not a cruise forum, the following is a very ecclectic sample of what actually happened at the Cruise yesterday. The whole event is way too large to try to cover everything that is going on, but I'll try to let you see the Viper stuff we saw, together with some samples of the mundane and wacky stuff! I apologize for the contrast (you'll see there was some serious weather) and composition (crowds don't always cooperate) on some of the pictures.

Unfortunately, Saturday started with rain -- serious rain. Everything was wet, the sky was dark and by noon we thought that it would never let up! Everything was set up and we kept hoping, but the rain kept coming.

Here was the display of the Firepower prototype before noon.

And the ME Four-Twelve . . . depressing!

People tried to forge ahead and enjoy themselves on this day they had been anticipating for a whole year . . .

And there was plenty to see, in spite of the rain -- like Jay Leno's "Tank Car", with an engine from a Patton Tank!

And I just found out that you guys with twin turbos are wusses -- check out this car . . .

. . . with twin blowers (although the fuel lines don't look large enough)!!

Some cruisers gamely chugged along . . . that's a beige umbrella starting to pop out of the top of that blue keg car

The nine cities along Woodward tried their best to have their special car shows.

And all the Clubs valiantly clustered their members . . .

And the kids received special treatment!

It was a bummer for the Corporate exhibits (who basically come in Friday night and work all night to have things set up for Sunday).
Back at the Chrysler exhibit area there were some interesting things that weren't all wrapped up.
One was this interesting version of a (SRT?) Caliber:

And back to the kids, here's the latest Hemi model (it actually has a running Hemi!):

And over at the GM exhibit they had one of the new Mallet conversions of a Solstice (he does the Saturn Sky too). This baby has a Corvette engine and modified suspension. Watch out for these suckers with your Viper, they make a Z06 look like a snail! There are a couple running around here and they are the equivalent of the contemporary Cobra.

And there were all kinds of interesting GM racing cars, like the Corvette LeMans car (not shown here for some reason!) and this Chapperal . . .

This sample of turbo tubing was in the GM exhibit area, but you could find every kind of turbo setup you wanted throughout the Cruise.

And they had their version of a rad econo rocket van.

Ford didn't have much exciting this year, due to their extreme financial crunch. However, Saleen held the flag with the obligatory Ford GT (there were about 15 GT's running around the Cruise and actually 3 or 4 running in the rain!). . .

. . . and the always mighty impressive Saleen S7's:

Over at Porsche/Audi there was a Carrera GT in the rain . . .

And then the Austin Martins . . .

. . . and Ferraris.

But, hey, there were Vipers . . .

. . . including some unusual ones you don't just see everywhere -- like ASC's Diamondback SEMA Coupe:

Actually when you look closely at the back you see the influence of the Germans . . .

. . . which leads us back up to the front (note the practical engineering related to weatherproofing the throttle bodies!). Also, remember where these hood vents are relative to some pictures you are going to see further down in this post . . .!!

Those throttle bodies are kinda like another carbon fiber coupe we've seen recently (see post on Prefix in the General Forum) . . .

Finally around 3:30 pm, or so, the rain began to let up, so we went back to the Chrysler exhibit.

Now we can see that Firepower, the Hemi powered coupe built on a Viper frame. Mums still the word on whether there is a "go" on this good looking model that would help spread the costs of the Viper plant and infrastructure, but if it goes, it won't be named "Firepower" because someone else holds the copyright on the name.

And here's the ME Four-Twelve!!!!!!!

And the wraps came off the Vipers . . .

If you blow this photo up, you'll see that it says "SkunkWerks" on these rims.

There was the Hemi Jeep . . . dual Hemi, one in the front and another in the rear . . .

. . . talk about a real test if you can walk and chew gum at the same time!!

Speaking of Hemi, here's a look at the new Hemi head (note dual spark plugs per cylinder):

More horsepower per liter than the original famous Hemi . . .

But if you want to see a "real" Hemi, how about this funny car? They claim 2,400 hp and really impressed us when it fired up!

By this time the rain was beginning to dry up . . . the pent up energy of the crowd begain to burst out . . .

The cruising resumed at earnest and continued into the night.

Special cars came out . . .

and the Cruise became a success, partially because the crowd just "willed" it.

Sunday (today) there was still an afterglow. There were fewer cars and smaller crowds, but there was still plenty of action (you can see the Vipers in this picture if you look closely).

Like magic, the famous Viper mules reappeared (it was rumored that they were banned from the actual Cruise). Look at where those vents are located on this hood . . .

And the fun extended to more than just cars (she would have used the Viper, but I wanted to take pictures!). . . you should have stuck with me Jess!!

And then, just like that, it was all over!!

 

[cyaford]

Thanks Bruce!! Awesome pics.

 

[2000_Black_RT10]

Thanks for posting the pics, I can see the tail of my brother-inlaw's white 63 max wedge in one wet pic. I had a cross ram 572 Hemi, I thought it was loud, but that dragster must have been quite the sound.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

Great shots Bruce! Nice hanging out with everyone this weekend. Even open top in the rain Saturday afternoon will bring a smile for a good long while. Eating supper,looking down from the upstairs corner window table of Duggans on Saturday will be permanently etched in the old hard drive. Thanks Jess & Maureen! Where were we when the Cobra pics were taken? huh? The event was way too much to take all in at one time. I guess that means we'll be coming back down.

Steve

 

[NHL2133]

. . . and the always mighty impressive Saleen S7's:

Let me guess, the Orange one is a 2005 NA, and the Yellow a 2006 Twin Turbo?

 

[SylvanSRT]

both are TT's, they said they are going to be uprating the motor again in the future with 850, 950, and 1200 hp packages

 

[GTSnake]

But in the end they're still just Ford V8's. Why doesn't anyone use the Viper V10 in any specialty car?

 

[SylvanSRT]

the Bristol Fighter in the UK uses a Viper V-10. My guess is the sheer size of the motor(length) may make it difficult to use in a rear mid-engine configuration. That and the relative rarity of the motor and people that know how to work on and modify it dont give it a real shot compared to Ford and GM based engine block architecture. btw i looked at some of my pics from the cruise the yellow may be the non pressurized version.

 

[Roland L-Ocala FL]

If there is one thing I miss about not living in Michigan anymore, it is the car shows all over the state, and especially the Woodward Ave Cruise. Unless you have been there and seen that, it is hard to imagine what it is really like. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the country, and the crowds are incredible, and they get bigger every year. You will see cars there that you will not see anywhere else in the world, both new and the older muscle cars. The only other thing that is about as neat, is the Detroit NAIAS show in January, it is also spectacular, but very crowded. Thanks for the pictures, they are a great insight into the world's biggest and coolest car cruise.

 

[GR8_ASP]

So, since I missed Saturday afternoon, did any Vipers show up for the MCVO parking?

I came back to the cruise around 7:30 and in 2 hours only made it down to Birmingham (just far enough to cruise by Chevy and the Corvette Corral). That was about 3 miles in 2 hours, a rapid pace! I did not see any Vipers during that time.

 

[PatentLaw]

Thanks for the great pictures and the narration. I felt like I was there. Lots of the those cars you don't get the chance to see. The dark colored Aston was nice. Vipers were great.

 

[NHL2133]

both are TT's, they said they are going to be uprating the motor again in the future with 850, 950, and 1200 hp packages

...btw i looked at some of my pics from the cruise the yellow may be the non pressurized version.

Any more pictures you can show?

 

[SylvanSRT]

I just uploaded another unseen 10-12 pics if anyone wants to bring them from my gallery to the thread

 

[NHL2133]

SylvanSRT, you were right the yellow S7 is the non-boosted version.

You can tell from the little vents between the rear glass, and the rear spoiler.
Also the area around the exhaust and license plate is now a screen, and not a solid body piece like on the yellow car.

 

[Hisserman]

Mike --

I'll move your pictures over when I can get a little extra time. Here's your shot of when the Vipers were running wild on Thursday night!

 

[Hisserman]

Mike --

Here are the rest of your pics:

I see you got there early and got some of the good stuff!

The MCVO Club on a rumble!! It was impressive folks -- 45 Vipers rolling together. . .

And of course the Saleens!

Great shots, guy!

 

[Hisserman]

Here are a couple of shots of part of the 45 Vipers we had rolling all together on Thursday night after the MCVO Pre-Cruise dinner. These were taken from Earl H's 800 hp twin turbo beast!

Way to go, Earl.