No. And it's a damn shame. We used to cruise Gratiot Avenue. But they made it illegal back in the late seventies. White Castle was at the intersection of Gratiot and I-696 and that place was always packed and hopping on the summer weekend evenings with cool cars and cool people. "It was great. Why, it'd take a couple hours and a whole tank of gas just to make one circuit."
Yes, very much so in my old home town and area. And even to some degree where I live now. North west Indiana.
Sure. Pick almost any road in central fl during rush hour and you'll be "cruising" at 20mph with thousands of other drivers.
Use to be a every weekend thing here in Anderson, we drove back and forth from the downtown square to McDonalds/Belvedere plaza,to see and be seen, reminiscent of American Graffiti. The city put a end to it when the merchants complained there was no parking downtown and teens causing traffic problems. I believe this was what lead to the cruse-in's we have today. HRP
And the local Friday evening gathering now takes place at 3PM. Pretty much eliminates anyone who still works for a living.
You guys are pups! I stay up 'til almost 9:30 sometimes! Haven't seen the end of a Monday night game since Howard & Dandy Don were commentators...
I think there's actually some law here that you can't drive past the same location X amount of times in a given time frame. Not that it's really enforced, but if someone calls and complains they can ticket you.
Those dang old men driving around in their slow, old cars, blocking traffic! We gotta do something about it.
When I was 16 you could drive a three mile stretch through town going from Merlin’s drive in to the A&W and back then the city made a loop around around the downtown area and close off the main avenue through town. I don’t know what the thinking was back then, maybe they were trying to get some of the traffic away from downtown businesses which eventually happened but it killed both drive ins with in five years. The kids moved the cruising to the loop around downtown which had made more parking lots replacing the existing buildings taking down because of the new roads. Now days downtown is booming with new apartment buildings with very few businesses there are still a few people Cruising and hitting the parking lots. The city’s efforts to control cruising activity had a negative impact on the business community from the start.
We have the Woodward Dream Cruise one weekend of the year. It's a Dream Cruise cuz you're dreamin' if you think you're gonna be cruisin'. LOL
This is where @Moriarity comes in and tells everyone that the internet ruined cruising and he'll be right. I tried to explain to a teenager how it worked. Call your friends house, they aren't home and the parents weren't sure what town they went to. So you hop in your ride and go look for them on the local cruise circuit. If they weren't there, you might stop at a payphone and call their house again to see if they went home. Maybe you'd find other friend to hang out with and waste gas driving up and down the same streets all night. I might as well have been talking in Latin.
Didn’t cruise there…but remember driving there with my folks to get some tasty sliders. Woodward was still happening in the early 80s…cruised that!
I’m sorry to read these posts. Most towns around here try to figure out how to work with the gearheads. It’s good for business!
A little over a year ago my hometown, Longview WA, started to have a First Friday Commerce Cruise from spring through fall. For about an hour and a half on the first Friday of the month, all sorts of cars cruise Commerce Ave, the old town’s main drag (the same one we cruised in high school). People set up lawn chairs and enjoy the show. It seems to have some sort of city approval and the cops seem to leave it alone.
I go down town on a Friday or Saturday night and there’s hardly anyone there aside from the street people, I do a lap , they appreciate it and I’m old and sad
All I know is, that lad on the hood of that Mustang is an idiot! Instead of makin' time with one of those hotties, he's tryin' to wreck a perfectly good hood.
There's enough of them out there that it shouldn't be too hard to find another hood, genuine or aftermarket....
Yep, you had to get out and find the action. Cell phones and text messaging had a big effect. Friday and saturday nights were pretty busy. Go to town now on those same nights and its graveyard.
They sure do, and not just Saturday. The waterfront is under significant construction so that impacts the parking.
Our town has a cruise night once a year. They hold it on a smaller section of the same streets we used to cruise on back in the mid 70s and 80s. They "rent" parking spaces ($10 the day of, or $12 prepaid, to save a desired space) in the 3-4 city parking lots near the cruise route. They have food vendors show up, and they have a live band playing, 10,000 people show up to look at 1,000 + cars (when the weather is good) parked in the lots 2 hours before the "cruising route" is opened. When they open the cruise route, 1/2 the cars in the parking lot hit the streets. There are no parked cars allowed on the streets of the cruise route, the cruise route is a two lane one way loop (the cruise route actually travels on Main Street the wrong direction). There is one entry point to the cruise route from outside of it, and an access from each parking lot. There are 'cruise directors" on each corner to maintain order. The streets are lined with spectators cheering you on, the number of cars cruising reminds you of how it was back in the heyday. The police over look a few short performance displays, but crack down if it even looks like it might get out of hand. The entire deal starts at 5pm on the 2nd Sat night in Aug at 5pm (the streets are barricaded off around noon) The cruise rout opens for cruisers at 7 pm, and the city ends it at 9 pm. The city has been doing this for 30 years now! They closed one because there was a tornado in the area at the time of the event, and it didn't happen the pandemic year. There is no cost to cruise, and its open to any motorized vehicle. Its a great 4 hours, too bad its only once a year. The rest of the year, its pretty much like most places. The down town area has stop signs nearly every block so that pretty much sucks, but a group a cars could pretty much cruise together through the rest of town as much as you want, as long as you don't drive past the same place a bunch of times in a row. We have a very nice park that is a pretty nice 3 mile drive to go completely through. I've been known to drive though it a few times on nice weekends, and also occasionally through the week.
Obviously none of you guys have been to the Cruis'in The Coast 'event' in Biloxi/Gulfport area in October!! A solid WEEK of non-stop cruis'in in EVERY KIND of vintage/street rods/pro street/custom/muscle car/ "are-you-shitt'in-me" vehicle ever made! (I saw a custom Shivel-lay powered DUMPSTER one year and a SBC powered bumper car ) Talking THOUSANDS of cars and trucks ! Last year there was a four some of PRO MOD big block blown and injected Camaros and Fire birds cruis'in the main street at night!! Folks actually rent spaceS along the highway and pitch tents and watch the show all week ! I almost got tired of looking at hot rods...(although the blown SBC powered Metropolitan was crazy cool...it actually looked factory!) 6sally6
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