Dream Cruise set to boost American Hot Rod
The Hot Rod industry is set to boost the automotive market on Aug. 8 as Eaton Corp. and Promotion Co. hold the annual Dream Cruise, an aftermarket auto parts shopping mall for automotive performance enthusiasts, at the Memorial Park in Royal Oak.
The Dream Cruise runs along 16 miles of Woodward Avenue through nine communities. It reportedly attracts about 1 million visitors annually and some 40,000 owners of classic, muscle, custom and collector vehicles. The first cruise was in 1995 and designed to raise funds for a children’s soccer field.
The event generates a minimum of $100 million for businesses along the route in cities including Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Ferndale, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Pontiac and Royal Oak.
The Eaton Performance Park will feature prominent aftermarket retailers such as Eaton, Barry Grant, Cherry Bomb, Comp Performance Group, Dynomax, K&N and Year One, said James “Jim” Parks, global communications manager of Eaton.
Eaton is a diversified industrial manufacturer of automotive, aerospace, electrical systems and automotive aftermarket products with 61,000 employees in 125 countries.
Live entertainment and family rides will be offered at the park as well as local food vendors. There will be dozens of award-winning vehicles on display, Parks said.
The Woodward Dream Cruise celebrates the heydays of the ‘50s and ‘60s when Woodward Avenue was the heart and soul of cruising in the city that put America on wheels.
Combined with music and fashions of the era, the Dream Cruise is set to celebrate the car culture that made performance cars special. The Woodward Dream Cruise is sponsored by a volunteer committee that coordinates the efforts of the nine host cities, the County of Oakland, media organizations, transportation authorities, corporations, small businesses and charities.
“The Woodward Dream Cruise is one of the country’s greatest car culture events,” said Victor Ruthig, vice president of sales and marketing of The Promotion Co. of Indianapolis.
Eaton has its headquarters in Cleveland but has automotive offices in Southfield, Parks said. Eaton has been a longtime major sponsor of the Dream Cruise. It became the event’s first official sponsor in 1999 and remains one of the event’s largest corporate supporters, he said.
“Vehicle customization and performance enhancement were a big part of the 1950s and ’60s cruising scene, and it remains an important part of the Dream Cruise and car shows today,” said Jeff Romig, Eaton vice president and general manager for performance products division.
“The Dream Cruise itself is large and somewhat unwieldy and a lot of retailers get lost trying to reach the public,” he said. “We’re hopeful that the mall concept will give people a reason to come by the park and do a little shopping while also looking at beautiful cars and displays.”
Eaton and The Promotion Co. have rented parts of the 24-acre Memorial Park at 13 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak on Aug. 17-18 to have exhibitors display their auto-related and aftermarket products to the public at no charge. The park will be open to visitors from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. each day.
“What we were able to do was get a prime spot on the Dream Cruise route” to allow exhibitors to be in one place to show off their products, Ruthig said.
The aftermarket automotive business has gross sales of about $34 billion a year, Parks said.