Frankenmuth Tour
Early in September NIRG members participated in the weekend driving tour to the 23rd Annual Frankenmuth Auto Fest in Frankenmuth, MI. Meeting Friday, September 9, at the Lincoln Oasis were Joe & Nell Kozmic, ’37 Coupe; Joey Novak, ’40 Pickup; Ken & Carolyn Bounds, ’50 Convertible; Dan & Diane Pudelek, ’53 Victoria; Collin Sprau, ’50 F-3 Stake Truck; Len & Irene Vinyard, ’57 T-Bird; George & Betty Cech with Jim & Barb Pope, ’62 Olds; Don & Elaine Braun, modern car; and Stan Gaynor & Art Russell, modern car. OK – Lenny didn’t drive a Flathead, but he DID bring a cooler & we have pictures to prove it. We can only reform him so fast. Today the T-Bird, next time the ’39; how long can it be before it is the ’39 with the top down?
The
weather was beautiful for a leisurely drive through Michigan. Unfortunately,
lunch took a little longer than expected and road construction slowed us down
considerably, so we had to push a little harder toward the end to make it to
Frankenmuth in time for our required registration before 5:00 p.m. One poor soul who had just passed us driving a pickup and pulling a large trailer almost
didn’t make it to wherever he was going. He didn’t slow down in time for a
construction backup and went airborne through the median. Unbelievably he
landed on his wheels and didn’t hit anything. I’m sure his nerves were shot
after that adventure.
After driving to our motel in nearby Saginaw, we returned to Frankenmuth for dinner and the Main Street “Block Party”. By the time we arrived, all street parking was taken and the crowd was enormous. We had to wind our way through the packed streets to a more-than-filling meal at the Bavarian Inn restaurant. First lesson learned: come early!
On Saturday our luck with the weather ran out. The
temperature dropped and it rained off and on all day. But that didn’t keep
about 1,000 cars from showing up for the Autofest. Collin’s truck is not
geared for a long drive, but he unloaded it at the
hotel and drove to
Frankenmuth for the show. We spent the day walking the park, admiring the
interesting variety of show cars and street rods, and checking out what the
vendors had to offer. A very interesting display to me was a General Motors
exhibition of original engines from the early V-8 and muscle car era. Everything
from a fuel-injected 283 to the powerful 396 to the tri-power 389. Too bad
Ford doesn’t have a display like this to celebrate the Flathead era.
During the day Elaine turned her Explorer into the Shopping Shuttle, taking some of the ladies shopping to an Outlet mall and the giant Bronner’s Christmas store. It was a struggle for the guys to try to keep up by spending money with the vendors, but in the end I think the ladies won.
Saturday evening, after
returning to Saginaw, we enjoyed dinner at Outback. The food and drinks were
plentiful and sitting at one very large table we had plenty of conversation.
We also decided to make a change to our schedule. Because of the poor weather
which showed no sign of getting better and the long day at the car show, we
decided to cut our trip short by a day and return home Sunday rather than
Monday. Ultimately, this turned out to be a good decision because the area was
blanketed by heavy rains all day Monday.
The drive home was uneventful and we took a short detour to avoid some of the construction. The weather held up pretty well and we only encountered a little rain. All the classic cars ran flawlessly, which in itself makes for a successful driving tour. Hopefully everyone had a good time and enjoyed seeing the large number and interesting variety of cars present. A big “Thank You” goes out from all participants to Joey Novak for arranging and planning the tour!