October 28th

Hello everyone. Sorry about being late with my reports. With Hurricane Wilma's arrival and my attempts to acquire a new job at Disney time ran short and to top that off I couldn't get online. I did get the new job and will start it in a few weeks and will hopefully become a fixture at the mid week cruises.

The Four checker flag winners for Friday night 10/21/05 were:

Tom Coupe with a green 1983 Ford Ranger Pickup. Toms truck has a V-8 under the hood with an automatic transmission. This truck is also updated with many custom features and is trying to look like a big truck.

The second flag winner is Mark Stafanick with a black 1982 blown Chevy Camaro. This car is sweet.

The third flag went to Charles Rodriguez with his black 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse. This car had a few custom features to fit right in with the sport compact crowd.

The fourth flag went to Jose Alvarev with a silver 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse. There were a total of fifty cruisers that registered for the cruise and endured the inclement weather. I was beginning to think I would not have anything interesting to write about but at the last minute I found two cars that were worth mentioning. I should know better than to think it would be a boring night with nothing to report. The first car was a silver 1988 Mercedes 560 SEL convertible. The owner told me that this car is a one of one custom built by Mercedes. This car had a flawless blue leather interior and a blue top. If you have ever seen the movie "Consenting Adults" you would have seen Kevin Spacey driving this beauty in the movie. The second car was an old, well new, no old, you decide. Anyway it is a 2002 Studebaker Avanti convertible. This car is a bright red with a gray leather interior. These cars are built on Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird chassis. Now that the final chapter (at least for now) has been written for the Camaro and Firebird, the Avanti is being built on a Ford Mustang chassis. To read more on this new generation Avanti go to www.avantimotors.com and to get a full history of the Avanti go to www.theavanti.com

The Friday night cruise 10/28/05 had a total of 75 cruisers registered for the cruise. There were plenty of ghosts, ghouls, and goblins to keep one on their toes. Again we had four checker flag winners.

The first winner was Debbie Marlick with her gray 2004 Mitsubishi Ralliart Lancer. This car was treated to a rear spoiler, euro taillights, and silver dragon graphics on the sides.

The second winner was Ryan Abharno with his black 1998 Dodge Neon two door coupe. This car had a rear wing, mag tires and wheels, a custom front bumper, and dual exhaust. I didn't know that could be done with a front wheel drive compact.

The third winner is Juan Martinez with his green 1976 Mazda RX-4 rotary engine coupe.

The fourth winner is Eddie "Flames" Guglich with his red 2003 Ford Expedition. Eddie Flames was escorted to the cruise by his wife Chris and some thin guy riding in the back. I overheard Eddie refer to him as "Bones". Eddie made him ride in the coffin in the back next to the rats, the bats, and the witch. I think Mrs. Flames got to ride up front.

As I had mentioned a few weeks ago that we have had more of the older import rides showing up, Friday night we were able to see the transformation Mazda had made with their Rotary powered coupes in the seventies. We got to see a yellow 1973 Mazda RX-2 coupe with a black vinal top and bucket seat interior. Parked next to that was a blue 1974 Mazda RX-4 coupe and around the corned was a green 1976 Mazda RX-4 coupe. The only Rotary engines cars missing were the Mazda Cosmo, the RX-7, and the RX-8. The Mazda Rotary cars were not great on gas, which was contrary to what was expected of a small imported compact. The were also different because they were rockets. I had one when a teen and if I recall correctly that car did 90 miles an hour in second gear and it had three more gears to go. The engine just never wound out. The downfall to the cars in the seventies is that they were different from everything else on the road and few people knew how to keep them running. The Rotary engine has become a favorite with the Latin crowd and can be found under the hood of many Toyota's, Nissan's and many others. It seems to be the import version of the "Chevy Small block".

This concludes another report of the Friday Night Cruise Report from Old Town. Until next week have fun and cruise safely