September 30th

My computer is suffering from some kind of flu and is really irritating me so this may be a short report. I just want to apologize in advance.

Friday night we had a total of 99 cruisers that attended the event. We also had a total of four checker flag winners this evening.

The first flag was awarded to Otto Brito with a very sharp stock 1980 Toyota Corolla two door sedan. This car was painted a medium blue and shined like new. It was one of the many older Toyota Corollas in the show tonight and they all looked good.

The second flag winner tonight is Millie Miguel with a yellow 1979 Toyota Corolla wagon. Seeing the two cars together shows the world of difference between the two. What a difference a year makes.

The third flag winner is Erika Kaiser with her beautiful gold 1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV. I think you could fit the two Corollas in the trunk of this Lincoln and still have room for a bag of groceries. I have written about Erika's Lincoln in the past and it still looks new.

The fourth flag went to Tony and Maryann DeGennaro with their pretty brown 1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

A few other cars that are worthy of a mention were also found Friday night. I found one of my favorites. It is a red 1985 Chrysler Fifth Avenue four door sedan with a nice red leather interior. She did have some bumps and bruises but was still very respectable. Another car I found is a 1973 Pontiac Ventura two door hatchback that was a nice dark shade of green. It is powered by a Chevy 350 and only showed 71'000 miles on the odometer. The Ventura was Pontiacs version of the Chevy Nova and only differed from the Nova with different taillights and a different grille. It had the same reliability and could be optioned to be just as mean on the streets. Oldsmobile also had a version of the Nova and it was called the Omega and it shared the streets with Buick's version called the Apollo which was later rebadged to be the Skylark. All four of these GM cars were great when new and still make a great cruiser, although the Chevy gets most of the attention.

In my opinion the Olds Omega was probably the best of the bunch when powered by that bullet proof Rocket 350. Simply awesome. Walking around on Friday night I am noticing a lot of the Latin rides. The quality of the modifications on the new ones can be quite mind boggling and I am seeing quite a few of the older imports.

When they were new they were not highly regarded except when gas was in short supply or over priced. Much like it is right now. They are however a part of American automotive history and it is good to see that there are some that did survive the beatings and the rust. I don't see too many of them on the road anymore and sure would like to know where they are hidden.

I'd like one of my own, a 1974 to 1978 Datsun B-210 hatchback. It had a cool sloping back end, is stingy on gas, and would make a nice Friday night cruiser as well as a daily driver. Well this concludes another edition of the Friday Night Cruise Report from Old Town and this computer didn't crash yet. So until next week have fun and cruise safely.