… was blaring from someone’s car speaker just as I neared Memorial Park.

I swiveled my head at the wrong time and just missed a lime green VW bus with peace symbols all over it as it zoomed by me. It might have been a blurry shot anyway.

I mused that here I was amongst these beautiful Mustangs as Linda Schaub, Your Roving Reporter, not with the moniker of “Mustang Sally” nor “Long Tall Sally” (despite my shadow) – no, it’s not my thing for the latter two.

It was Cruisin’ Downriver, the 26th annual classic car cruise along M-85 a/k/a Fort Street, in the Downriver communities of Riverview, Southgate, Wyandotte and Lincoln Park. Officially, the cruise was Saturday, June 27th, but vehicles began cruising up and down Fort Street as early as Thursday evening.

Locally, it is billed as a celebration of cars and community and is one of many cruises held throughout the Summer in the Tri-County area, all leading up to the grandaddy cruise of them all, the Woodward Dream Cruise.

I decided to meander over as it might be a fun photo op with the 250 American flags for America 250 in residence at Memorial Park. You can see some of them around the marquee. If you missed my post about the flag display, you can find it here.

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the ducks and geese and look at some cool-looking, crayon-box-colored classic cars. I had fun at the Model A car show a few years ago and was excited to see the 1977 Clenet recently.

It was fairly early to glimpse the classic cars on Fort Street – they would be in abundance later in the day, but then it is more difficult to get good photos of them as they’re jam packed together and there are crowds along Fort Street … AND, it was going to be a scorcher later on.

Ponies in the Park.

Whenever I go to Cruisin’ Downriver, I always stop at “Ponies in the Park” our local version of “Mustang Alley” that is at the Woodward Dream Cruise. I was curious where the Mustangs would be corralled, er … gathered this year, since the America 250 display of the oversized Declaration of Independence was exactly where those classic cars usually park for the event.

So, this year they were parked at the side of Memorial Park and, just as I arrived, a few more of those classic ‘Stangs were pulling up, after rolling past the church parking lot, then behind the memorial pavilion to eventually join the others.

I’m not going to include all of the Mustangs, just a few that I could get close up to before it got crowded with cars, their owners and envious Mustang enthusiasts.

This was the first Mustang, rolling past the flags – you couldn’t miss that bright-orange color.

This “Pony” parked at the opposite end of the line-up.

It had a fun license plate, an abridged version of “Dreamsicle”.

Next in line was this fire-engine red Mustang GT, rounding the flag display near the church.

Yes, I could ID it as it had “GT” or “Mustang GT” in several places.

Most of these classic Mustangs have personalized license plates and occasionally you have to scratch your head to figure them out – not this one though, clearly “Dig a Pony”.

While I was admiring and photographing the above red Mustang, a black Mustang pulled in beside me. The owner jumped out and immediately raised the hood. Yes, clean as a whistle inside and I quipped that when I go for an oil change the guys at Lovedays marvel at how clean the engine is and I was nearing 14,800 miles on my 2009 Buick LaCrosse. I said eight more years and it’s a classic car.

We were chattin’ it up and I said “I know you have a personalized license plate!” Yep, he did: “Fastback”.

He pointed to his tee-shirt and said “I made this design for this cruise” so I asked to take a photo of the front …

… and he said “wait, I’ll turn around and you can get the back too!”

He said he also created this 3D V8 engine drink holder with his printer. He wanted it since his car has a V6 engine, so now he has a V8 engine. I said “you lost me there!” 🙂

I said “I’m not that high-tech nor car savvy to be honest” so he said “watch what I’ll do with my car on my phone – I’ll make it into a Transformer” …

… and then he made a Transformer figure holding up the Mustang logo from a nearby red Mustang.

I told him he was very high tech, more so than me. (What I didn’t tell him was that up until that moment, I did not know what a Transformer was.)

I thanked him for our chat, then left to see a few more Mustangs that had pulled up while we were chatting.

It seemed like there were more red cars than other colors and I next honed in on the last red car to the right …

The hood was propped up like before so I stopped here and peered in (like I knew what I was looking at).

The owners were a very nice couple and the man said he washed under the hood to keep it so clean. I’m not sure if he was pulling my leg or not?

This car was the 26th anniversary Mustang and they told me they had a white 25th anniversary Mustang and decided to get rid of it – there are only so many months a year in Michigan to go cruising after all, but they missed going to car events and cruising, “so we bought another ‘Stang.”

And they got a fun license plate for it.

Several of the Mustangs had this emblem on their back window, or something else identifying them as members of this club.

This was the last car to join the other Ponies at the Park event. Seeing this turquoise Mustang convertible brought back memories. When I worked at Carter’s, Frank and Jeanie, who owned the pet shop across the street, often came in for breakfast. They always pulled their car, exact same color and a convertible, alongside the diner to keep an eye on it through the window. Google tells me this is a 1966 First Generation Mustang Convertible.

Off to see some other classic cars ….

I decided it was time to walk along Fort Street as traffic had picked up a little. I hoped to get a few photos of some vintage cars.

This was a 1936 Chrysler Airstream pulling up to the stoplight …

… and here it was pulling away.

This was a 1978 Ford Fairmont.

Another oldie but goodie was this modified vintage 1940 Ford Pickup Truck.

These classic and vintage vehicles drive a six-mile loop during the course of the Cruise event. There are canopies where people stake their spot the night before and there is a battle of the bands and food trucks in Memorial Park later in the day. The next day I drove along Fort Street and saw lots of tire marks from those classic cars burning rubber.

As I walked to Council Point Park, I saw this ’66 Chevy Chevelle in the ‘hood.

Thank you Google AI for helping me ID these cars.

The wild horses in the featured image and below are from my jacket.

I am joining Terri’s Sunday Stills Color Challenge: “Colors of Lava and Black” .