This story is so pathetic on so many levels…
For those not familiar with the car business and/or the city of Detroit, the city of Detroit was designed with a series of roads that radiate out from the city center. Jefferson Avenue runs along the river, another road runs to Ann Arbor, Grand Avenue runs accross the state all the way to Grand Rapids…. but the most well known one is probably Woodward Avenue.
Woodward Avenue runs out from the city center, past the original GM corporate headquarters, the original Ford plant where the Model T was built, a few blocks from where Chrysler’s headquarters use to be… when it reaches 6 mile road (6 miles north of downtown), the 7 lane city street widens to a boulevard with a wide strip of grass in between. In the good old days (before the 1960s) this was where the streetcars ran. If you continue north, the road runs past Bloomfield Hills, where all the rich and powerful people of the Auto industry lived…. if you keep going you wind up in Pontiac and ultimately Flint and Saginaw.
Back in the 1950s, “Cruising Woodward” was the in thing to do for all the rich kidz whose dad worked for GM. They would take their hoppped up 1957 Chevy with loud mufflers and just drive constantly up and down Woodward Avernue to impress each other. If you were a real Power in the car business you demonstrated that by your collection of rare limited edition cars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmGWnejMVlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1d3pLH0-Oo
So apparently, this has evolved into an official “event” that happens the weekend before labor day. The organinzer sell the rights to broadcast the parade of cars.
Someone had the nerve to say they were going to do a live broadcast from the event “without authorization” and the event organizers initiated legal action to stop that. WDTW-AM – the station referenced in the story has caved – WDTW is owned by Clear Channel and is the “progressive talk” station. (Interesting that a “Green” station like WDTW would be covering a festival celebrating the polluting, gas wasting, rubber tire burning, lead fuel muscle cars of the 1950s and 1960s…)
The organizers are kind of aware that with this Internet Thing it may get harder to keep people from streaming live to the world. I wonder if they’ll issue “Take down” notices to YouTube for anyone posting videos of the event (happening on a public street)