Sponsors will be prominent along cruise route

By Gary Gosselin, Heritage Newspapers

A number of prominent organizations have stepped up to officially participate in Cruisin’ Downriver, and each of them will have a presence at the daylong event July 8.

Presenting sponsor Heritage and one of the coordinators, Heritage Newspapers, will set up a booth at Southgate Ford on Fort Street and will give away the special Cruisin’ Downriver newspaper sections. There official Cruisin’ Downriver T-shirts and folding chairs with the Cruisin’ Downriver logo will be sold. An easy landmark will be the inflatable Heritage Newspapers balloon.

Title sponsor Ford Motor Co. also will be at Southgate Ford and will bring in race cars, specialty vehicles, a Harley-Davidson F-150 truck, a couple of specialty Windstar minivans and perhaps even a Mercury Cougar and Mazda 626 (both made at AutoAlliance International).

"We’re going to bring out a lot of neat stuff for the public to see that they might not normally get a chance to see," said Pete Campbell, Ford product analyst and leader of the Ford gotFUN@car cruise committee.

Contributing sponsor Rodgers Chevrolet will be stationed at Old Kent Bank, which is at the corner of Fort and Longsdorf in Riverview. There, a combination of new and old will be featured. There will be a new Corvette, Camaro and Monte Carlo as well as some employee classics from the 1950s and 1960s.

An information booth will be set up at the Rodgers site, with official T-shirts for sale and some other "neat and fun" things and activities for cruise fans.

ASC Inc., the other contributing sponsor, will be set up at the Pep Boys store at 16755 Fort Street and will have not only a number of ASC’s custom and concept car creations, but many cars brought by employees.

"Not only do the people here work on cars all day at work, but a lot of them go home and work on (classic) cars at home, too," said Mark Pauze, ASC director of marketing and communications. "It also seems like a it’s a great event for us to find people who enjoy this stuff, and we’ll be talking to people about recruitment."

Oldies 104.3 WOMC, the official radio station of the event, will have three remote locations, with sites tentatively scheduled along Fort Street in Lincoln Park, Southgate and Riverview.

WOMC is also responsible for making sure no one forgets where they are, and will post hundreds of 3- to 4-foot signs on the light and telephone poles all along Fort Street.

The Southern Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, the other cruise coordinator, will host a booth at Clemente’s bar and restaurant in Lincoln Park sponsored by Southland Center.

The booth will be staffed, and official T-shirts will be sold at the booth, and route maps and this special Cruisin’ Downriver supplement will be given out.