Dan Cluley

Greetings from a fellow '65 Chrysler owner. I recognize that New Yorker from FCBO.

I've seen partial eclipses before and they are kind of cool, but I wouldn't go out of my way for another. An actual full total eclipse like I saw south of Toledo OH yesterday is a whole different experience. Totally worth it.

Thank you both for the information and the Photoshop work.

A photo taken by my Great Grandmother in July 1927. She and a couple of her sisters seem to have been on a trip from Detroit to Hamilton Ontario. Family stories say that she had a couple of Franklins in the 1920's and this seems to match Franklin pictures I have looked at. It seems that they did not change much between '25-'29, but is there anything that I'm missing that would narrow this down between '25 and '27?

Yes, that was at the display of the last Alero. I had thought it was a Limited, are they even larger?

What a difference a decade made.

I really like the stained glass border. Recycled window?

And maybe a '57 Plymouth under the '60 Chevy?

Happy Holidays to all.

Between 2007 & 2014 I daily drove a '74 Dart year round in Mid-Michigan. At that point, 4 doors were basically $1000 +/- a little depending on condition. This one had been in Texas & Michigan, so it was both sun baked & rusted. Painted it with rattle can Rustoleum and it was a decent 20 footer...maybe 50 feet. I was sorry to see it go, but by the Spring of 2014 it had some actual structural rust issues and the 318 had developed some serious blowby.

This wasn't me, but some folks had a nice drive last Sunday near Owosso MI. Chasing a 1941 locomotive in a 1931 Ford.

I've got a small 2 car garage. One side has the trash bins & yard stuff. The other side is car parts & tools. That leaves the middle which is working space for projects in the summer and parking for the daily in the winter. At the moment it's filling up with boxes of Christmas lights before they go out on the trees. The '65 Chrysler is tucked away for the winter in the carport at my girlfriend's.

Looks like 1965 & 1966 Dart/Valiant with V8 4bbl, but not station wagons. That number does not appear in the '64 or '67 books, so I am assuming this is the only application.

Thanks for the great pictures. I am again reminded how spoiled we are in Michigan with so many car events.

Sunday 8/27 Since I had all day to get home, I looped around through Mackinaw City and hit some places on the Lake Michigan side of the state. After breakfast at Alice's Restaurant (no signs of Arlo Guthrie or Officer Obie) I spotted this GMC motorhome on the way out of Cheboygan. If I had the space and the money, I would probably have one of these. A closer look at the Mackinac Bridge. The MSP Post at Petoskey had the '75 Fury out front. Saw the bridge at Charlevoix open twice, but no aspiring Elwood's took advantage. Crossed the 45th parallel on US-31. Just south of there, one of my last stops was this roadside park on what used to be US-31. The cairn contains a stone from each of Michigan's 83 counties. Took a few more pictures around Torch Lake and then made the 3 hour drive home. Total for the week was just over 1000 miles, and the only issues were the grease cap that came loose from the left front wheel (that makes a heck of noise bouncing around inside the wheel cover) and a headlight that burned out. Shout out to the Advance Auto in Cheboygan that actually had one in stock on a Sunday morning. 😊

Our short afternoon stop was in Wolverine MI. It's a little smaller than Gaylord. Finally around 4pm we arrived at our final stop in Cheboygan MI. The Fraternal Order of Eagles provided not only their parking lot, but were open for food and drinks. Conveniently, the Continental Inn is right across the street, and many of us stayed there. The Lake Huron shore is only a few blocks away. Since it is nearby, I made a quick side trip to Aloha MI and hiked the entire length of M-212. At less than a mile, it is the shortest state highway in Michigan. Back in Cheboygan, I finished up with a few night photos.

Saturday 8/26 After meeting up at the High School in Grayling we headed to Gaylord to spend a few hours downtown there. We got some nice pep music to wake everyone up. OK, that was actually for the soccer game getting started on the other side of the parking lot, but it worked. As part of the tourism boom in the 1960's much of Gaylord's downtown buildings were remodeled to give the town a pseudo-Alpine look like many of the ski resorts being built in northern Michigan. A small number of cars were built in Gaylord before WWI and the visitor's center has one of the only remaining examples. Suddenly it’s 1960. We took up 3 full blocks on the main street and some of the side streets as well. What color '64 would you like?

After 4 hours in Harrison, we got back on the road for another 50 miles to our evening's stop in Grayling. Snowmobile crossings are definitely a sign that you are up north. Time for Trucks? A little fun with sidewalk chalk and then time to call it a day. Yes, it used to be a Holiday Inn.

Friday 8/25 Friday we got to sleep in a little and then headed back to downtown Clare before heading to Harrison. There are lots of opinions about where "Up North" starts, but beyond Clare the topography definitely gets hillier. Harrison has a street festival the same weekend the tour passes through, so there's lots to do at one of the longer stops of the week.

One of the things I really like about this event is how loose it is. Some people show up for a couple of hours in one town, some spend a full week to do the whole thing, and everything in between. I don't have any hard numbers, but based on pictures, I'd guess we had about 50 cars the first day in Waterloo increasing up to 2-300 at some of the Thursday stops and then back down to 75 or so by Saturday in Cheboygan.

Next up was the city of Alma. The sky cleared up, so the tops went down before we moved on to St Louis. There, the local newspaper got its aerial shots the old fashioned way while I stayed on the ground and let my drone do the work. The final stop for the day was in Clare MI. This is often the largest show of the week, but it mostly got rained out for the second year in a row. On the other hand we missed the severe storms, flooding & tornados that other parts of the state dealt with that evening, so a little rain is ok. Some of the group stayed downtown at the historic Doherty Hotel which fills up quickly. I stayed at the Quality Inn which also seemed popular.

Thursday 8/24 This is the busiest day. We only cover about 70 miles, but stop and do shows in 5 different cities. The morning meet up is at a grocery store in Dewitt and then up the road to St Johns After a couple of hours, it was time to continue north to Ithaca MI. I was not the only one with a full size convertible, although the weather was not ideal this day.

I talked to these guys later in the week. They had come from Denver, and it did belong to an actual band about 15 years ago. If I remember correctly it has the original Rambler 6 with a 3 carb setup added. A Ford 5 speed and rear end with disc brakes all around. Some little cars to finish up the day.

Wednesday 8/23 The group had a scavenger hunt in the morning & lunch in Coldwater before heading north. I came down from Lansing & met up with the group as they were leaving town, and drove back north with them. While the majority of the driving is on the pre-interstate route, we do use I-69 to bypass Lansing on the way to the evening stop in Dewitt MI. Along this stretch a break is taken at the Potterville rest area where we meet up with the State Troopers who will escort the tour the rest of the way around Lansing. Once in Dewitt, we fill up the downtown for the evening. You have to have some nice Oldsmobiles around Lansing. Nothing like a road trip in a station wagon

Yes, I think there are some coming in the next day's report