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Publisher: The Crittenden Automotive Library Byline: Bill Crittenden Date: 1 November 2024 Elmore Leonard |
Detroit and Pontiac Everyone who is interested in the history of automobiles knows the legend that is the Motor City. Detroit is so much more than a sprawling collection of shuttered automobile factories and abandoned houses you see on the propaganda networks posing as news. Like any major city, it has its official borders and its metropolitan area, and the Detroit metropolitan area encompasses 3.7 or 4.3 million people, depending on your definition. There's always some strained relationship between suburbanites claiming to be from the city and the city claiming things that have addresses in the suburbs, but I'm always a fan of taking the broader definition, as people need to focus more on what unites us than what divides us. Also, a lot of what the rest of the country thinks of as “Detroit” isn't in the official city limits. The Ford Motor Company is in Dearborn. Chrysler is in Auburn Hills. The Pontiac Silverdome wasn't corporate sponsorship, the Lions (owned by the Ford family) really did play a half hour northwest of the city before Ford Field was built downtown. But don't be fooled by the signs for a town called Plymouth, that isn't the origin of the Plymouth marque's name. Detroit has always had a place in my heart beyond the history of the American automobile industry. I had at various points in my teen years two in-laws from Detroit. One introduced me to the Red Wings when the Blackhawks were apathetic at best towards its fans, and Steve Yzerman is still my all-time favorite. Like most Americans, I'm a fan of the underdog and comeback story, and I got real tired of seeing Detroit as punchline and punching bag when every town has some run down street that they wouldn't put on a tour route. And while a lot of people did leave the city, those that stayed are rebuilding. We saw the rough neighborhoods, but in other places there was a lot of construction and remodeling going on. Last month I had the opportunity to visit the Detroit area for the third time in my life, and really visit it for the first time. If decades-old memories are correct, my first visit was in the early 1990s and I didn't even get out of the car. My second visit was an overnight stay to see a Red Wings preseason game in 2022. This year we arrived early for a regular season game and spent the next day in Pontiac and Farmington Hills. First impression? I know where all the new Cadillacs are now. We don't see too many in the Chicago area, but there seem to be so many in the Detroit area. There can't be that many middle managers for General Motors, so I'd hypotheize that there is still a strong loyalty to American brands. Having been through at least one weekday rush hour in all three cities, I can say that Detroit is a far more pleasant place to drive than Chicago or Milwaukee. Milwaukee is anarchy. They seem to have two-lane roads with unmarked lane lines but are more likely wide single lanes with people squeezing by where they shouldn't. And where lane lines (and speed limits) do exist they are ignored. Chicago is defined by a lack of personal space. You need to be on the rear bumper of the car in front of you like it's Talladega or you'll get sideswiped by someone trying to squeeze into a spot that isn't big enough for their car. Downtown Detroit wasn't any worse than leaving Woodfield for Hoffman Estates, and those turnaround spots on divided highways where you just make a right turn out of a parking lot and turn around if you needed to go the other way are brilliant. I don't have the data, but it feels so much simpler and safer than driving across three lanes of traffic or trying to see over the hood of the car next to you waiting to turn left out of a parking lot. Illinois has wholeheartedly embraced the roundabout recently, and I hope these come next. There's on odd thing about Michigan's insurance laws that we noticed before we left, that they have no-fault insurance. According to the state website, “If you have an auto accident, no-fault insurance pays for your medical expenses, wage loss benefits, replacement services, and the damage you do to other people's property. It does not matter who caused the accident.” This might have something to do with the higher volume of accident attorney advertising on TV and along the highway than we're used to seeing in Illinois and Wisconsin. It's probably because I already have hockey on my mind watching Red Wings broadcasts, but the Feiger Law “All We Do Is Win” commercials remind me of pre-Ducks Gordon Bombay. We got a chuckle from another law office's billboards that say “Hit by a truck? Hit back!” Livonia feels a lot like Algonquin, but is much closer to downtown Detroit than we are to downtown Chicago. It's also just off of I-96, not too far from I-94, and not quite directly in between Ann Arbor & Pontiac. We started staying there because it had the closest hotels with free parking, but the Portillo's is a nice touch of home when we need it. If for some reason we need or want to leave Illinois, this is the first place we'll be looking on Zillow. Pontiac is a special suburb that is an integral part of Detroit's Motor City history. The center of Oakland County, the city of a little over 60,000 has a history with transportation dating back to before the Industrial Revolution and continuing to this day. The Pontiac Transportation Museum, currently under construction in the former Crofoot Elementary School, highlights all of this history and not just that of the Pontiac marque. I highly recommend going. Phase I is open to the public, and Phases II & III are under construction scheduled to be completed in 2025 and 2026 when the town will host the Pontiac-Oakland Club International's Annual Convention. Our tour guide, Brian D., was knowledgeable and friendly and just made the whole experience memorable. The first thing you'll notice is the GMC pickup truck on the mural outside. That's the first hint that “Pontiac” refers to the place and not the marque. The second is the 2024 Mahindra Roxor just past the gift shop, manufactured on South Boulevard in Pontiac. The success of the marque and being the namesake of the city makes GM's Pontiac cars the most famous vehicles produced in the city, but there were so many others. Oddly, GM wasn't the first to use Pontiac as marque. The museum has an example of a car built by the Pontiac Spring and Wagon Works in 1908 called “The Pontiac.” GMC features prominently on the mural because they had a major manufacturing plant in the city. General Motors buses were also made in Pontiac, and they were such a staple of American streets that the federal government broke up the bus division as a monopoly. Pontiac also was the birthplace of pioneering companies Cartercar, Olympian, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company (a predecessor of GMC). Some of Whizzer's mopeds were made there. Cartercar developed an early version of the continuously variable transmission more than 115 years ago. Also, a fun discovery on the way to the museum was seeing that Pontiac General Hospital still uses a version of the 90s font in its logo. For those that don't know the oldest history of the marque, it starts with Oakland. Oakland County was named for the trees that would be the literal backbone of a thriving carriage industry that helped carry settlers westward across the plains and even over the Oregon Trail. When automobiles were rudimentary and new, there was a lot of overlap between carriage making and automobile manufacturing. They were originally called horseless carriages, after all. Edward Murphy, owner of the Pontiac Buggy Company, along with a former Cadillac employee, founded the Oakland Motor Car Company in 1907. In 1909 General Motors bought it among its many other acquisitions. In the mid 1920s, looking to fill the price gaps between its brands GM created “companion makes,” which were cheaper versions of the cars they were based off of. Oldsmobile created Viking, Cadillac had LaSalle, and Oakland created the lower-cost Pontiac by replacing a few parts with what they could from Chevrolet's supplies. Pontiac is the only one that really took off, the only surviving GM companion brand, and the last Oakland was made in 1931. That's just a few places we could visit in the short time we had there. Trips to Detroit are probably going to become an annual event for us, as we haven't even seen The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, Ford's Piquette Avenue Plant, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, and all of the smaller historic sites scattered across the area. And we'll definitely be back for the POCI Convention in 2026. | ||||
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History Beyond the Bumpers The Crittenden Automotive Library includes information from all aspects of automotive transportation and competition. This section highlights topics related to automobiles other than vehicles themselves. Any major city is going to have its local brands and food inventions, and the former fifth largest city in the United States, built on industry, definitely has its share of solid working class comfort food. Detroit style pizza: having a direct connection to the automobile industry, and being a damn good meal, this is the best representative of the city. Buddy's invented it at the beginning of the post-WWII pizza revolution from a shortage of pizza pans. Instead they used square pans normally made for auto parts in the city's factories, and the crispy cheesy corners of this pan pizza have finally been gaining popularity across the country in the past few years. Buddy's uses Wisconsin brick cheese (yay for Midwestern cooperation!) that gives it a unique flavor rated one of the best pizzas in the world regardless of category. We certainly came back from our trip, to our little house on the far end of the Chicago suburbs, favoring Detroit's squares over Chicago deep dish in general. Coney dog: I was determined to find one of these but not really willing to pay $20 for parking to get it. Thankfully they're at Leo's all across the suburbs, including one location less than 50 yards from our hotel. I've had a chili dog before, and I'm not fond of the chunky-runny mix making a sloppy mess of the bun. Coney chili is more of a thick meat sauce, similar to a good bolognese. Heidi wasn't so fond of the patricular execution we tried, but is sold on the concept. I'm a coney convert, and we found some cans of National coney chili back here in Illinois to keep me warm through the winter. Koegel's hot dogs: While at Leo's I ordered a Chicago style hot dog to get a more direct comparison of the Koegel's. It was a sad try, with regular relish, under-ripe (almost white) tomatoes, and when my wife asked for an extra pickle spear the server asked, “like, a cold pickle?” There was no pickle. But it did give me a chance to try Koegel's without the chili sauce and...I'm torn. It's a damn good sausage, but the flavor doesn't fit well with traditional hot dog toppings. It's probably my upbringing in the land of Vienna Beef, but the taste is definitely off as a Chicago dog, and I don't think it would even work well for me as a regular ketchup-and-mustard dog. But I bet it would be fantastic served like a Maxwell Street Polish sausage or with some sauerkraut, and it worked okay as a Coney dog. As we left, Heidi said, “well, it's not like they have a real Chicago hot dog around here to compare it to” as we rounded the corner of Home Depot and saw the second Portillo's location in the entire state of Michigan across the parking lot! Mom's Spaghetti: There's nothing particularly Detroit about a cup of spaghetti, except when it's from Eminem's restaurant within walking distance of LCA. This is our new go-to postgame meal. Better Made potato chips: Halfway between Lay's and Munchos, they're not for everyone but I think these would have been my father-in-law's favorite brand. Honorable Mentions: There are even more Detroit icons that weren't a part of the trip because soda cans tend to travel well. I never really liked Vernor's, but I've tried it multiple times. Faygo's diet red pop and creme soda, however, are usually in our fridge. Also the Chicago area has a huge Polish population, so I'm familiar with pączki and where to find them year-round. And who hasn't grabbed a Little Caesar's Hot-and-Ready on the way home when they didn't feel like cooking? | ||||
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629.2 The Dewey Decimal System's designation for automobiles falls within the 629.2 range. This section is about The Crittenden-Walczak Collection. As we pulled up to the Pontiac Transportation Museum, I thought it looked like it was an old school building, and I was right! The Michael E. Crofoot Elementary School was constructed in 1973 and had a lot of those non-structural flexible walls that were easy to remove and open up the space for a museum. I've thought for a long time that an abandoned school would be the ideal home for a massive library. The main difference between most schools and other types of buildings is that they're not built for profit but for longevity. We've seen fulfullment warehouses fold when struck by the smallest tornadoes. Schools, on the other hand, are just built much stronger. The enhanced Fujita scale was created to take into account what kind of building was damaged for the purposes of estimating tornado strength and warehouses have a much lower threshold than high schools. I've also thought about an abandoned big box store. Just the idea of having one massive hall like the famous Trinity College in Dublin is inspiring, but I'd constantly worry about the roof in every storm. An abandoned high school is great for volume and safety, but for style and location nothing beats the American Community Bank & Trust building on the way into town from Route 14. Back in reality, we've just finished with a major remodeling of the upstairs on both sides of our little duplex on a corner in Woodstock, Illinois. I've done a lot of work but it still feels like I'm just getting started on the basement, which should take most of the winter and spring. Only a few shelves have found their permanent spots, and then there's the matter of an inventory. I still have a few loose ends in the previous remodel but now I'll be focusing on the new office instead of doing sporadic mini-projects down there in between major projects upstairs. Buying a separate building is still a far-off fantasy, but you never know. I turn 44 this month, the same age Sam Walton was when he started Wal-Mart. 44 is how old Anthony Bourdain was when he was first published in The New Yorker. And I don't pay much attention to local politics but I hear the Woodstock North High School isn't getting the enrollment numbers they anticipated when they built it... | ||||
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About The Crittenden Automotive Library The Crittenden Automotive Library @ CarsAndRacingStuff.com, based in Woodstock, Illinois, is a free online collection of information relating to not only cars, trucks, and motorcycles, but also the roads they drive on, the races they compete in, cultural works based on them, government regulation of them, and the people who design, build, and drive them. We are dedicated to the preservation and free distribution of information relating to all types of cars and road-going vehicles for those seeking the greater understanding of these very important elements of modern society, how automobiles have affected how people live around the world, or for the general study of automotive history and anthropology. In addition to the historical knowledge, we preserve current events for future generations. The Library currently consists of over 896,900 pages of books, periodicals, and documents, over 57,000 individual articles, more than 18 days of video & 24 days of audio, more than 36,100 photographs & other images. About The Crittenden-Walczak Collection The combined personal collections of John Walczak & Bill Crittenden provide reference materials for The Crittenden Automotive Library. The collection currently includes 1,368 different book volumes/editions, 2,470 unqiue periodical issues and 862 catalog issues, as well as booklets, brochures, comic books, hero cards, event programs, and 371 hours of video. |
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