In less than two short weeks, I’ll be making my annual, summer pilgrimage back to my hometown of Flint, Michigan, for the yearly Back To The Bricks car festival which lasts for four days. It’s the vacation I wait for all year, pretty much the week after it ends. It’s also probably the longest, continuous stretch of time you’ll ever see me so genuinely excited. My face hurts from smiling so much by the time I get back to Chicago.
I spotted this ’69 Chevelle SS convertible in my Chicago neighborhood several years back about a week before ‘Bricks 2012, while riding the bus home after getting groceries. This car is one of just over 8,400 V8 Chevelle convertibles produced for the model year. This is my all-time favorite year of Chevelle – so much so, that when having my high school senior pictures taken in the fall of 1991, I spotted a blue hardtop coupe street-parked while en route to our photo shoot destination and made the photographer stop the car so I could get some pictures next to it. Both my mom and the photographer gladly obliged me, but most of those frames weren’t usable as I was cheesing so hard. I must have been a little “car-struck”, if you will.
What makes the week of Back To The Bricks so amazing is that it features no less than three rolling cruises, live music concerts, and marketplace tents and booths downtown which include both wares and food treats many of which can be had only in Genesee County. Saturday, the last official day of the festival, features an all-day car show that stretches along most of the main strip downtown on S. Saginaw St., featuring a wide variety of mostly American classic cars, but also lots of other noteworthy machines.
There are also other events that week (swap meets, a drive-in movie screening, dance contest) around the Flint area that are geared toward gearheads and their friends and families. For one week out of the year, my hometown looks much more like home during the time in which I grew up, with classic, Detroit iron cruising the streets throughout the city, parking lots of local businesses full of cars, and lots of people downtown.
Downtown Flint today looks much different – actually vibrant and fun – than the virtual ghosttown I remember from my teenage years. During this festival, the entire city uniformly seems to embrace the tourists (and yes, their dollars) with genuine smiles and warm hospitality. Community pride in the Vehicle City is apparent everywhere, even in spite of this area’s economic challenges. Leading up to this week, it’s like Flint has hit the gym, gotten scrubbed up, and put on the Hai Karate in preparation for its standing date with car-loving middle-America. We can’t wait to show everyone just how great an experience here can be, and that this town still matters.
I don’t own a car, so I rent one for this annual event and will drive back, eschewing the Amtrak for the freedom to see all the people, places and things I want to while I’m home. The drive between Chicago and Flint is about four and a half hours, which means that I usually try to find a reasonably economical car so I can spend my money where it counts – in Flint. I also try to specify an American-branded car for this trip, as loyalty to local brands still looms large in the town where the UAW was born.
However, I have found something slightly demoralizing about rolling into city limits in a (Korean-built) Chevrolet Spark. Economical? Yes. Sexy? It is the complete, one-hundred eighty degree opposite of sexy. The grape Pixy Stix-colored machine pictured below is the very car the rental agency provided me for the weekend of my 20-year high school reunion in August 2012. It might as well have been shooting purple glitter out of the exhaust as it went. Visually, it almost makes the yellow, ’75 Olds Starfire I had profiled on this site a few weeks ago look like a 4-4-2.
For the record, my two choices were this Spark and a Dodge Avenger. I don’t really dislike the Avenger, but it doesn’t move me, either. I figured that the Spark, at the very least, had great gas mileage ratings on its side; It could potentially do one thing really well. The Spark drove well enough, delivered outstanding miles-per-gallon, and the XM Radio feature helped me pass the time on the interstate and provided a great soundtrack to that week’s festivities. The Sonic and Cruze are better little Chevies, in respective, increasing increments of power and general acceptability, but shouldn’t there be an altogether different kind of choice for those willing to pay for it?
How game-changing would it be if I was able to rent a classic Chevy, like the featured, blue ’69 Chevelle, for when I return home to celebrate the American automobile? Part of my job entails underwriting insurance policies for collector vehicles, and while I understand the exposure would be increased for such a vehicle when rented out, why not just charge for it on the insurance side for eligible drivers with clean driving records, and then roll it into the rental fee? I think I’d gladly pay a reasonable, additional premium for the chance to drive a good, old-fashioned, V8-powered, American muscle car back into the city which used to build cars like this (including actual ’69 Chevelles) with elbow-grease, lunch-break beers and pride.
There’s got to be this kind of market for guys and gals like me, and there also has to be a viable business model. Who’s with me? In the mean time, I’ve got my fingers crossed for something at the rental agency with a gold bow-tie or blue oval on it that either won’t require me to shut off the A/C as I merge onto the I-90/94 Interstate expressway entrance ramp, or that does at least one thing really well besides simply getting me from Point A to Point B.
All photos are as taken by the author in Flint, Michigan and the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, during the month of August between 2010 and 2014.
I imagine the age and condition of the car would also play into its commercial insurability and that insurance companies would run a mile from a car with no airbags, CPU etc that isn’t being driven at a crawl for weddings. I always assumed you could hire a classic for tourists wanting to do Route 66. Nevermind, as long as there’s good tunes on hand, I could put up with most any new type of car.
Looking forward to your coverage. Please bring us some highlights from the swap meets if you can.
That Spark is just horrible, were the rental car people pranking you or something? Like the Spark wasn’t bad enough, so they came up with THAT color!?
Sparks tend toward vibrant colors–I guess it’s part of the car’s image. A page from the “cheap and cheerful” playbook, I guess. I’ve seen them in canary yellow, lime green, this purple, orange…
To me trendy colors emphasize the cheapness of a vehicle, the implication being that the vehicle will only last as long as the color will be in style. Ford Aspires are most often seen in wild colors as well.
What’s funny is that this Spark had become an unofficial mascot of our 20-year reunion! My former classmates and their families knew they were in the right spot when they spotted it in parking lots.
And to echo lw’s comment below, one of the first cars I thought of when thinking about wild colors was the Ford Aspire – also the Hyundai Accent.
My GM-bashing son Ed was in Detroit last week and ended up with a Spark rental. Sure enough; the transmission went into limp mode a mile or two from the airport when he was returning it. That didn’t improve his outlook on GM’s current cars any.
Yikes! Maybe the Avenger would have been a been a better choice for me, after all.
There are places in this country where you can rent a classic, but most of them are through very small private companies, not any of the big guys and generally only in “touristy” areas.
Joseph, one option you might have if you’re willing to trade MPG for power and style would be a Mustang or Camaro. You probably know this, and you’re unlikely to find one with the V8 or a manual trans, but even the V6 cars are around 300 HP these days. My wife and I traveled to the Florida Keys for our honeymoon in 2013 and rented a Camaro convertible, which was a very nice car to drive though the islands. (Though I wouldn’t want to own one for a variety of reasons.)
Not to mention the highway mpg on the Camaro or Mustang V6 is quite respectable for the amount of power. Great road trip cars, but unlike the Mustang V6 coupes of old that rented for about the same as a mid-size sedan, they’re considered “high performance” by the rental companies and priced accordingly.
Excellent point, Chris M., and also Mark P., below. If I wanted the experience of driving a quick rental car, a modern V6 Mustang or Camaro would be a fun way to go, and way easier on gas.
I guess I get so caught up in the nostalgia of always having wanted the kind of car men and women in my city used to build – but I guess that’s why I have my camera…to photograph those cars and still participate in the hobby.
Looks like a fun week in your hometown. The rental agency can’t find a classic for you but perhaps a Buick Verano. Buicks are always appropriate in Flint, the Verano is actually made in Lake Orion MI and a good economical highway car. Its what I own and have been pleased with it.
I am glad Flint does a festival to celebrate the heritage of the town. That other hometown boy Michael Moore poo pood Flint’s regenerative effort, but what would he have people do, give up and move away.
Michael Moore’s whole career is being A big bummer general bad vibe merchant. Speaking as a Buick guy, I’d definitely drive one if I were to go to Flint. Although most of my Buicks hailed from Linden, New Jersey!
John C., I’ve heard great things about the Verano, and driving a Buick in Flint is about as true to that place as one could get. 🙂 I rented a base-model Regal this past February, and aside from being a little short of legroom in the back (so I was told), I dropped it back off thinking I’d actually consider buying one if I was in the market for such a car.
When I was in the Navy, my roommate had an olive green SS-396 coupe that I got to drive once. I agree, they are nice cars but I still prefer the 70 model better as it had the same gauge cluster as the Monte Carlo. The 69 SS gauge cluster resembles that in a 69 Camaro, another less than stellar look…IMHO.
Another event which I’d like to attend some year, but happens on the same weekend as Moparfest. As for the classic rental agency….
Most businesses buy new vehicles and can claim tax breaks as they are a depreciating asset. A normal rental company would send the cars to auction and replace them once they are fully depreciated and before any major repairs are required due to wear-and-tear. I’m sure that they know exactly what combination of age and mileage a vehicle should have when they replace it, to maximize profits.
I don’t know what the tax rules would be regarding a business based around collector vehicles, but there isn’t an infinite supply of like-new 60’s muscle cars, so presumably the collector car rental company couldn’t use the same business model. They’d also want to stick to popular cars (Mustang, Camaro, Charger, Chevelle, tri-5 Chevy, etc.) for which reproduction replacement parts are plentiful. If there is wear-and-tear or a renter has a fender-bender, the car can’t be down for weeks while sourcing hard-to-find replacement parts. The rental rates would probably be very high.
Then there’s the matter of the customers. . . .
Let’s be honest, for anyone who wants to rent one of the dream cars of their high school years for a weekend, there’s a very good chance that before the weekend is over – and probably having consumed an adult beverage or two (I’m not talking drunk, just exuberant) – they’ll probably start driving the car like the high school kid they remember (or think they remember) before the weekend is out.
Add in a few like customers, and the wear and tear starts to pile up. And those vintage cars weren’t a good on handling wear and tear as their modern equivalents to begin with, plus add in the age factor.
There’s a reason that car rental agencies supply you with purgatorial transportation appliances: They don’t want you to be inspired by memories of the high school years you probably didn’t have anyway that only exist in your imagination. They want you to go from point A to point B, and not mess up their car while doing it.
Oh yeah, for its intended purpose (cheap, reliable transportation) the Chevy Spark is a very nice automobile. You want more than that? You pay for it.
Both of these insightful comments are part of the reason I didn’t go to business school. But I’m glad I put this idea out there in this forum. Better to have it logically debunked than to keep wishing for it. I just need to bite the bullet and buy my own.
One business model could involve geography. Here in low-rust land, pre-1970 cars are just cars. Drive to work every day. There in turbo-rust land, pre-1970 cars are rare and valuable.
In the movie “The Mexican” with Brad Pitt, the main character travels to Mexico and rents a light blue 68 or 69 El Camino (movie takes place around 1999). He had the same idea!
There is a company called Classic Mustang Rentals in Costa Mesa (near Newport Beach and Huntington Beach) that does precisely what you’d expect from their name.
A local mob here has Mini Mokes Sprites a Camaro and others on its books for self drive rentals but you need to come to Napier to do this come during Art Deco weekend when hundreds of 30s icons are parked all over the streets.
Heck, I like the ’69 Chevelle so much that I’d be happy to rent a Malibu 2 door with a 307 and Powerglide……
Too many cruises, not enough weekends!
I’m right in the middle of shows in Lansing, Flint, Detroit, Jackson & Grand Rapids, which all take place in a 10 day span. Back to the Bricks is the one I haven’t done yet, so maybe this year.
I really like the idea that there are some specialized companies that rent out such vehicles on a small scale. I had done some internet research specific to the Chicago area, thinking I might turn over some opportunity to actually this happen two weeks from now, but I’m now thinking my next Vegas trip might be a better opportunity for me to seek something like this out.
I would think that liability exposure from renting older cars would render the equation cost prohibitive. People tend to look back fondly on the power and handling of old muscle cars. In reality, those old Chevelles, Chargers, Mustangs etc. when equipped with base engines would be out performed by a modern Honda or Toyota. With a hi-po motor, they woul be downright dangerous in the hands of an average modern driver. The muscle cars and convertibles are just too valuable to subject to the rigors and abuse of the rental game, and it is not likely that there would be interest in paying a premium to rent a Le Sabre or Fury sedan. Any deviation from factory spec necessitated by lack of OEM parts availability could render a car uninsurable for commercial ventures. And even with all of the standard issue safety equipment fully functional, somewhere, some lawyer would be arguing to a judge that the rental agency was negligent in renting a car to his client that was not equipped with state of the art air bags, shoulder belts, etc.
I spent last week in the Denver Co. area. I skipped the Spark that was Hertz base vehicle and paid a few dollars more for some Hyundai sedan, maybe an Elantra. Not a bad car but it felt like it had a ten speed transmission constantly up shifting and downshifting while driving through the Rockies. I was happy to turn it back in at the end of the vacation and get back to my 4WD Silvy and vintage Mercedes.
I love the idea of renting something like this, but the problem is that too many people are used to how modern cars, and Toyota’s appliances stop, start, brake etc.
Unless you have a Pro Touring version of these, you have to make allowances for these
cars road manners. And thats beyond too many people, especially when the ‘drive it like you stole/rented it’ mentality comes into play.
I find myself allowing more allowance for idiots when driving my ’69 Skylark than I do in my 2006 Commodore.
A bunch of kids from my high school went to the formal (prom) in ’59 Chevrolets, as there is a local business owner who rents them out for special events and has about 4-5 ’59 Chevy sedans.
Also, interesting to note the LaCrosse and GS in the background of the first picture, looking very similar with their quad headlights.
Nice catch, Will!
Oh my. Pilgrimage to Flint!!!!!
You know it!
I want that car!
Same here, Zackman! I might have been drooling after I spotted it. I always think an owner must have a great sense of security to leave a convertible (any convertible, not just a classic Chevelle) parked on the curb with the top down. Maybe it had a “kill switch” or something.