Since we are celebrating a ’58 Olds Festival here at CC today, let’s stay on the theme for a Caption piece. The beautiful view from the Mackinac Bridge with a sea of ’58 Oldsmobiles. Laurence Jones sees complement, I see contrast. You? I’m betting that the CC readership will get all kinds of ideas from this one.
Although not commonly remembered by historians, negative public reaction to the “Great Chrome Invasion of ’58” was the actual start of the environmental movement and would lead to the creation of the EPA and CARB.
Actually I think that’s the opening of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957.
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2006/10/21/missing-83-mackinac-bridge-1958-oldsmobiles/
Yes, that isn’t the GG Bridge, the towers don’t have solid horizontal braces. Also, where are the hills of Bay Area?
Well if it IS Mackinac then I change my caption to…
This picture taken moments before the great Mackinac Island sinking under the weight of Lansing’s dreams.
Actually, Mackinac Bridge connects Mackinaw City to St. Ignace. St. Ignace has a really big car show every summer, my folks took us there on vacation in ’89 and they had a Tucker on display. You have to take the ferry to Mackinac Island, and it does not allow any motor vehicles. Cool place though!
The June Ignace show is a really big one, only overshadowed by the Dream Cruise in August. Oddly enough, in the 13+ years I’ve lived here, I haven’t gone to either one.
Mackinac Island is wonderful to visit. We typically will find a hotel in St. Ignace and get day passes on the ferries to the Island. We bring our bicycles and just wander the island. You can rent bikes there too, or just wander around the downtown area. If you don’t/can’t pedal, you can get a nice horse-drawn taxi to take you where you want to go.
Mackinac Island is the location of the Grand Hotel, which was featured prominently in the 1979 (?) 1980 (?) movie “Somewhere in Time”, with Christopher Reeves and (a very hot) Jane Seymour. A real chick flick, but amusing to me, because of my visits to the Island.
I know I sound like the Mackinac Chamber of Commerce, but Michigan has charmed this Buckeye in so many ways…
Additionally, I’ve done the Labor Day Walk Across the Mackinac bridge a couple of times now. I have a bit of acrophobia, so it’s a little daunting for me. It helps to stay focused on getting up the bridge, and then back down it. Whatever you do, don’t look down on the open parts of the bridge deck.
But I have to give those young ladies credit for making the trip sitting on the convertible boot of those cars, When you’re at the top of the bridge, you’re way the hell up there. And the winds are known to gust mightily through there.
They could have been on puff away from disaster!
Ha! I lived in Moran, outside St. Ignace, for a year and a half…had to use that miserable bridge to get to my bank near Traverse City. I don’t normally have a fear of heights…but that height, and my little Toyota…
The first is the worst, they say. First time I crossed that bridge, it was with a loaded cycle. I do NOT recommend that…it was in summer, and as is wont, the State crews had the outside, fully-paved lanes shut for “repairs.” The inside lanes are just grates…to minimize the “wing” effect the wind has on such a structure. And those grates…I never experienced “death wobble” until then.
Loaded with about a hundred pounds of gear. Next time…I’ll go around it, if it means going through downtown Chicago in a convention.
I seem to be having a rough day for fact-accuracy. I have fixed the text to correctly identify the bridge. Thank you for catching the error.
83 white ’58 Oldsmobile convertibles with white interior (one for each county in Michigan, I understand) were provided by Oldsmobile for the opening ceremony of the bridge in late 1957. As of a few years ago, nobody could locate even a single one of these cars. An interesting footnote.
It’s extra interesting that at least the front line cars all appear to be Ninety Eights (that heavy Chrome slash mascara line from the headlights).
I would think they were all repainted and re-titled and sold and forgotten that they were bridge opening day cars. Or they got sent to Oldsmobile Dealers in the state of Michigan as Demo cars?
Oops, they weren’t all Ninety Eights. Somone has to know what happened.
“The commander of the Michigan National Guard was quite embarassed when he realized that he had misinterpreted orders to simulate a rocket attack on the Mackinac Bridge.”
While crossing the bridge, Fred started to second-guess himself. Had he been sent to get 88 Ninety Eights or 98 Eighty Eights?
“Somewhere in Time” is a world where every car is a ’58 Olds.
As they sped past, Don could have sworn he heard the lead car yelling “Come on, gang. If we can just make it to Cuba we’ll live forever!”
The White Supremacists and the Rocket Scientists of America had their annual convention on Mackinac at the same time in 1958, and decided to have a joint opening parade.
Onward came the rushing tsunami of chrome sweeping away all in it’s path.
“Unfortunately, Miss USS Chippewa (oblivious in car #17) and Miss USS Delta ( too busy fussing with her gown in car #21) missed whatever it was that made all the other Misses simultaneously turn to the right.”
With typical understated elegance, Harley Earl’s funeral procession proceeded towards its final destination.
“The opening ceremony for the Mackinac bridge was held today. Meanwhile the city council of Mackinac island voted to ban cars permanently. In other news, sales of eye bleach were up in the Upper Peninsula.”
A John Engler/Oldsmobile vs. Jetcopter joke would work here, but I suspect it would be to local and dated for the galaxy-wide Curbside Classic audience.
To prove the superior engineering and construction methods of the new Mackinac Bridge, a fleet of GM’s heaviest land yachts were driven across.
And by the way, a friend of my dad’s has worked on this bridge for over twenty years. He regularly climbs up those supports. He is not afraid of heights, before he left the Quad Cities he did maintenance on water towers.
Mayor Carmine Depasto: These parades are very expensive. You’re using my police… my sanitation people, my free Oldsmobiles.
Ha!
Rammmmming speeeeed!
Enough chrome to recycle for the next 20 years!
Now thats how you structurally test a bridge.
Although the time machine brought Bob and Linda back to what seemed to be 1958, they couldn’t help feeling that there was something a little strange going on……
Minutes after this photograph was taken, a flock of seagulls caused complete havoc, not to mention the significant dry-cleaning bills.