SPRINGFIELD, MO

 

Trip to Novi, Michigan

May 13th - 18th

 

 

Hosts:  Darrel & Betty Skinner

 

Before we get too far in our great adventure to the Michigan NCRS Regional meet in Novi, Michigan, a couple of notes are in order.  First, Novi is a suburb of Detroit, and the roads in Detroit are among the worst that we have encountered in our many trips around the country.  We now know where all the old junk cars go – they use them as fill in the “pot holes” around Detroit!  Second, you know you are in Detroit because there is an abundance of cars running around the streets and highways cloaked in “cloth” body parts so you can’t see what the car actually looks like – I bet we saw a half dozen of the “prototype” cars running around the streets during the three days we were in Michigan.  Finally it became apparent that the Detroit elders were non-too imaginative – east/west primary roads were numbered from “one-mile” to “twenty-mile” roads.  And where does Novi get its name from you ask?  North Of Six Mile (VI) – now how clever is that?

Four couples from Vintage Vettes of the Ozarks made the trip to Novi, with the Bells and Skinners traveling together, meeting the Salmons and Galinskis in Novi.  I think that Bruce and Sandy felt sorry for us driving the ’66, so elected to tag along – what great company they were!  Day one found us leaving Kimberling City at the crack of dawn – ok, it was more like 9:00 am, but who’s counting. After an uneventful day of driving in the rain (yep, old convertibles still leak), we met up with Bruce and Sandy in Effingham, Illinois, swapped lies, and plotted our course for the next day.

 

Effingham, IL

http://www.mamotorworks.com/

 

Day two was a bit earlier as we were to meet with Nancy Bushur at Mid America Motorworks manufacturing facility at 8:30 for a tour of their plant.  Nancy’s official title is Club Relations/Advertising Coordinator, but she is also responsible for planning and implementing the Funfest, she is the customer data base coordinator, and I think that if the truth be known, when Mike Yager needs something special done, Nancy is the “go-to” person.  Nancy then turned our tour over to Steve Wiedman, whose business card says Director of Performance Choice Manufacturing – Steve is the guy who implements all the new items that are manufactured in house at Mid America.  Steve, we are told is also the second longest tenured employee at Mid America Motorworks to Mike Yager, the founder.  Touring the manufacturing plant gives one a sense of how complex interior manufacturing can be.  Leather cowhides in every color imaginable, rolls upon rolls of carpeting, and just as many spools of different color threads.  Just fascinating to see how they take the raw materials and make the various interior components for our cars.  From the manufacturing plant, it was on to the general offices with a short side trip by Mike Yager’s house to see what hard work and a little bit of self made luck can get you.  At the offices, we were introduced to Mike Yager (founder and “Chief Cheerleader”), and were shown around the offices, and warehouse.  Did you know that Mid America Motorworks carries over 80,000 different items?  All very efficient, and well organized.

 

 

Then it was on to the Garage and Museum area where we saw some very neat and rare cars – a 1989 ZR1 (this was a prototype that was shipped to England for the drive-train and was supposed to be destroyed when testing was complete – but our English friends didn’t do a thorough job.)  Mike Yager purchased the wrecked car, put a new body on it and is one of only two 1989 ZR1’s in existence – we would see the other later in the week at the Milford Proving Grounds.  Other cars included a 1964 prototype built for Bunkie Knudsen, the CERV 1 (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle) that was built to test the suspension components that would later become standard on 1963 and later Corvettes, the Corvette from the movie “Endless Summer”, and other very cool cars.  Just a note, Corvette fans are always welcome at Mid America Motorworks, and the museum is free.  If you are near Effingham, by all means stop in.

 

Auburn, Indiana

http://www.acdmuseum.org/

 

From Effingham, it was on to Auburn, Indiana and a visit to the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum, and the Pro Team Corvette showroom.  Auburn, Indiana was a major automotive manufacturing area during the late twenties to the late 1930’s, and was home to the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg cars.  In their day, each set a standard for performance, luxury, and styling that is never out of date.  Some of the more innovative things that the cars instituted were front wheel drive and hydraulic brakes.  The term “it’s a Duesy” comes from a reference to the Duesenberg representing the best of what automotive engineers had to offer during this period.  The first floor of the museum is devoted solely to the three nameplates in the museum name, and there were some very cool cars on display.  The third floor has a sampling of cars from the era, with many rare cars represented.  I think that one could easily spend an entire day here, but time constraints allowed us to only hit the high spots.

 

 

Auburn, Indiana

http://www.proteam-corvette.com/

 

From the ACD Museum, it is just a short drive to Pro Teams Indiana showroom.  Smaller and not as well known as the main showroom in Ohio, the display of cars was nonetheless impressive.  There had to be a dozen 1967 high horsepower big block cars on display if there was one, about as many straight axles, and a smattering of later model cars, including a custom Grand Sport that had my mouth watering.  Boy I was just like a kid in a candy store but forgot my checkbook!!   Perhaps next time!

 

 

From Auburn, it is just a short ride to Novi (with a stop at a winery for some “free” samples) where we met up with the Salmons and Galinskis.  Unfortunately both Jim and Carolyn were involved in judging and we didn’t get an opportunity to spend much time with them, but the rest of our intrepid band commandeered a table at the bar and managed to close the place down before we were unceremoniously “booted out”. 

Dearborn, MI

http://www.hfmgv.org/

 

The next day found us headed to The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn. Wow, words cannot describe this place.  It is so much more than a car museum with a display of locomotives and trains, airplanes, items of historic interest (the chair that Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated is on display as is a draft of the Declaration of Independence).  Other displays included a sample of each era of presidential limos from Teddy Roosevelt’s carriage (he thought that the new horseless carriage was too noisy to conduct official business in) to the limo that John Kennedy was riding in that fateful day in Dallas.  There was a display of rare clocks, a display of printing presses, a display of steam engines, and a very cool all aluminum house built by Alcoa in the 1950’s to promote the use on aluminum in everyday living.  Absolutely too much to see in one day, but we had to get back to visit a private car collection that evening. 

 

 

At the Novi Show

http://www.callawaycars.com/

 

Friday evening we were invited to tour the private automobile collection of Ken Lingenfelter.  Ken is the cousin of John Lingenfelter, renowned racecar driver and legendary tuner of Corvettes.  There had to be close to a hundred cars on display, and about a third were rare Corvettes.  European exotics such as Buggatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar, and Porsche occupied about one third of the area, and the remainder were muscle cars from the 1960’s, including a real 427 Cobra, several high dollar Camaros and Chevelles, and a few Mopars thrown in for good measure.  However the star of the display was a new Callaway C16 Speedster just purchased by Ken Lingenlfelter, and on display for the first time.  Reeves Callaway was there to “present the keys” to Ken Lingenfelter, and gave a brief talk on the car.  He and Dave McLellan (Corvette chief engineer for the C4) also signed autographs and presented posters of the Callaway C16 Speedster.  A new C6RS from Pratt and Miller Engineering was also on display – 600+ horsepower from a normally aspirated engine and street legal – yep all I need is the financial backing.  I now know how the other half of the car hobby lives.

 

 

 

Day five found us at the NCRS judging where we spent the day ogling and awing over some of the nicest cars that NCRS members had to offer.  There were approximately 110 cars on display for judging in various categories.  Special displays included a 1958 fuelie and 2008 Z06 with identical serial numbers (these cars were first shown at the Barrett Jackson auction last January).  A new blue ZR1 was also on display (but alas not to be test driven) as was Paragon Reproductions 1958 “Rex” project car.  There were also two local Chevrolet dealers there that did their best to try and get Betty to write that check for the new Yellow ZO6 on display!!!  All in all some very cool cars, knowledgeable people, and just a bit of Corvette overload.

The end of another wonderful day...

 

Day six found us up before light to be assembled in our cars by 6:45 am to caravan to the Milford Proving Grounds.  Ok, this is why we are here – after 1,000 miles in an old car and several tanks of premium gas at $4.00+ a gallon we are finally going to get what few have done – drive Corvettes on the legendary track that the “General” uses to test new models.  Following in the footsteps of Zora, Penske, Thompson – it just can’t get any better!  Let’s put the right foot to the floor and get this going!! 

On to Baker's for breakfast

Arriving at the General Motor Proving Grounds

Just a few notes about Milford.  The General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan opened in 1924 and was chosen by General Motors Engineers because the natural terrain enabled engineers to design roadways that could recreate the various road surfaces found in the “real world”.  In other words they wanted to test vehicles in real life settings to see how they would stand up.  Today the facility covers some 4,000 acres, has 132 miles of highway quality roads, and has some 4,800 persons employed at the facility.  Some of the more famous parts of the facility include “Black Lake” a 67 acre pad of blacktop used for vehicle dynamics testing (a big skid pad), a 3.8 mile oval track with one corner banked at 56% degrees (a minimum speed of 80 miles per hour is needed to keep you from sliding down and busting your car – yep we did and no we didn’t!), a 4.5 mile Circle Track where the five lanes are set in ever increasing speed limits, the .6225 mile North/South Straightaway (can you say drag strip??? Kept up with a new ZO6 through first and second gear before he quit playing with us), the seven sisters road course, and the 12 Mile Road used to duplicate the roads in Detroit (I wonder if it is complete with boulder sized pot holes?).

Ok, we had 110 cars lined up and in a parade to the Proving Grounds, very cool with ten straight axles, eighteen mid years, and eight bumper sharks among the 110.  It was very neat to see so many old cars out there strutting their stuff.  We sampled most of the Proving Grounds tracks, did some high speed passes, blasted around the road course, and of course stopped for many photo ops.  Half way through we stopped at Black Lake for a demonstration of ABS and Traction Control put on by two new ZO6’s, one car with the traction control and ABS turned off and one in “normal” configuration.  Take two Corvettes coming at you at about 100 miles per hour and have them slam on their brakes on wet pavement.  Needless to say the car without ABS had a much more adventurous ride than the one with ABS, but the demonstration really hit home as to how much ABS can help in a dangerous situation.  Traction Control was demonstrated by the two cars accelerating from a dead stop, the ZO6 without traction control did a great burnout engulfing us all in a cloud of smoke while the other ZO6 merrily went about its business in a straight line.  The break also gave us the opportunity to view some of the General’s more exotic cars – the aforementioned 1989 ZR1 (this one had a fully hydraulic suspension that the company was testing at the time), and a new yellow ZR1 (my favorite color – just go ahead and deliver it to my house, Betty will write the check).  Afterwards it was back to the track for some more high-speed runs, photographs, and then it was all too soon over. 

       

Just how special was this morning at Milford?  This is the first time since 1992 that General Motors has allowed “outsiders” to play at their facility. 

A once in a lifetime opportunity – you bet.

 Until next time.

 Darrel & Betty Skinner

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