It’s now official: the Woodward Dream Cruise will be back this summer.
Event organizers and Ford Motor Co., which sponsors the cruise, confirmed it on Monday following reports last month that the event was back after being canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic of coronavirus.
The 26th Annual Woodward Dream Cruise, a celebration of automotive culture that typically draws over a million attendees, is scheduled to take place on Saturday, August 21.
The event will pay tribute to the Ford Bronco SUV, which resumed production earlier this month at the Michigan assembly plant in Wayne, 25 years after its shutdown. The original 1966 Bronco will be the cruise’s “flagship heritage vehicleâ€, and the event logo depicts a vintage Bronco.
“Woodward is our hometown celebration, commemorating the best of what we do and what we assemble, right here in the Motor City,†Rob Johnston, Ford Performance Marketing Director, said in a statement. “It’s fitting that this year’s Dream Cruise honors the original Bronco at a time when the all-new Michigan-built Bronco is slipping off the line.”
Ford will be exhibiting other vehicles at the event, including the new 2021 Mustang Mach-E, the automaker’s first all-electric vehicle, the upcoming 2022 all-electric F-150 Lightning and the recently unveiled Ford Maverick compact pickup truck, said the company in a press release. This is the automaker’s fourth consecutive year to sponsor the event.
“Once again, Ford Motor Company is taking the helm of Woodward Dream Cruise, and we look forward to returning and elevating our annual tradition of bringing Metro Detroit’s automotive scene and culture to international spotlight,†Tony Michaels, executive director of Dream Cruise. , said in a statement.
In April, Michaels said communities along the Woodward Road, venues and sponsors were already coordinating the event.
The M1 Concourse in Pontiac, which is one of the communities included in the cruise, has confirmed two events for the week of the cruise, The Detroit News previously reported: the Roadkill Nights drag races in Woodward August 13-14 and the inauguration from August 19 to 21. Woodward Dream Show featuring the cruise’s most coveted cars. Both events were canceled in 2020.
Last year’s dream cruise was slated for August 15, but the event was canceled after several municipalities along the 10-mile route raised concerns about the pandemic.
Still, thousands of people showed up for an unofficial version of the cruise.
The return of the event comes as Michigan continues to make progress against COVID-19.
Case rates and hospitalizations have been declining for eight weeks, and the statewide positivity rate has fallen to 3.4%, the News reported on Monday. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration plans to lift most restrictions related to the pandemic on Tuesday. And on Sunday, 60.8% of Michigan residents over 16 had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Twitter: @JGrzelewski
