More Ghosts of Flint and G.M. in San Francisco

Back to the Bricks

A crowd gathers for last years Back to the Bricks. (Photo by Stuart Bauer/The Flint Journal)

As the Back to the Bricks Cruise Weekend draws to a close, there's further proof that visitors will come to downtown Flint, provided it's the right kind of event. (A classic car extravaganza, for example, rather than Autoworld, a glorified food court, or a fancy hotel.)

Organizer Dave Wood told The Flint Journal that roughly 25,000 to 30,000 spectators graced several downtown city blocks and about 3,000 cars were parked there.

"It's all more than we expected," Wood said. "We have extra streets we didn't plan on filling that are all filled. People arrived at 5:30 a.m. for the 10 a.m. show."

This event makes me think that all the money that was wasted on Flint's pie-in-the-sky tourist schemes would have been better spent expanding the car collection and facilities at Sloan Museum, while promoting smaller-scale events. People like actual cars, not car-themed amusement parks.

Chevy Malibu Classic

I walked outside today on a typically beautiful San Francisco summer day — fog, drizzle and 55 degrees — and discovered a mid-seventies Chevy Malibu Classic parked on my street. I talked to the owner and it only has 51,000 original miles on it. But the transmission and the drive train had to be replaced, a testament to G.M. quality in the seventies.

I'm not sure if it was made it Flint, but it sure brought back a lot of memories of Flint rides. My brother had a canary yellow 1976 Buick Century that looked a little like this Malibu.

UPDATE: A few readers have pointed out it was probably the San Francisco hills that doomed the tranny, not G.M. quality control. Point well taken.