From Dream Cruise to Pebble Beach

The third weekend in August presents a dilemma for auto enthusiasts in the U.S. as metro Detroit’s Woodward Dream Cruise and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance directly overlap.

Doing both is extremely difficult, but not impossible, as Ward’s proved this past weekend.

I drove a Porsche Cayman R Friday night on Woodward all the way from Ferndale to Pontiac (no small feat through heavy traffic) and on Saturday got completely drenched by what felt like a tornado that ripped across Woodward at the Dream Cruise epicenter in Royal Oak, uprooting trees, severing power lines, damaging cars and houses and terrifying 150 people attending Magna’s Dream Cruise party, which had to be evacuated.

Miraculously, no one was injured.

And on Sunday morning, with the power still out at home, I was out the door at 5:30 a.m. for a flight from Detroit to Phoenix, then to Monterey, CA, and arrived on the 18th fairway of historic Pebble Beach golf course to see an unbelievable collection of rare, pristine, insanely valuable classic cars.

Choosing between the two is not easy. Of course, the Pebble Beach Concours came first and is in its 61st year.

The Dream Cruise has been around only 17 years, but draws some 40,000 cars – mostly American muscle cars – and a pedestrian crowd of more than a million car lovers.

The Concours is quite a bit smaller. Tickets are $200 apiece, and well-heeled attendees come to contemplate acquisitions to fill out their prized automotive collections.

For context, this year’s Concours included 20 Ferrari 250 GTOs from the early 1960s, each worth at least $25 million.

Both the Dream Cruise and Pebble Beach Concours are worth attending. If you had to pick one this year, here’s a photo gallery to show you what you missed. Click on the images to see them in greater detail.

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