I didn't really get it at first. In fact, it took me a few hours before I really understood what was going on. Sort of like a first time at Mardi Gras — you know you're doing something fun, and everyone else is having fun, you're just not sure why you're there, or how this whole thing even got started in the first…

The genius of Detroit's Woodward Dream Cruise is that it's mostly free, excepting fuel costs and if one avoids entanglements with Royal Oak's finest. But it was an expensive trip for the owner of this 1970 Plymouth Superbird, who got sandwiched on the ride home.

The Woodward Dream Cruise on Metro Detroit's historic Woodward Avenue is one of the top ten greatest car events in the world. Each year, Jalopnik picks a special car as its staff cruiser.

The Vinsetta Garage, the historic neon landmark of Detroit's Woodward Avenue cruising scene and the oldest garage east of the Mississippi, has closed after 91 years in business, a victim of the tough choices facing its owner.

A Ford Model T paces a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG at the Woodward Dream Cruise. Considering a stretch of Woodward was amongst the first concrete-paved road in the world, a more perfect illustration of automotive progress couldn't be asked for.

A Plum Crazy Purple Roadrunner looks on as a Plum Crazy Purple Challenger approaches. Somehow, we suspect the old-timer wishes its relative was a little more of a wild child.

The three-wheeled Lomax has a top installed over roughly three days by trained engineers,so when it started raining heavily at the Dream Cruise, improvisation was necessary, like just opening an oversized umbrella. A VW Karmann Ghia copied the idea.

Cruising Woodward in a Flxible or an Airstream? We say Flxible by a nose, given that nose is loaded with retro-futurist charm. Plus as a side benefit you get to constantly explain why there's a missing "e" in the name.

The Corvair Turbo is a thing of beauty. 164 cubic-inches of pancake-engine glory spitting out 150-hp in one of the first regular production turbocharged cars in America. This one's clean enough you could eat off the turbo housing.

You see a lot of weird stuff come out during the Woodward Dream Cruise, a pair of stuffed deer on the Roof of a GMC Yukon XL rates pretty high on the scale.