I love Sunset Boulevard in L.A. at night, especially in a convertible. There’s nothing like it. And Ouray, Colorado, “The Switzerland of America” and the famed “Million Dollar Highway.” Not to mention Durango and Silverton, Colorado. Then there’s Portland, Oregon, and the road to Mt. Hood, and the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington State. The Hill Country outside of Austin, Texas, is pretty great (which makes the devastating flood there even more heartbreaking). The stark beauty of a dry lakebed in Nevada, despite the searing heat. The coastal regions of Maine are right out of a postcard. And I loved living and working in New York City for the energy and the addictive, “It’s-all-happening-all-the-time” vibe.

 

And there were many, many more, including a memorable two weeks in Europe shooting on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the world-famous 12.9-mile road course in Germany’s Eifel Mountains, the circuit often referred to as "The Green Hell." (While I was there, NATO was conducting low-level fighter maneuvers over the circuit the entire time. How low? We could clearly see the distinctive helmet markings on the pilots.)

 

My tour of duty in the Ad Biz was a kaleidoscope of remarkable experiences, both good and bad (the all-night shoots in L.A. depleted everything we could muster and turned all of us into zombies). Yes, it was, at times, relentlessly grueling, but the scenery was mostly spectacular and the incredible visuals have stayed with me all these years, still vividly indelible.

 

Saying all of that, there was always something special about coming back to the Motor City. Once the fourth most populated city in the U.S., Detroit’s decline has been well-documented, but it was still home. I remember seeing the Tigers play in the old Tiger Stadium, which was only surpassed by watching the Lions play there outside in the cold. And the allure of Woodward Avenue never waned, its Hot Rod Soul teeming with passion, preening and unforgettable machines.

But the ugly reality is that Detroit was always been a gutty, gritty experience. Is it a tough town? Unquestionably. Are things on an upward trajectory? If you’re purely looking at the automobile industry that lives here, no, not really. This industry has been hanging by a thread, and there’s no use sugarcoating that fact. And the tariffs threaten to decimate what’s left of this business. Meanwhile, China Inc. is redefining the auto business as we know it and stealing the Motor City’s thunder. The Future for this town's founding industry is undefined and highly questionable, and there’s no use sugarcoating that either.

But when looking at the health of the city and its environs, and the deep-rooted problems that plague this city and its educational system, the ones that are preventing this city from doing anything but a dismal two-steps forward, five-back self-defeating dance of "progress," then we seem to be sentenced to living in a “Twilight Zone” for a long, long, long time to come.

Yes, as a town and as a region we do have a long way to go. But this is who we are and this auto thing is what really matters to us. We don’t need sympathy and the glossy stories of late are nice, but they will never define us, or what it’s really like to be here and be from around here. (Residents of this region have been hearing “It won’t be long now!” when it comes to this town for years, but the reality is that whatever positive happens is always in fits and starts, and the actual momentum is fleeting at best.)

The Motor City is a state of mind that’s filled with countless contradictions and our great history is offset by some lurid realities.

We’ve contributed much to the American fabric, yet we have a historical propensity to make things brutally tough on our day-to-day well-being.

We’ve brought this country a sound like no other and a gritty, gutty context that’s second to none, yet we’ve created countless problems for ourselves, most all of them self-inflicted.

We created the “Arsenal of Democracy” when our country needed it most, yet we allowed a movement based on fairness to become a disease based on entitlement and rancor.

We’ve contributed much to this nation's progress and standing, yet we can’t seem to get out of our own way at times, which is infuriating and debilitating.

But thankfully, the story never really ends for Detroit. At least not yet anyway. We’re still standing, warts and glaring faults and all. And you can forget the recent glory stories about our renaissance because the denizens of this region don’t really need ‘em to validate us.

We know who we are. And we know that the perception isn’t often favorable. And we get that. But still there’s an exuberance and spirit here that no trendy Stellantis ad can ever capture.

It’s a Detroit thing, or if you must, a Dee-troit thing. And we’re proud of what that means.

As Paul Simon so eloquently put it once in Papa Hobo:

It's carbon and monoxide
The ole Detroit perfume
And it hangs on the highways
In the morning
And it lays you down by noon

Detroit, Detroit
Got a hell of a hockey team
Got a left-handed way
Of making a man sign up on that
Automotive dream, oh yeah...

Mr. Simon probably had no idea as to the truth of what he was writing, at least as this town is concerned, but he did manage to stumble upon the state of mind that defines us.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

 

 

Editor's Note: Click on "Next 1 Entries" at the bottom of this page to see previous issues. - WG