Really ‘hot night’ (but the temp was cool) for Crusinn’ in Downers and it was time for serious Ponti-action at the North end of the Downers Cruise Night as they were lined up in the train station pickup/drop off lane. There were four Ponchos and behind them was John’s two tone ’55 Buick Super (which they brought to the Lombard show on Saturday). The Pontiac owners were gathered together and I found Rich, whom I’d met earlier at Lombard with a red Catalina convertible; tonight he drove his aquamarine ’62 Pontiac Catalina Tri-power and here’s a page I devoted to two of his cars. On the way home I was keeping up with a GTO along Roosevelt Rd.
- Music was by Steve Peterson, who performed solo; some of his music is here at his Myspace page and he covered some tunes and here are YouTube videos.
- See Cruisin’ photos here.
John’s good friend Frank owns a 1955 Buick Century wagon and the two cars have identical paint schemes; so I’d hoped to shoot that car again. John said Frank had driven his Caddy tonight. I did head over to the aquamarine ’53 Cadillac Coupe de Ville and it was more rounded than sleek as was my memory of long ’50s Caddy’s with tailfins, like these page header images from Lombard Cruise nights on 7-14-2012 (a ’59 Cadillac coupe) and 8-11-2012 (a ’60 El Dorado). As I was shooting I heard him talking about the first owner of the car, whose name, D.P. Crocetti, was typed on a Cadillac Motor Division ID card that Frank had found in the defroster outlet. Crocetti had lived at 2002 Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills, Ca. Of course Frank finished the story and having done the sleuthing to find out that D.P. Crocetti (Dino Paul Crocetti) was much better known by his professional name, Dean Martin.
Crusin’ Downers Grove
YouTube videos of songs Steve covered
- Knocking On Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan
- Night Moves by Bob Seger
- You Never Call Me By My Name by David Allan Coe (with lyrics added by Steve Goodman)