Year of the Car Part 4: Flint Joins the Fun

The City of Flint – GM’s birthplace – is hosting several General Motors celebrations starting from July 12 -20, including a July 19 tour of homes that had belonged to GM executives, and a parade of 100 vehicles, representing GM products made between 1908 and 2008, on July 20. For more information, see www.flintgm100.com.

Flint also will hold the “Back to the Bricks, Cruise Weekend” Aug. 13 –16, a free event which will include Wednesday and Thursday nighttime cruises from Grand Blanc to downtown Flint before the big “Friday Night Cruise-In” and party.

The official GM anniversary, called GMnext, will kick-off with events related to the Woodward Dream Cruise, including the possibility of a motorcade from the GM Renaissance Center to join the regular cruise, according to Juli Huston-Rough, GM communications manager for GMnext and Thomas K. Freiman, GM manager of Media Archives.

“Many of the events are still in the planning stages,” Huston-Rough noted. “What we are doing is directing folks to www.GMnext.com, which is a dialogue-based Web site, offering live chats on design, technology and environmental issues.”

The GMnext Web site also provides an interactive Wiki link where GM employees have posted anecdotal stories and photos.

At the Dream Cruise, General Motors plans to assemble a series of the automaker’s iconic vehicles along with employee-owned vehicles, Frieman added.

On Sept. 16, GM’s founding date, the automaker plans for a large celebration at the RenCen, though details have yet to be announced, added William Chapin, consultant to MotorCities