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Back to the Bricks®
January 2025 Newsletter
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Latest from the Chairman of the Board | |
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Happy New Year!!!
It’s 2025, and I can hardly believe it, but I said last year at this time and I will say it again... Let's get the Lions to the Super Bowl!
There are a lot of cool events happening soon. Truthfully the Detroit Lions are playing the best I've ever seen, and their first playoff game is Saturday. We could be on the way to seeing their first Super Bowl appearance and victory on February 9th, which we are ALL ROOTING FOR!
This morning, Friday, Feb 17th our 2025 Promo Tour Team gathered and announced this year's 15th Annual Tour at the Historic Durant-Dort Factory One! I want to thank fellow Board Member Kevin Kirbitz and his staff there for welcoming us with open arms. Factory One is truly a gem in Flint. This year's Promo Tour is off to the coast, to see beautiful Beaches, Light Houses, and Sunsets! Registration is now open for the tour which takes place June 6th – 11th. Don’t delay with getting registered because this tour is, for the first time, limited to the first 250 cars. We’ve grown a lot over the last 15 years, but one thing we’ve learned is that it’s not necessarily about large numbers, it's about the quality of the tour and stops. 250 cars is a smaller more manageable group but allows us to go into more cities, fitting into the allowed city space. Not every city in Michigan can shut down 1.1 miles of its downtown spaces as we do here in Flint in August. You will enjoy the destinations the tour committee has worked hard to secure. Join us this year, please! I just signed up today!
One event you will want to attend is the VIP Experience on Thursday, February 6th. This is the night before the 10th Annual Chrome & Ice™ Winter Indoor Car Show opens at the Dort Financial Center. It’s a true First Glance at the show and our BIG fundraising event for our Back to the Bricks® Scholarship Fund. Registration is closing soon, so go to our website and purchase your tickets. You will be glad you did.
This is just the beginning of what's to be a great year that the Back to the Bricks® team has planned for your enjoyment. We are starting with Chrome & Ice™ and will continue to provide great family-friendly opportunities to enjoy.
Hang on, it’s going to be a fun year! Looking forward to enjoying all of them with you.
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My Best Wishes to you all and stay safe,
Al Jones
Chairman of the Board
Back to the Bricks®
810-625-2713
aljones@backtothebricks.org
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Insta-Lube Continues to support the BTTB Scholarship Program | |
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Long-time Sponsor and Partner Jeff Threet, and his entire staff with Insta-Lube will be doing their annual fundraiser on Friday, Jan 31st raising much-needed funds for the Back to the Bricks Scholarship Fund. $10.39 will be donated from every oil change, at all four locations.
Join the Back to the Bricks folks at the Live Radio Remote with 103.9 The FOX, at the Bristol Rd and Saginaw location from 11 am - 1 pm. 3520 N Saginaw St. Flint.
We can't thank them enough for all they do for this community and Back to the Bricks!
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Chrome & Ice Is In 21 Days!!! | |
10th Annual Chrome & Ice™ Winter Indoor Classic Car Event
Feb 7th-9th 2025
Chrome & Ice™ is a three-day winter indoor car show held at Dort Financial Center in Flint Michigan, presented by General Motors, and brought to you by Dort Financial Credit Union.
Year after year, the Back to the Bricks® team works hard to bring you a wonderful display of unbelievable cars, and this first show in 2025 will be another to get excited about.
This year's show will once again include professional judges, for those that opted in, and the Top 10 Spectator Awards, voted on by all that attend. The Awards ceremony will take place on the stage, Sunday, February 9th at 2:30 pm.
Judged Awards this year to include:
- Best of Show - TOP AWARD
- Best Exterior
- Best Interior
- Best Engine
- Best Truck
- Best Bike
- One Fine Ride - Judges award
Did you miss out on registering?
Contact Vice Chairman Ralph Messer ASAP
ralphmesser@backtothebricks.org
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The VIP EXPERIENCE will return on an all-new night this year, offering a first-glance experience. You can get your tickets for THURSDAY evening, February 6th, 2025 from 7 to 10 PM.
Tickets for the VIP Experience are $45.00 each and include admission to the car show, seeing it before it opens to the public, and live musical entertainment by the SAUCE CATS, PLUS a complimentary adult beverage at any of several bars/concession stands in the arena, gourmet hors d’oeuvres, and luscious desserts, courtesy of the Dort Financial Credit Union. A ticket for the VIP Experience also entitles guests to free parking, a lanyard, complimentary coat check, and the opportunity to vote for their favorite cars.
Proceeds from the Chrome & Ice™ VIP Experience help support the Back to the Bricks® Youth Scholarship Fund. Last spring, thanks to your generosity, we awarded a total of $10,000 in scholarships to area students.
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2025 Sunset Promo Tour is announced | | |
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Registration is OPEN
The 15th Annual Back Roads Promo Tour will take place
June 6-11, 2025
We've made it easy for you, click the link to the website, learn all about the tour, and register today!
Only 250 Spots Available!!!
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Dinah and The Song of The City | |
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By: Gary Fisher
President - Genesee County Historical Society
“See the USA in your Chevrolet”!
That was a ubiquitous sentiment in the 1950s when Dinah Shore was singing the famous jingle. Back in those days, it wasn’t so much a jingle as a full-on Broadway production. It also paved the way for the Dinah Shore variety show sponsored by Chevrolet.
The song itself was written in 1949 with music and lyrics by Leo Corday and Leon Carr. Before Shore made it nationally famous it was performed by the husband-and-wife duo of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy on the television show “Inside U.S.A. with Chevrolet”. But it was all Shore’s after 1952. Pat Boone picked up the song on his show “The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom” which ran from 1957 to 1960. It had a very long run for a jingle.
The “Dinah Shore Chevy Show” ran from 1956 to 1963 when Shore ramped up her performance of the tune. Millions of Americans tuned in to see ‘A list’ stars like Boone, Paul Anka, Tony Bennett, Julie Andrews, George Burns, Johnny Carson, Bette Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Benny Goodman, Liberace, Groucho Marx, Dean Martin, Barbara Streisand, Shirley Temple, Frank Sinatra, and more. That big audience was exposed to Shore and the tune every week and the song became part of the American lexicon.
So did Shore, a major A-lister in her own right, as she ascended to the top of the entertainment pyramid. Amidst this, she became linked with the founding city of her primary benefactor – Flint, Michigan.
Regular readers of this column ought to know that Chevrolet was founded in Flint by William C. “Billy” Durant, named after his junior partner, famous auto racer, and first car designer of the company, Louis Chevrolet. Shore would entertain thousands in Flint on several special occasions and other performances, but few of her lifetime performances would compare to Flint and the summer of 1955.
That’s when she starred at Atwood Stadium during an incredible three-day Flint engagement celebrating Flint’s 100th birthday. The festivities kicked off with a massive Centennial Parade on the bricks of Saginaw Street in front of an energetic and huge crowd surpassing 200,000 people. Downtown coney slingers sold over 100,000 coneys over those three days!
Shore and her Chevy song were at the epicenter of the event. The program culminated with a dedication of the new Flint Municipal Center led by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Flint’s movie star goddess Nancy Kovack was chosen “Miss Flint”, which helped ignite her Hollywood career.
The net effect of this seminal celebration of Flint’s (and Billy Durant’s) very own ‘babies’ of GM and Chevrolet, millions more were happily induced to “See The U.S.A. In Their Chevrolets” and that meant more jobs, more opportunity, and more success for the birthplace of the American Century- Flint “The Vehicle City”.
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Dinah Shore with Flint Mayor George M. Algoe | | |
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A family-owned roaster and franchisor that has been in business since 1976. Specializing in small-batch roasted coffee and fun flavors.
With their Home Office right here in Genesee County, they've embedded themselves into the local events, businesses and hearts of all Coffee Lovers. Back to the Bricks is thankful and honored to partner with the Coffee Beanery.
Visit there store in Flint, 4580 Miller Rd, Flint, and tell them we sent you!
Visit their Website to learn MORE!
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Delicious & always made fresh! Big Apple Bagel of Grand Blanc prides themselves on clean, efficient, timely and yummy.
From the reviews on Google to the smiles walking out the door, there's no denying that Big Apple Bagels has everything from a variety of bagels, to sandwiches, muffins, coffee and more!
Stop by and say hi to the staff, tell them we sent you!
Visit their website or location in Grand Blanc at 8185 Holly Rd.
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Al's Garage - SPECIAL EDITION | |
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Al’s Garage
Vol. #6, Issue #1
"Working on the 2025 Calendar"
Hopefully, all of us have begun thinking about what our 2025 calendar will look like. My wife and I have begun looking at our calendar and so far, we have once again blocked out the first week in June for the Back to the Bricks™ annual Promo Tour. I am delighted to see this year’s itinerary; it is shaping up to be a great tour that will feature a couple of new stops. Fortunately, Pat and I have been on all the tours and if our health holds out, we will continue to do so going forward, this 15th Annual Tour.
This brings up a crucial point; over the years I have heard more than once “I am not going on the tour this year because we have been there before!” When questioned further I asked them, “Well you are correct, but what can you tell me about some of the overnight stops?” The response that I receive is usually a ‘blank stare.’ I think a lot of us miss an extremely important part of the tour, and what is that? How about the friendships and the comradery of going on an extended weekend tour driving one of your most treasured cars?
Having been on all the tours I can attest to the lasting friendships that have been forged. And to this day these friendships have endured. Each year we all hook up and travel together. Stopping at a yard sale or an interesting car for sale on the route is not out of the question. Lunch stops are usually at a small local eatery where the owner welcomes our presence.
As all of us continue to advance in age and we start to look back in time it becomes very clear that these adventures with friends become more important. Most people on the tours want to keep the stops in Michigan but do not want to drive hundreds of miles from point A to point B. With that said it limits where the Promo Tour can go. You might consider the western portion of the Upper Peninsula, which would be great, but you are looking at a 600-mile journey and most people do not want to drive that far with that being said, the tour committee is somewhat limited to where the overnight stops will be. But friendships are lasting and driving your prized possession on an extended weekend is priceless.
I encourage all of you to register as soon as possible. The photo below is of Pat and me right before we took off on last year's Back Roads Promo Tour. We enjoyed a sit-down catered breakfast at the HUB in Davison, and I hear this is in the cards for us again. Remember in the end it is better to be seen driving your collector's car than reading about our passing in an email.
Keep on rolling!
CORDially,
Al Hatch
Founder & Chairman Emeritus
Back to the Bricks®
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