His Dream
Convertible
Jim Boschan of Bloomfield
Hills loves taking his eight
grandkids for a spin in his
1971 Oldsmobile 442 W-30
convertible. “They can’t wait
for me to put the top down
and take them for a ride,” he
says.
He was drawn to cars
early on, he recalls, with a
Thunderbird convertible
first catching his eye in the
Food Fair grocery store
parking lot. “The top was
off, and I was tall enough to
see into the car. I saw the
steering wheel, the seat and
the gear shifter, and I fell in
love with it,” he says. As a
teenager, he saw a 442 and
thought, “That’s what I want,
someday, that’s what I’m
going to get.”
His first job out of grad
school was working at
Ford Motor Company in
the controller’s office for
car product engineering.
To do the job, he had to
learn transmissions inside
and out. In 2004, after a
serious illness, he decided
to take the leap and find the
car he’d been wanting. He
found the car with the help
of a friend in 2005 and got
it restored.
“That’s 18 years ago,
and my wife, Shelley, and
I and my kids and now my
grandkids, we love it, it’s
just fun,” he says. “Dream
Cruise is one week a year,
but it’s a convertible — if
it’s convertible weather, we
take it somewhere. I didn’t
buy it just to look at it.”
He’s also got a 2002
Pontiac Trans Am from the
last year Pontiac made it.
“Growing up in the ’60s
and ’70s, your car was an
expression of who you
were,” he says. “Some
people collect art, some
people collect stamps, and
if the car is a happy part of
your youth, it’s something
you either had or wanted,
and now you can have it
and enjoy it.”
When he’s out at the
Dream Cruise (Aug. 19) or
other classic car functions,
his friends who are into cars
will stop by to see his car
and others.
“They come out because
it’s not just to see my car, it’s
to see the car their mother
drove or their father, or their
uncle, their older brother
or sister, it just brings back
fond memories.”
Boschan’s also part of
the Senior Dream Cruise at
Jewish Senior Life, which
takes place in Oak Park
or West Bloomfield a few
days before the Woodward
event.
“It’s the most meaningful
classic car function I do
all year,” he says of the
nostalgic tour he’s been a
part of for some 15 years.
Residents come outside
their buildings to cheer
the cars and appreciate
vehicles as well as the
connection.
ago. Her father was in the auto
parts business and, when she
was young, she’
d go to work
with him. He had a junkyard in
the back, where they’
d find all
kinds of used parts, and a retail
section — she fondly recalls
pretending to drive the cars and
learning about the parts and
how they worked.
Everyone in her family was
more or less connected to the
auto industry, from her uncles
to her grandfather. “From
a very young age, I was just
zeroed in on all kinds of cars
rolling down the street,
” she
says. “I could tell what kind of
car it was just by looking at the
taillights.
”
And she knew how to drive
long before she got to driver’s
training, ever since her dad
taught her in the Northland
parking lot when she was 12.
“When my parents went out,
I’
d steal the other car and go
pick up my friends, we’
d go to
Burger King and up and down
Woodward, or to Oak Park,
wherever everybody went,
” she
recalls. “I did it a million times
and never got caught.
”
Mendelson met her future
husband, David, in 1990 —
they bonded over their shared
Lauren Mendelson
at her Royal Oak
garage.
Jim’s 2002
Pontiac Trans Am.
Jim Boschan and
his wife, Shelley.
Jim Boschan at
the 2022 JSL
Dream Cruise.
continued on page 14