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

