Hey, LMers. ( edit: LMers refers to Local Motors Members) As promised, here is a first in a series of interviews with Detroiters. Today we hone in on Peter Archer, aka stingraysstudios to you.

I asked Peter questions that definitely spurred inspiring answers; we owe him a debt of gratitude for his willingness to share! I also asked questions that may have hit a few nerves, but he answered eloquently and passionately, and I find that his opinion mirrors a few other Detroiters that I know (see question #6). I know many who would disagree as well. But, our objective is to gain perspective; a Detroiter's perspective. So read on :

This is a single Detroit point of view, and we will have more to come! Tomorrow we will interview Larry Edsall; he is a prolific auto writer who was an editor at Auto Week, and the writer of several fantastic design books.

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1.) AF: Hi, Peter! Thank you for taking the time to share your vision of Detroit with the community. Can you tell us how much time you spent in Detroit, and whether you still consider it to be home?

PA: I was born in Detroit, so it will always be "home" for me, Growing up there ( in the 1960's) was a great place for a "kid" of my interests in Auto Design, Motor Racing & Music...or perhaps it was Because of Detroit that I grew into these interests as they are all "native" to the Detroit area. The area I grew up in was Franklin Village, an "upscale community" in that time, which was home to many of the Big 3 auto executives & I lived there until I was 16, when my family then moved to Ft; Lauderdale, Fl... which is where I live today.

Franklin was a very unique "village" as it has a center street where there was a Cider Mill, Meat Market, Church, Kindergarten School, Hardware store & that was it !.The Cider Mill was built in the 1800's had a giant wooden wheel that turned water from the stream behind up into the mill mashing the apples into make Cider, they also made fresh donuts every Sunday & people drove from miles around to come there after Church. It was a very close little community & a good place for a kid to grow up.

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2.) AF: What were your favorite past times during your Detroit years?

PA: Well, I was fortunate to have friends whose fathers were in the top executives of the Auto Industry & they very supportive of us "kids" who "drew cars", which I have been doing from age 5 !!!...lol. One of my best friends dad was Chuck Jordan, the head of GM Design who took the time to show & allow me to see the "inner workings" of the design studios at GM Tech Center. Going there was always a "treat" for me, to see cars from the future being "dreamed up", then to go into the assembly line factories & watch them actually build the cars I had seen on the drawing board, was a powerful experience.

Detroit is a very Diverse City, in that you have so many various areas where different social groups live & work, around the factories the workers there made a home for their families, Where I lived (about 40 miles from downtown ) the executives had big homes & yards, and downtown was the heart of the city, where the Real MOTOWN lived & flourished.

There you could find all the trappings of a successful metropolitan center, Art Museums, Symphony Halls, Corporate towers, Penthouse apartments, restaurants of every ethnic origin, Neighborhoods of mixed races & occupations, (something that back then in the 1960's was a fairly rare occurrence)...and of course the emerging Music Industry of Motown Records !! The people of Detroit truly influence the World in the work they did, & they know that well, it created a determination among the population that demands the very best of each person, because what they do each day matters to everyone, weather others understand that or not, Detroit truly became "The Heartbeat Of America"...& the World..

The City was always jump'in,... 24 hours a day !...& another unique aspect was the "tunnel" under the Detroit River which took you into Ontario, so you could "leave the Country" & come back in a night on the town !....another thing people may not realize is that there is a Giant salt mine Under the city of Detroit !!

In the summer months, we would go "up north" where my family had a cottage on the Lake, there we would fish in the streams (fly fishing for trout mostly), go boating (we had a speedboat with a Mustang 289 in it ! )...and take speed buggy tours of the sand dunes, where you would get in a Big Olds Convertible, & they would drive 60 mph or more over the dunes, it was a blast to do this !!!

In the Winter we would go snow skiing, snowmobiling & tobogganing down the steep hills of northern Michigan, & even in my neighborhood we had some big "Hills" ...so, you learned real quick how to control a sled...or you crashed, hard !...lol.

But I have to say my favorite "pastime" aside from drawing cars, was Go Kart Racing, we had several different types of Karts & mini bikes, we even had a fiberglass bodied Monza GT go kart !!..it looked like the Stingray Corvette design !!!, ...my friend even had one of these built by GM for him !

PA: Woodward Avenue. The "infamous" strip of asphalt that runs across town, that led to it being known as the Underground Drag Racing Capital of the USA....for no small reasons. Anything you could imagine & more that you could never believe showed up here !! Even Chevrolet engineering brought a 427 VEGA to "The Avenue"...it became a "unofficial" test track for all the Big 3 back in the day !!!

Cobo Hall. This was the main showcase for Detroit Automakers each year, where they came to the hall like Gladiators in the Rome, to do battle against each other for the top honors. The building even has a Freeway running UNDER the length of it !!!...where else but Detroit !!!

Tiger Stadium. When I left Detroit in 1968 to move to Florida, the Detroit Tiger Baseball team won the World Series Pennant, it was a affirmation of the City after the 1967 race riots that burned almost 1/25th of the city into ashes. These were very turbulent times, in spite of the fact Detroit WAS much more "integrated" than most American cities at the time, today those problems pale in comparison to the Present Day Crisis within Detroit. But Tiger Stadium was the REAL crowning jewel of the City that year, when all of the people there were "Detroit" !!

PA: YES, ...as long as the sport involves motor racing !!! ....
In my opinion Mr. Earnest Hemingway said it best : "There are only 3 sports that are TRUE SPORTS, Mountain Climbing, Boxing & Auto Racing....WHERE A PERSON RISKS HIS LIFE TO DO THIS,...the rest are just guys playing with balls "

      




6.) AF: Detroit has had a turbulent couple of years. What do you think the city needs in order to begin the regrowth process?

PA : Detroit needs nothing more than the opportunity to show it has, it can today & will continue to lead the World in the Automotive Industry. I think that most of the reason Detroit is in such a desperate condition today falls upon the Federal Government of the USA, for failing to provide the "Level Playing Field" required by a Free Trade Global Economy.

For over 100 years the Big 3 have taken care of ALL the employees who ever worked for them & thier families too !!...via health care & pensions which those people EARNED with hard work & long hours of dedication to the Auto Companies of Detroit. PEOPLE THAT BUILT THE USA INTO A REAL FREE COUNTRY & WORLD POWER TO BE RESPECTED.

Detroit still sells more cars combined than the rest of the World, In spite of the FACT that now, the Import companies have those "costs" taken care of for them by thier respective Governments, & Detroit Companies do not, creating an "unfair" trade imbalance due to the cost per vehicle produced, the average cost of each car built in Detroit comes with a $5000 fee attached, to pay for those costs, Before the Car is even Built !!!...

Import companies have been allowed to undercut Detroit, hire workers at half the rates, provide none of the benefits, & get Tax Free incentives & Free Land with existing factories, Had Detroit been given these same considerations & the Government "stepped up to the level of the World Market game" by providing some sort of Health care & pension relief for the Big 3, this current "crisis" would NEVER have occurred.

It is a SAD commentary on the state of the USA, that this has been allowed to happen as there was NO EXCUSE for it at all. GM continues to build as many cars as anyone worldwide, yet has been "singled out" to pay the price for ALL of this, just at the time they are about to introduce a series of new models that are revolutionary in nature, like the Chevy Volt.

It is NO coincidence that these "troubles" are coming at this exact time, when Detroit is ready to forsake the "OIL COMPANY" base of the automobile, for a cleaner more dynamic design method. Big Money is at stake here & right now,..indeed the future of the World Auto Market is on the line.

I have no doubt that the PEOPLE of Detroit & those in the American Auto Companies can & will prevail over these current challenges,...they are some of the smartest people I have ever known in my life, & are under no delusions as to the real causes of what is happening today !!

If I have any hesitations from the course of my life, it would be that I wish I was in Detroit today, ...just so I could be part of kick'in the World in the ass.