You missed McHenry’s Green Street Cruise Night last week? That’s a shame. After all, a good time was had by all – hot cars, entertainment, good food. If you’ve attended Green Street Cruise Night before, which means that you’ve attended the annual summer event last year, or a previous year, you know what that means.

Green Street Cruise Night is the equivalent, for automotive enthusiasts, of a kid in a candy store. The city parking lots south of Route 120 and west of Green Street have been repeatedly filled, Monday nights in the summer, with an incredible array of custom and classic cars. So, if you did miss Green Street Cruise Night last Monday – not to worry – you’ll have another chance tonight.

Tonight, as you stroll through the parking lots, among the best Ford, GM, Chrysler, AMC and other foreign and domestic car manufacturers have offered over the years, you’ll appreciate the craftsmanship and ingenuity auto makers bring to the process. You’ll witness vehicles that were at the peak of automotive engineering in their day. You’ll also see examples of engineering excellence from today’s automotive engineers.

Some of the cars you’ll see have undergone radical customizations. The current version of the vehicle may only offer a limited reflection of the original vehicle that rolled off the assembly line years ago. With these fine automobiles, you’ll discover the imagination and creativity of car owners who see in the assembly line the base of something more, something different, something unique.

You don’t see a lot of cars coming off the assembly lines with blowers on the engines. For all their engineering prowess, car manufacturers tend to limit the use of a vehicle’s potential horsepower. Some custom-car owners seek to maximize that potential and it shows as you peruse the horses at Cruise Night.

There are other custom-car owners who have focused on aesthetics. They’ve taken the best automakers have to offer and changed it to fit their personal perception of automotive perfection. Chrome, anodized metal, layers of lacquer, leather and more: these are the tools of their imagination.

Others have spent their energies returning older vehicles to showroom condition. These cars take you back to the day when that ’69 Camaro was fresh off the assembly line and waiting at a dealer for its first owner to take it home. But, whether a vehicle is customized or restored, all the cars at Green Street Cruise Night have one thing in common; they were all handled with tender-loving care. They all represent their owners’ hard work, dedication and love for fine automobiles.
Some of the owners have done all the work on their cars themselves. Others have brought their cars to expert technicians for some of the work, such as the folks at Ringwood based Performance Unlimited.

“We can take someone’s dreams about their car and turn it into reality,” said Dennis Norton, the owner of Performance Unlimited. “Whatever they can envision for their car, we can make it happen.”

For those who would like to join the ranks of exhibitors at McHenry’s Green Street Cruise Night, if you want some help, you can call Performance Unlimited at 815-728-0343 or visit www.4performanceunlimited.com for more information.