It resembles a jagged horseshoe and was not originally intended to move traffic as much as it was to provide a pleasurable drive around the City of Detroit and some of its suburbs.

A boulevard for the vast majority of its length, Outer Drive includes travel through beautiful subdivisions, school sites, and park areas.

First proposed in 1918, it immediately won acceptance and eventually evolved into the thoroughfare which exists today.

A 1929 article in Michigan Women magazine, predicted a "...great pleasure boulevard..." that would be "...like a necklace around Detroit...." However, in an article dated August 4, 2004, in the Metro Times, Michigan author Curt Guyette described Outer Drive as "...one of the oddest city thoroughfares in the country."

Outer Drive was once famous for the elm trees that lined the wandering roadway at one time, but in a circa-1983 WXYZ-TV report about Outer Drive, reporter Erik Smith of the local ABC affiliate, declared that "...now, it may be more famous for its potholes."