Walking through the halls of the Cobo Center for the show is always a wonderful event in which many people view the future, present and past of automotive presentables. You meet the rich, the poor, point A to point B’er, true automotive enthusiasts, and the bros. The North American International Auto Show is always hosted in the Detroit, the automotive capital of the Americas and post world. The city itself is a time capsule of what use to be and is recovering for the better! All of this is a part of the amazing foreplay prior to walking into the show. In the show, it is to be the playground for the American big three, major Imports, extoics and occasionally the amusing Chinese applicants to reveal and display their latest and greatest masterpieces onto the world.
To be honest this year was a little disappointing, due to only a two tier display. What I mean is, normally an auto show has three tiers: the affordable(profitable), the obtainable(status symbols) and the unobtainable(supertoys). NAISA this year only had two tiers, affordable and obtainable with the exception of the New Ford GT which some would still rule as obtainable. Now don’t get me wrong, it was not a bad show, it’s just not as “hopeful.” This show had great things such as Local Motors literally showing its processes on how to make a 3D printed car a reality, they were printing and milling chassis and body parts right at the show! Ford had pretty much their entire showroom there including the new comers, the GT and GT 350 Mustang. Hyundai brought a modern take on the old Chevy El camino but more truck like and a whole host amazing value consumer cars. Chevrolet their Z06 and Z06 Racecar, with an additional introduction of the Chevy Canyon ZR2 and two electric models the Bolt and the 2016 Volt. Chrysler brought both of their retardedly powerful 707hp hellcats. Some of the manufactures went into the attic and pulled out some of their classic toys such as Alfa Romeo’s ridiculously pretty 33 Stradale and Ford’s legendary GT40.
Attending the show reminded me about most of vehicles that surrounds us today and how they progressed. The economy cars of the future are as comfortable as the luxury cars of the past. The era we live in has affordable sedans with over 400hp that is perceived as slow. It is also showing how close we are to introducing cars with semi and full autonomous modes and that people are ready for electric vehicles especially the fun ones. We can only look forward and wonder what is just around the corner.
Before letting you scroll down through all of the amazing images from the day I would like to introduce myself to the FOM community. My name is Patrick Vanderpool and i’m an Industrial Designer personally and professionally work as Sculptor for General Motors Chevy passenger and performance vehicles. I’ll be acting as a guest journalist for FarmofMinds time to time again delivering to you what Detroit has to offer. I was asked to go to the show and share my experience since I currently live and work in Michigan. So here we go! Enjoy the shots!
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