Autorama Part III!

Hey everybody! After a long article hiatus caused by an amazing and ultra-busy summer, I’m finally back with my last segment on Detroit Autorama. In the first two parts of my Autorama coverage, we took a look at the meat and potatoes of the show, which were the amazing muscle cars and hot rods. These cars are what made Autorama such a well-known show in the first place, bringing out the best of the best in the world of American customs. For the last piece, we’ll take a look at some of the great surprises of the show. This covers a vast array of vehicular eye candy falling outside your typical American muscle and hot rod realms.

Let’s start where we all started: childhood. Everybody who grew up in a car-loving family like mine likely lusted over a pedal car as a kid. Complete with the latest styling and (whoa!) a steering wheel, what kid wouldn’t want something like this? Images of whipping around obstacles on my dead end street filled my young head around the holiday season every year. Yup, I was that dorky little car kid. Autorama showed me there are plenty of kindred spirits in elementary schools to this day, with some awesome custom pedal cars on display. These were real sheet-metal masterpieces, bent into the familiar hot rod curves we know so well. I’m quite envious of whoever got to take one home.

We might as well continue tracing our way through childhood, and now move up to the middle school years, when minibikes became more coveted as over-the-top toys. Of course, very few were in the realm of these extensively modified beasts. And yes, it is OK to apply the term “beast” to a minibike, provided said minibike has been nitrous injected and equipped with drag slicks. The paint and chrome here was incredibly well done as well. Gator-skin seating and slotted disc brakes complete the package.

Little toys like minibikes, bicycles, and pedal cars were scattered around the show, along with plenty of gorgeous custom bikes for the adults out there. And this particular Harley Road Glide was certainly adult-themed, with a budding garden of, well, buds sprouting up all over the chassis and bodywork.

Intricate airbrushing provided plenty of detail to take in, and numerous speakers provide the ambience. After taking a few pictures, I found myself contemplating the significance of life and craving a sturdy portion of fried food.

Not all of the show cars were customized at Autorama. Given the proximity of the show to the heart of Detroit’s automotive industry, a bit of manufacturer support and contribution is to be expected. A portion of the show was dedicated to concept cars of the past, with Cadillac supplying some of the most interesting examples.

This particular example features a boatload of familiar-looking Cadillac design cues from the modern era. Believe it or not, the Evoq concept car was built in 1999, nearly 20 years ago now. Features like park assist, nightvision, and rear-view cameras supplementing mirrors are all out there in production form these days. The design of this car even made it to production, via the Corvette-based XLR. It’s always interesting to see how these concepts age over the years, and this example proved to be an accurate prediction of Cadillac’s future.

And of course, not every show car here was designed to occupy a pedestal. Some of these cars were all about function over form, including this highly unique late model NASCAR race car. I’ve seen these cars around before, but never before with Moon discs. It turns out this car was set up for top-speed runs, and set a record of 204 miles an hour in the standing mile.

This was far from the only full-blooded race car at the show. I wasn’t surprised to see something like a NASCAR  late model out there, but this Porsche 962 was highly unexpected. Few designs have a history coming anywhere near that of the 962.

It was originally thrown into competition in 1984, and proved to be remarkably adaptable over the years. These guys turned a wheel in anger in every class from Group C and IMSA GT classes through Japan’s Grand Touring Car series. Races were still being won over a decade after introduction, a remarkable feat by any measure. This example is set up in 1988 Group C livery.

And now we arrive at one of the most bizarre vehicles to be sold as a luxury car: the Brabus B63S-700. Behind the ridiculously unsexy alphanumeric name lies some of the most intense off-road tech available on a civilian vehicle, complete with the fit and finish of Mercedes’ best luxury cars. The recipe goes like this: take the already-absurd G63 6x6, inject an additional $300,000 for a grand total of around $750,000, and you have a four and a half ton truck capable of reaching 60 miles an hour from a standstill in just 7.4 seconds.

This makes a Lamborghini LM002 look like a Ford Explorer. 700 horsepower and just as many pound-feet of torque (with locking differentials, of course) should make short work of any sand dunes or small mountains you may encounter. Just be sure to mind the paint.

I thought I was losing my mind when learning about Brabus’s 6-wheeled boulder on wheels. This was confirmed when, right next to it, I noticed a massive speedboat powered by a full-blown JET ENGINE. This purebred racing machine runs in the H1 Unlimited series, and I can’t believe what humans are capable of building when given engineering know-how and the cash to go crazy. The engines on these boats are sourced from military CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, and propel them to around 200 miles an hour. Necessary? Of course not! Awesome? Well, yeah, obviously.

Alright, take a deep breath everybody, we’ve now seen the weirdest of the weird. I would be making a major omission not to mention all the customized imports that were hanging around the crowd, like this Porsche 914. The widebody look really suits this car well. And it was in good company, with a surprising number of Porsches spotted around the crowd. Everything from V-8 swapped 944’s, to the hyper-exotic 918 were there to check out.

My final thoughts on the legendary Detroit Autorama were something like this: I have never seen such impressive builds in such large numbers. The engineering behind a lot of the customs at this show was just beyond description, as factory specs were pinched, chopped, shrunk, and expanded in every imaginable way. The sheer variety at this show is unmatched by just about any other show I’ve been able to attend. All in all, if you have never been to Detroit and love cars as much as I do, I would definitely add Detroit Autorama to your car show bucket list.

Photos by Chris Barner