NAIAS Stuff

[exatron]

Went to the last day of the auto show over the weekend. Normally, it's a family event on opening day, but somebody forgot to give me a phone message, so I went with my sister. Some of the details have faded since I waited so long to post this, but I did have a good time.

We parked at Greektown Casino and rode the People Mover (What you need is a genuine, electrified, bona fied, six-car monorail. What's that word? Monorail) to Cobo Hall. At first we thought that we would have to walk since the schedule said that the People Mover didn't start running until noon, but it was operating early because of the auto show.

The first company's booth we looked at was Ford. They had some interesting vehicles on display, including a Super Chief concept vehicle.

My sister inadvertently said, "Is that a time?" when she noticed that the clock in one of the vehicles was in an odd place, and that question became a bit of a meme for the rest of the day. I also had fun observing her obssession with buttons. (Button, button, who's got the button?)

GM's booth was fairly busy, particularly the area around the Pontiac Solstice.

DaimlerChrysler's booth was a lot like last year's, right down to the waterfall that released water in computer-controlled patterns. I had a hard time getting a clear shot of the Challenger, but it looks decent.

VW had a booth that occupied two floors.

Concessions were served in Cobo Arena because the show is really close to outgrowing it's current venue. I had a soft pretzel. mmm... pretzle...

After the auto show, we returned to Greektown Casino and played the slot machines for a bit (I lost $15) before returning home.

I borrowed my mom's camera so I could take some pictures.
http://pics.livejournal.com/exatron/gallery/0000e1s3

Comments

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Kewl stuff! Thankee for sharing, I love concept cars. So weird and unpractical sometimes, and then sometimes they get made o.0

Heh, monorail XD

I'm taking Transformers too seriously, tho. I'm like "Aaaah! Smokescreen! Swindle! Sideswipe! Sunstreaker! Skids! Wheeljack! Hey, I'll bet that'll be Mirage! Wooooo!" ^.^
Do you remember what the weird little silver car with the yellow interior was?

[exatron.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. The concept cars this year seemed a bit more practical than usual. I liked the year where GM had the concept and production versions of the Potiac Solstice on display so you could see how the design changed for mass production.

If the timing weren't so bad for you, I'd suggest attending one year. The last thing you need is travel stress on top of FC prep stress, holiday stress, and work stress.

That's how most people react to the People Mover; although, I do have to admit that the stations are nice since most of them have big, creative murals to look at. Since this is the Motor City, mass transit is essentially nonexistent.

I definitely have Transformers on the brain. Most of the pictures I took were preceeded by the same thought, "Hey! That looks like <Insert Transformer name here>, better get a picture." And I still think that the Ford GT would have made a better Wheeljack than the Mustang.

I rarely remember the names of the concept cars, especially the weird ones, but I can check the original picture for clues when I get home or try looking it up in reports about the show.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I'd love to see side by sides, yeah.

Heh, yeah, if it's this time of the year it's out of the question.

I dunno, Disneyland has a monorail (and used to have a separate ride called the People Mover) so it's not too out of bounds for me. But...LOL! Interesting, no good mass transit? I seldom use the LA transit myself.

Hee hee, so those photos were no accidents XD
I still think the Mustang should have either been Shockwave or Windcharger, and Tracks' repaint should have been Wheeljack. But at least there's a good chance the GT will appear in something besides the dark blue the other guys all come in x.x

Oh, no bother, was just wondering if you knew offhand.

[exatron.livejournal.com]

A lot of the changes looked like they were to reduce costs and make the manufacturing process easier.

That was why I brought a camera and tried to get a couple pictures of the big, overcompensating vehicles.

The only other form of mass transit we have is the Smartbus system, and it's not very good either.

I thought the RX-8 worked fairly well as Shockwave because the grill matched the original's chest fairly well, but the Mustang would have worked too. Using the Tracks mold for Wheeljack would have worked. The GT will probably have colors similar to Alt/BT Wheeljack's.

But now I want to know too since it was an interesting design.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

I believe it. It's also kinda fun seeing how they simplify things like toys off concept pictures.

So is traffic as bad for you as it is here?

I just liked the fact that the Mustang gives almost the same big trapezoidal boots as the G1 Shockwave.
Someone did a kitbash of making Tracks into Wheeljack...they used an unusual car that wasn't a Lancia Stratos, but it was pretty darn convincing shapewise.
So apparently Mirage's colors are finalized. It looks great, but I was kind of hoping they'd do the "classic" GT paintjob of pale blue with orange stripes.

Any luck?

[exatron.livejournal.com]

That is good to see.

Detroit's traffic is supposed to be the third worst in the country, right behind LA and New York. You would think that the gridlike structure of our roads would make things easier, but there are just enough abberations for it to be annoying. (Useless facts. Our "mile" roads are only a mile apart when measured along Woodward avenue and what would be four through zero mile have normal names instead.)

Good point about matching Shockwave's boots.
I saw that kitbash. It was nice.
Maybe they'll use those colors on the inevitable repaint of the mold.

Unfortunatey, no. Everything about the auto show seems to have rolled off of the pages that I can search easily.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Huh. Y'know, I beg to differ...LA traffic sucks, but I always found the SF Bay Area a lot worse ;-) And our roads are fairly gridlike, far more so than SF.
(Mile roads?)

How much DO you surf TF news?

Darnit!

[exatron.livejournal.com]

That's good to know if I ever end up in the area. (The "Mile" road are a series of numbered, parallel streets that run from east to west across Southeast Michigan. The farther north you are, the higher the number of the mile road. The most famous is 8 Mile, the northern border of Detroit, and the title of a movie.)

I don't surf TF news nearly as much as I should or used to.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Ah, so just like being called First Street/Second street/etc?
Ooooooh, okie, I remember that movie coming out.

I'm pretty obsessive about it. I limit myself to only a few sites so I don't go overboard. I tried frequenting a few forums, but don't really have the gumption for that anymore...

[exatron.livejournal.com]

Basically, yeah.

I wish some of the bigger TF sites had newsfeeds. It's so much easier when I can point one program at a site and have it do the obsessive checking for me.

Have you tried Nightwind's Transfan Asylum? The owner insists on maintaining an open, friendly message board.