Even though we don’t drive, we went to the Chicago Auto Show, billed as the largest in the nation.
There were a lot of very shiny vehicles there.
I was hoping to see real-life examples of electric car technology, but Toyota seemed to be the only company giving any significant attention to electric cars. The overwhelming emphasis at the show was on gasoline powered trucks. Of course, American manufacturers don’t make regular cars anymore, having ceded that market to overseas. But even Nissan was focussed on their trucks, and didn’t have an single Altima or Maxima there.
On the other hand, if you wanted to drive a truck over a crazy steep hill, this was the place to be.
This was very popular. Perhaps because there are no hills in Chicago.
There were a number of sports cars that you could sit in, but of course you could not turn on the engine. I sat in a Dodge Hellcat.
It’s not that impressive as a parked car. I looked in the car’s performance statistics using the dashboard computer and saw that it had never gone faster than ninety miles an hour. What a waste.
The ads said that there would be classic cars from local car clubs on display, but alas, there were no club booths. Ford did bring an electrified F-100, which I thought was cool.
The most spectacular display, though, was not an automobile at all, but Subaru’s National Park display. Beautiful aerial images of western parks (Denali, Arches, Yosemite) displayed on a wraparound screen and an imaging floor. It even snowed on you! (Not exactly enchanting for Chicagoans.)
The nicest car to sit in was this Lincoln.
I’m not kidding. You could sit in this vehicle for a week. It made everything else at the show feel like a city bus.
