2025 International Auto Show Adventure

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the Detroit international auto show is back again, and this year I went with my parents after getting some discount tickets. We were there for the first day that it was open to the public, and boy was it fun. This year they had off-road driving demos from Stellantis and Ford, and there was a speedway thing with 3 of the car brands (Volkswagon, BMW, and I think Ford). This was possible since the vehicles demonstrated were electric and electric vehicles don't have combustion emissions to put into the enclosed area. I'll get to the details of those when I get to them. Electric vehicles were kind of the big thing at this show since this is what all the industry is pushing for. I'm not super interested just because our grid isn't ready, I don't have charging in my garage and getting wired is not something I want to go through, and public charging isn't very common, but good for you if it's your thing.

The absolute first thing we saw was a drifter van, a van with a kitchen, shower, bed, and storage, perfect for those weirdos on youtube that live out of their van. We saw it because it was on the way to the Stellantis display.

First real exhibit we went to was Stellantis. I liked sitting in the Jeep Wagoneers and Fiat 500s. Some of the jeeps were hard to get into, which was fun. There was this one car with LED trim with an option to change the light colors, which was really cool.

It was also the 20th anniversary of stow and go, and there was this game to see if you could fit everything in the stow and go van, and I was part of the game. We did it with 12 seconds to spare and so we won trucker hats with the brand on it, and I wore it on top of my fedora. Now for the big thing, the Jeep off road experience. We went up and down an uneven hill, up and down steps, up and down a  45 degree incline hill, through a narrow passage with us riding the edge of the wheel, on a 30 degree tilt leaning over, and sopping on a peak. We were able to ride in the pink jeep, which made my mom happy. Since it sits so high up my dad had a little trouble getting in and out, but it was really fun. When we were going down the steep incline I was being held in completely by the seat belt which was a pretty crazy feeling, like something out of an amusement park ride. I took a first person video from the front seat, and then afterwards I took some video of the obstacles so I could overlay them. Check it out here.

Also, while we were waiting in line, there was this cut-out hanging out in the trees to startle people. Kind of funny. I also got a soft pretzel around this time, with a pitiful amount of cheese sauce for dipping. I don't know if the vendor was running out or was just being stingy, but oh well.

Right by the stellantis exhibit was a switching gears show, where they play the first episode and have some give aways or something like that. I had already seen the episode at home so it wasn't a big deal, but it was pretty cool that a TV show had a presence at a car show.

By this time dad was getting tired, it was maybe an hour and a half into our time there but he expires kind of quickly now. All he really had to do was sit in the back seats of some cars, but that wouldn't have been the most sustainable thing. Mom and I looked around at some different exhibits looking for a place to sit, and we found the DTE electric car display. There was a trivia scavenger hunt that once all answers were found would get you an opportunity to play plinko to win a slinky, ice scraper, tire gage, tire stress ball, or a tote bag. Where the prizes were set-up the ice scraper was the hard one to get, but I ended up winning it. Cool I guess, even though I would have liked the pressure gauge more. Still pretty cool.

We were pretty close to the Ford exhibit, so we looked around at some of the fords. They also had an off-road demonstration for their off-road vehicles, and we would have done that as well but the line was super long (like at least an hour), and while I wouldn't have minded it would have been too much for my parents for what would have largely been the same experience we got from jeep (only real difference was this bridge thing, video below). We mostly just looked around at different trucks and watched a little swag giveaway. One of the cool things was the Detroit Lions football helmet car and a pickup truck with some Lions decals.

This is about when dad sat down at the DTE display with the nice seats. Mom and I got him a soft pretzel and bottle of water, and I got dipping dots. Dad got a fair amount of cheese, so much that it was spilling over. Mom and I went around to some of the other displays. I was able to sit in a BMW, and right close to it was some prop cars from movies and TV shows. The big ones for us were the Jurassic Park jeep, station wagon from National Lampoon's Vacation (complete with Aunt Edna on the roof, a leash out the back from Edna's dog, and a Wally World bumper sticker), and Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari. My mom's family used to go on a lot of family road trips and when National Lampoon's Vacation came out they saw it multiple times since it reminded them of all their family trips.

The next thing we did was we went to the luxury car display. These were the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and other super luxury brands. Mom and I aren't like super into these, but it is pretty cool looking at cars that are worth more than our house. Here are some of the pictures I took.

And then there was this James Bond car.

Outside the luxury car display was a place where you could get an alcoholic drink and some porches (at least I think it was porche). There was one that had this cool paint job that I took pictures of.

Since we didn't get enough time at stellantis, we went back and sat in a couple more vehicles. I got my picture with the utility van, which is always fun for me. I just think utility vans are neat. I also got in this pick-up truck and the rear view mirror wasn't actually a mirror, but was a screen that showed the feed of a rear view camera. Really cool. I called my mom over to look at it and she thought it was cool too.

I think our next thing was a combination of Volkswagon and GM. Not a whole lot of interest in VW, but they did have a van that was a little reminiscent of the VW bus. At GM we got a picture of the new Silverado for my mom's friend and I looked around and found another van life van.

Now I don't remember when this happened exactly, but at some point we went to this display that was the Detroit grand prix, and michigan science center. The science center was full of activities for kids; build a dinosaur skeleton, build a foam car thing, play mario kart for switch, build duplo cars, play with hotwheels and tracks, and some other things I'm forgetting. I know as a kid I would have really loved that "build a car" thing. The Grand Prix was pretty cool, they had racecars and a victory podium for taking pictures. They also had a real F1 racecar for kids 12 and under to climb into. I wanted to do that since once I was able to sit in a real stockcar racecar, but oh well, I did get a fun picture on the winner's podium.

This was also right by the car speed demonstration. I didn't do it because the lines were kind of long and it was getting late for date, but it was still pretty cool and I got some videos of cars going fast.

[insert picture]

Time for the last event of the day. Dad was really tired and ready to go home at about 4PM, but there was still the show car display (cars owned by enthusiasts in a local club that look cool). Mom and dad just stat down at the cafe while I went to the display in hall E. Lots of cool cars, check them out here.

And then there was this monstrosity of a license plate.

I promised them I would be very fast, and I think I spent maybe 10 minutes at most. After that we went back to my parents and then went out to dinner at Chilies using the gift card mskate and I got them for Christmas. All in all it was a really fun day time, even if there wasn't nearly as much swag as there was in previous years. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Adventure at the 2019 North American International Auto Show

Hey there everyone, I'm back with another adventure. This time, it's the North American International Auto Show. For legal reasons, I must say "I am not an official spokes person of the North American International Auto Show, the views and opinions are solely my own and do not reflect that of NAIAS or any of their partners, I went to the public show with a general admission ticket and all information I will present is open source and freely available to anyone who would want it." Some years ago I read I needed to include a disclaimer like that if I were to blog about it. I don't want to get sued, so here you go. With that out of the way, time for the fun.

First off, my video camera was dead. I didn't charge the battery enough and it wouldn't turn on. However, I was REALLY scared I broke my camera. I have a 12V DC to 120V AC power inverter for my car (allowing me to plug in normal wall outlet devices into my car) and I plugged my camera into it on the way to the show. Well, when I got to the show it wouldn't turn on, and then I remembered the manual said "do not use this for charging electronic devices." I was really afraid I fried my camera. I plugged it into an outlet outside the auto show, and it wouldn't charge. Thankfully I must have just been using an outlet they turned off, because when I got home it took a charge, and turned on, but that limited what I was able to record and capture (because all I had was my phone). I'm also not uploading all my photos here. You can see all I took here on my myspace (because yes, I still have myspace). With this explanation out of the way, here's my adventure.

So I got to the show about 15 minutes before they opened, and just waited around for the doors to open. I looked around at some of the outside promotions, but mainly just waited in line. When I walked in this was the first thing I saw.

A 1:1 scale Chevy Silverado, made entirely of Lego bricks. The sign said something like "25,000 Lego bricks, a team of 20, and 1000 man hours." That was super impressive. That's what I call a Lego set. I didn't go to GMC first, because I like to start on the perimeter and snake my way around the show floor and GMC was not on the perimeter. First was Ford, which was pretty neat. I sat in some cars, but the one I wanted to sit in was "locked for our protection." It was basically a commercial van that was a mini-RV.

I mean, I understand why, but man that looks like it would be fun to explore. I also saw a local news station set-up. That was really cool to have a little look behind the scenes.

What was really cool this time was they had vehicles actually running on the show floor. Granted you couldn't drive them, but Ford had this virtual reality thing where it took you over a course. Here are some things I managed to capture.

Then there was this. Ford unveiled some cars with this cool show thing. Cars came through the screen.

Unfortunately my phone died before the coolest reveal. They had a mustang drop down from the ceiling. I really wish I could have shown that to you good people, oh well.

Here's something that was fun. Last year they had a "build your own Lego figure" thing, and they did again. Here's me putting it together.

Then afterwards you could put the guy in some scenes. I had a little fun with it.

There was also a life size Lego racer. That was pretty awesome.

I saw some cool cars. I took a couple pictures, and enjoyed the cut-aways.

After Ford I went to Fiat-Chrysler. What was fun is all the awards they had out.

That last one was the truck of the year. Really cool. I also liked the engine displays.

I sat in pretty much all the cars, and one that caught my attention was how big the touch screen on this one was.

One cool things I did while I was there was I tried their driving simulator (sorry, no picture). It was a Forza race game, with shakes, and full cabin display with 3 monitors, that was a 2.5 minute ride. The annoying thing was the break wasn't working, so I couldn't make the turns without crashing. It was really fun though. That was basically Fiat-Chrysler for me. Before I move on, here are some pictures of cars.

After Fiat-Chrysler I went to Kia. The main thing I want to show off is this awesome off road demonstration.

It was really fun. I've never done off roading before, so it was really cool. I saw some other cars at Kia, but they didn't really impress me enough to take some pictures. I went to GMC after the Kia exhibit, and I sat at their one display because I needed to charge my phone. What they did was have a big truck display with someone talking about all the cool things it had, and they had chairs and such with phone charging cables. It was really ingenious marketing if you ask me; people need to charge their phones, so while you have a captive audience tell them all about the new truck. I gotta say, if I was a truck guy, I would be really impressed. I spent probably 20 minutes listening to the spiel while I waited for my phone to charge.

After I got my charge, I went to the "build your own Lego Silverado" thing. Here's the little adventure of getting it.

Apparently the sponsor was The Lego Movie 2. OK cool I guess. Now I have something for my Ford guys to sit in. I wasn't super interested in most of the cars they had on display, so I didn't sit in any. There was this virtual reality home run derby game. It was really cool; virtual pitcher throws you a ball, you swing the bat, and if you hit it so it doesn't become a grounder, you get a home run. I scored like 5-8. I would show you the video they took of me and sent me, but they screwed it up and sent me the kid that went before me. Oh well.

Now Toyoda, they had quite the display. They had some concepts for autonomous cars, which was awesome.

They also had their hydrogen filling station on display (or at least I think it was hydrogen).

I also saw this cool back-loading thing on display for people that have difficulty getting in an out of cars. I saw this the past couple of times I was there too.

I also did this thing where you're a news reporter out in the artic and the only car is the new Toyota Prius. I really got into it, and played it up really good. The lady that was running the display really liked how much I got into it. Unfortunately there was something wrong and they didn't send me the video. Oh well, at least you were able to see the Kia video. There were some other cars too.

I think this is about when I got the half pound of fudge; salted caramel. Oh, it's good. I think this is also about the time when I had lunch. I had pizza. It was pretty good; not sure if it was worth $8, but definitely the preferred thing they had there. I'll also take this time to mention the donut maker. It was this automatic donut conveyor thing, where it drops some batter in the boiling oil, then drags it along, and halfway through it flips it, and finally dumps them in a bowl. I remember I saw one of those years ago when I was like 10. The lady saw I was fascinated by it, so she dropped a couple of donuts in for me to watch. Really fun.

Now there were some other concept car companies. They didn't have much to show off, so here are the few displays they had.

There was also this company that I guess specialized in off road. I say "I guess" because all I knew nothing about them but they had a bunch of off road stuff.

It was pretty cool. Around this time is when I started running out of steam. I mean, I'd been there for about 4 hours now. Here are some of the other things I saw. There was this really cool thing from, I think it was Honda. It was this flipping screen, that tracked your movements and such.

There were also some displays of classic cars. That was pretty cool.

After leaving the show, I went down to see if there was anything in the basement (sometimes they have the "enthusiasts and specialty club cars" in the basement). Unfortunately, nothing this time. I did see a local news reporter signing autographs.

It was a really fun time. I'm glad I was able to go and experience it. Again, this isn't everything. To see all I took, you'll need to check out the myspace mix. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.