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Story by Jack Baruth; photos by Zerin Dube and Carl Modesette

Are you sick of the Detroit Auto Show yet? Have the endless broken embargoes, family-vacation-disposable-camera-quality photographs, hilariously car-ignorant reporting, and faux-world-weary meta-coverage vomited across the blogosphere finally made you permanently allergic to the condition known as NAIAS? We don’t blame you. It’s been less than ten days since the ZR-1 made its majestic rotating-platform ascension above the crowd at the Friday-night “GM Style” opening event, and it already seems as if 2008 Detroit Show coverage has been with us longer than the previous-generation Land Cruiser.

The farther away we get from the show and its seven thousand sweating journalists, however, the easier it becomes to get a bit of perspective on the whole thing, and we therefore humbly ask you to hang on for just one more article. There won’t be any outrageous Chinese-car-company-chairman stunts in this one. Nor will there be any straight-from-the-show-floor photos that make those old shots of the Loch Ness Monster look like Ansel Adams’ best work. Instead, we’ll simply recap the show and award the Rockers, Suckers, and Snoozers which made the ‘08 show one to both remember and forget. Let’s get started.

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Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

Due to a top-secret mission working as a liaison between US interests and an unnamed German third-party, as well as the Sea of Doldrums that was the Detroit Auto Show, this podcast is a week late in case you haven’t noticed. However, we make up for it by having this one be twice as long as the normal podcast. So long, the normal summary would make this post a novel in and of itself. Besides, the news is so old you probably not only know about it, but have forgotten about it already, which will make it seem like you’re hearing it for the first time on the podcast. Dubspeed Radio, taking advantage of short attention spans in our endless quest for adequacy.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 1/21/08 [21:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Photos by Zerin Dube and Carl Modesette

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Story by Jack Baruth; photos by Zerin Dube and Carl Modesette

“Please, broadcast media only.” Toyota’s bouncers were all up in our grille, yo, and we weren’t in the mood to hear it. It seemed like only yesterday (because, well, it was only yesterday) that we’d watched Dodge herd cattle down Jefferson Avenue for amusement, but as usual Toyota had done the American manufactuer one better, forcing the Press As A Whole to line up for approximately an hour at the entrance to Cobo’s Riverview Ballroom before being, er, herded through a narrow gate and a humiliating little inspection, as if we were… cattle ourselves! And just when Dubspeed Driven’s little herd of literary longhorns had made it to the entrance, we were shoved aside so the television people could just breeze through! What? The? Foxtrot?

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Story by Jack Baruth; photos by Zerin Dube and Carl Modesette

Day One of the NAIAS, which is called the “Detroit Show” by pretty much everybody in the free world, because NAIAS sounds like something one would discuss with one’s proctologist behind closed doors… there was a distinct odor on the street. Was it the sharp tang of fifty-pound dumps taken by the herd of very expensive-looking cattle herded down Jefferson Avenue to introduce the Dodge Ram? Was it the acrid whiff of a heart-stopping “pyrotechnic” at Ford’s F-150 unveiling? Perhaps it was the reek of terror as Toby Keith bumbled his way through TelePrompter lines clearly written by a Phantom Menace-era George Lucas: “I am a platinum artist. I make platinum records. Is there a play-ti-numm truck out thair for me?”

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Story by Jack Baruth

“Ram Box”. What the heck is it? Well, it’s not a particularly offensive rap song, although it could be. Instead, it’s a rather bizarre secure-storage system built into the 2009 Dodge Ram truck. In this third generation of “big rig” styling Dodge trucks, it appears that Chrysler has decided that it’s not enough to have a new HEMI engine, a completely new frame and body, a new 1500 CrewCab form factor, and a quality regiment that includes 6.5 million miles of testing: they’re actually throwing in the kitchen sink. A pair of kitchen sinks.

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The folks over at AutoTuningNews have posted this video to Youtube, finally revealing the details of the R8 TDI V12 Concept that will bow at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show on Sunday. We’ll hold tight to our embargo commitments by not publishing any details, but enjoy the video in the meantime.