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Beside such prolific cars as the Volkswagen Beetle, Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord are landmark cars of another kind: presidential limos. The two presidential limos, John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln convertible and Ronald Reagan’s Cadillac show how an assassin’s bullet would eventually lead to better security for America’s head of state. The continuous search for alternative fuel sources (the automotive holy grail) is highlighted with experiments on electric vehicles culminating with General Motor’s EV1 and Ford’s Th!nk city car. Motor sport’s development of ever faster and sleeker racers are evident by the presence of several NASCAR, Indy Car and F1 racers placed side-by-side with their early era counterparts. Vehicles that touch the heart are given special treatment. On one hand is the double-take inducing hotdog shaped Oscar Meyer truck—a design that’s permanent lodged in our minds thanks to countless photographs and cartoons; on the other is the actual bus that Rosa Parks rode in—the very same one where she clamored for racial equality. Then, there’s the original mid-engined Ford Mustang Concept and the resulting cream-colored 1964½ Chassis 001. We quickly fill two memory cards worth of memories before we notice that the sun is about to set amidst Detroit’s foggy skylight. We realize that we’ve spent more than a good day here and we still haven’t set foot on the other exhibit halls yet. We quickly glance at our guide and we noted that there’s still a lot of things to see: life-size cutaways of the Boeing 707 and 737; various P-51 Mustang air racers; classic BMW and Harley-Davidson motorcycles; three full-sized locomotives, the Pacific Railways one excluded; the evolution of some household appliances such as phonographs, telephones and personal computers; “future house concepts” from the 50’s; and even Edison’s last breath, bottled and sealed by Henry Ford himself. We wish we had more memory cards, charged more batteries and that the exhibit be open for another eight hours. Alas, we didn’t have wishing lamps, and we certainly aren’t genies. So we stood once again. “Forget Disneyland”, we thought. “This is our kind of attraction”. With cameras in hand, we continued walking once again. Our eyes gleamed with wonder as we tried absorbing all that we saw. We felt like six years old again. Detroit’s March weather may be harsh and cold as any mechanical invention, but like The Henry Ford, the real story lies behind it, and that alone gives a different sort of warmth to our hearts. ◊ |
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