Though I am a Detroiter, I have never been a big car buff. I admire the styling of some really classic cars – especially from the 1930s. But I spend a lot of time in my car, and want it to be safe, comfortable, practical, and have whatever other features make sense.
I’ve always felt that anything other than that was too much. I was once on an airplane flight with two guys, clearly engineers, who talked about camshafts in great detail.
That was sheer agony. But over the past several days, wandering the auto show and talking to people in the industry, I suddenly got a new appreciation for what these machines are and represent, which is personal, individual freedom.
That’s always been the attraction of having your own car: The ability to essentially go on a whim, or at need, anywhere. By sheer chance, the major breakthroughs that made that amazing dream practical and affordable happened right here, in this city, a little over a century ago.
When it all started, the vehicle was essentially a buggy that lurched forward by burning fuel instead of being pulled by a horse. Soon, it was enclosed with windows. Today, automobiles are highly complex creations full of computers, sensors and technology.
Today, the leaders of our nation cannot even agree to let the government function. The leaders of our state are failing to fix the roads or properly educate our children. Yet the auto companies build machines that can take me to a precise street address in Georgia, and play Janis Joplin, suggest restaurants and find gas stations along the way.
Private sector success, public sector failure. Yet the same people choose our cars and our politicians. This is fascinating, if occasionally a bit unnerving.
You can learn a lot about how cars work at this year’s auto show. Even though some foreign manufacturers didn’t come, you can see pretty much every variety of vehicle you can imagine, and some you can’t. Whenever I wander around an auto show, either of cutting edge new cars or older classics at the Concours d’Elegance, I see ghosts, of cars and men past.
Buccaneers like Billy Durant, the man who founded General Motors, lost control, got it back, and then ended his days running a bowling alley in Flint. Alfred E. Sloan, who made GM the world’s biggest corporation, with his slogan “a car for every purse and purpose.”
The poignant family saga of the Fords, Henry the visionary and crazy founder, hounding his brilliant and cultured son to an early grave; Hank the Deuce saving the company.
Lesser, but still fascinating characters like the whiz kids, Harley Earl, Preston Tucker, and John DeLorean. The auto industry is about a lot more than machines. Had it settled in New York, I’m certain there would be more epic movies and novels about the industry.
But it is ours, and the main reason that Detroit came to be what it is, good and bad. Many of us have in our driveways machines in many ways are technologically superior to the spaceships that took the astronauts to the moon; those certainly didn’t have GPS and blue tooth.
Most of us can’t function without our cars, and the industry is still creating jobs, jobs more fascinating and challenging than the old metal-bending ones of old.
So take the kids to the auto show. You just might be surprised by what you see.
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