Still car-crazy after all these years

The Milk Wagon appeared at the 1967 Autorama in Detroit's Cobo Hall

Unless you’ve spent time in a cold climate, you might not appreciate the significance of an event like the Detroit Autorama.

Although I actually enjoy snow and cold weather, it does tend to curtail most forms of motorsports. The local tracks usually close in October, and they don’t reopen until late March at best. The majority of hot rods and street machines usually go into hibernation during the same period.

If you are a gear-head in the north, the winter months are devoid of racing action. My friends and I followed the events in Southern California in the pages of Drag News, but it wasn’t the same as being at the track.

Thankfully, in the midst of the winter doldrums, Autorama would arrive, providing a reminder of why we were car-crazy in the first place.

Usually, we would attend Friday night, because we didn’t want to wait until Saturday. We would leave our coats in the car so we wouldn’t have to carry them around on the show floor.

We would arrive in the Cobo Hall foyer, shivering in the ghastly green flourescent light, as we waited in line to reach the ticket booth. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, the mounds of snow would look gray in the evening gloom.

That is how it was in the foyer, all cold and green and gray.

Then someone would open a door to the auditorium and we would catch a glimpse of summer. The lighting inside was orange and warm and inviting. Even more important we could make out chrome wheels, candy paint and meticulously detailed engines. It didn’t matter what the weather was like outside, inside the arena it was high performance heaven.
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