2000 Detroit Auto Show
In the beginning, Daimler and Benz created the automobile; cars carried people from point A to point B, trucks carried stuff from point A to point B, and they saw that it was good. So ended the first century of the automobile.
In the dawn of the new millennium, the lines become blurred; the attributes which once clearly demarcated vehicles as utilitarian versus stylish versus performance-oriented have miscegenated (with some of the offspring more comely than others). Is it an SUV? Is it a sports car? Is it a rolling communication center? Who can tell? The carmakers seem to want to erase previous notions of driving experience and redefine what it means to own an automobile. Out with the old, in with the new. Question is, is the newer always the better?
We will become privy to all this and more at the 2000 North American International Auto Show, held in the lovely metropolis of Detroit, Mich., on a cold, drizzly January week. We will attempt, for your benefit, dear readers, to make sense of the madness, to plow through the PR-speak, and bring you live team coverage of the innovative technology and design of the automobile on the threshold of a new age.
