2012 60th Detroit Meguiars World of Wheels Autorama
Detroit, MIFriday, February 24, 2012
The 60th Detroit Meguiars World of Wheels Autorama February 24 – 26, 2012
This edition of the show featured over 900 vehicles, including famous cars and legendary people, including Dean Jeffries and the Mantaray, the Foose customized BASF 1957 Mercedes Gullwing, The Roswell Bubble Top car, the original Hot Rod Lincoln, and cars from rocker Kid Rock’s Collection. Displayed together are the Dan Webb recreations of the 1949 SoCal Streamliner and the Phil Remington modified lakester. Both cars show what it was like in postwar dry lakes racing technology. Don Pilkenton is the Builder of the Year with an 18 car retrospective display. The Cavalcade of Customs and Drag City USA vintage racers provided a focused area for these great examples of their styles. The Cowboy Cadillac display featured a group of rare El Caminos and Rancheros. Aftermarket part vendors, Ford, GM, and Chrysler all had some nice displays, and even the Autorama Extreme had parts and lifestyle vendors. As always, the model car show was a popular booth with some amazing examples of model car building. The 18th Annual Toy-A-Rama had a large number of toy vendors selling anything auto related. Numerous celebrity entertainers were there, including Chumlee, WWE Ray Mysterio, Jersey Shore’s Deena Nicole, Billy the Exterminator, and of course, Spongebob Squarepants.
Friday was the 7th annual Autorama Student Career Day with students from over 50 Michigan schools attending a presentation from key hot rod builders and industry leaders like Chip Foose, to learn about career opportunities in this growing field. $125,000 in scholarships was made available from 5 colleges. They then got to visit the show and see the results of this career path.
WRIF classic rock radio sponsored the Motor City Mavens Auto Art Panel Jam and Charity Auction. More than 150 pinstripers and artists applied their talents to anything you could imagine, which were auctioned to raise money for the Leader Dogs for the Blind. People brought in items to be pinstriped, talk with the artists, and watch them apply their talents. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to “Wild Bill” Betz. This was the most successful fundraiser in the 7 years, having raised almost $100,000.
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