In 1953, the plan was to put on a car show to raise money for a drag strip.
Seventy-three years later, the drag strip, near New Baltimore, is the stuff of memories, but the car show, a celebration of custom hot rods and car culture, is still going strong.
Detroit Autorama, sometimes called “America’s Greatest Hot Rod Show,” returns once again to Huntington Place this week, running Friday, Feb. 27, through Sunday, March 1, with some 680 cars expected on display. In addition to custom cars, appearances are planned from WWE Hall of Fame members Trish Stratus and Kevin Nash, Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain and the InGen Type 6 Utility Vehicle from “Jurassic World.” A Miss Autorama Pinup Girl contest is also scheduled.
The show promises lots of sheet metal eye candy, and it’ll attract builders hoping to impress the judges enough to score a premier custom car award, possibly nabbing one of the BASF Great 8 spots or the pinnacle, the Ridler Award, which comes with a $10,000 prize and a requirement that this is the car’s first public showing. The Ridler Award is named after legendary promoter Don Ridler.
“We have people coming from all over the country and different continents to actually enter their car in the show,” according to Mike Signorello, president of the Michigan Hot Rod Association, the organization that hosts the show. “Detroit Autorama is like our car guy Super Bowl.”
For Signorello, who’s 71 and lives in Clinton Township, Autorama has been part of his life for decades. He has been bringing cars to the show since he was 17.
At a time when comparisons to the past haven’t been so kind to the Detroit Auto Show, formerly known as the much grander North American International Auto Show, Detroit Autorama can cater to a nostalgia for hot rods of the past and the evolution of custom cars.
It has also come a long way since the early days, and especially the first show. That had about 40 cars at what is now known as Calihan Hall at the University of Detroit Mercy, according to Bob Larivee Sr., who was there from the beginning and later produced Detroit Autorama from 1961 to 1994. The show spent time at the old fairgrounds and eventually moved to the former Cobo Hall, now Huntington Place downtown.
Larivee, now 96 and living in Royal Oak, was, like many young men his age in the 1950s, fascinated by fast cars — Larivee used to love racing them, too — but he turned that love into a career, with a company that brought car shows across the country. Detroit Autorama is part of a series of shows, with stops this year in cities including Pittsburgh, Dallas, Chicago and Salt Lake City.
“I started as a kid, and I had a passion for it,” he said. “Everybody in it has that passion and a lot of guys just want to have a nice car.”
Hot rodding is always changing, according to Larivee, and the biggest change from those early days involves the horsepower that’s readily available. It’s those Dodge muscle cars that promise 700 or more horsepower. In the old days, it might be a 1932 or 1940 Ford and, Larivee said, someday, it might be all electric.
“For me, I want a stick shift car that makes noise. I want a Mustang or a Trans Am or something like that or a Hemi Cuda,” he said. “When I drive a car, I want to be able to hear it, and I want to have fun driving it and shifting it.”
Paul Potocki, International Show Car Association general manager and Ridler judging supervisor, said that’s the thing about the changing landscape of this arena of car culture and even the generational differences.
“As long as it’s got wheels, and they’re into it, we have to embrace what they’re doing,” he said.
Some younger people are into tuners and import mini trucks, but “we have classes for all that,” he said.
The time and money that might go into a specific build can be significant, but the results can be stunning.
Potocki recalled the 2024 Ridler winner, owned by David Maxwell, of Pennsylvania, and built by Kindig-it Design, of Salt Lake City, a “ ’53 Corvette” that started out as sheets of aluminum and became a car. The desire to create something unique is what drives many of these custom car builders.
“They just want to one-up the next guy. It’s an ego thing, but it’s a huge thing if you’re a car person,” he said, noting that getting a car in Detroit Autorama can be a lifetime goal.
“The level of quality at the Detroit Autorama is like no other show,” he said.
And if you make it to Detroit and win an award, it’s like “the cherry on the top of their sundae.”
If you go
Detroit Autorama is scheduled to be open at Huntington Place, 1 Washington Blvd., in Detroit, noon to 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 1.
General admission tickets are $30, but tickets for children 6-12 are $10 and those 5 years and younger get in free.
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Autorama returns Feb. 27-March 1 with 680 cars on display
Reporting by Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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