At 8:15 am my father pulled up in his 2001 Convertible Ford Mustang. I jumped in the passenger seat, fastened my seat belt, and got comfortable. My father turned the ignition, put his Mustang into drive and hit the gas. We were on our way to the 2006 Detroit International Auto Show.

We parked the car in the Greek Town Parking Structure off of Brush and then took the People Mover over to Cobo Hall, just like we have been doing every year for as long as I can remember. On the ‘Mover my father took in the breath of the city and we discussed some of the changes that had occurred over the past year.

When we got to Cobo we were a little shocked to find the location in which you enter the Auto Show was one of those changes. This generated a little confusion among the show goers, but people seemed to figure it out quickly enough and we were inside.

My father works at Ford Motor Company, which means we always go to the Ford display first. There we saw the new Ford Fusion and the 7th Harley Davidson F150. We also shook hands with one of the UAW’s head honcho’s Jeff Washington. Then we moved on to Volvo.

We slowed down a bit at the Volvo Display. My father was really interested in looking at and possibly of getting an XC90. He sat in the seat and talked to a salesmen while I checked out one of the Volvo models of the human kind. Then we shifted gears and moved on.

We found nothing much of real interest in the Land Rover, Mercury, Jaguar, and Aston Martin Displays. They are all cars that, at least I can’t afford, and are usually the same every year. But when we got to the Hyundai Display, I put on the parking brake.

I like the Hyundai Elantra! I like it because it has the look of the SAAB, but the price of a KIA. I took the time to sit in the seat, pop the hatchback and try to convince my father to sell his Corvette, to use the money to buy me a car. He said “Fat Chance” and we were on the go again.

As we raced through the show, my father and I took a pit stop to get our picture taken in a convertible Corvette. We always find at least one Automotive Display to get our picture taken at. They use this cool digital technology and you can get the picture off the Internet the next day. This year GM had the camera and we had the smile.

We also spent some significant time looking at the Hondas. The Civic boasted a mpg that still boggles my mind, while the Ridgeline made us wonder why it was picked as Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. It really wasn’t that special. And we would have left the auto show with a bad taste in our mouth, but my father wanted to circle the track one more time to see the XC90 again.

The show was over for us, but the day wasn’t. We hopped back on the People Mover, flew by Brick Town and got off at Greek Town. We had a quick lunch at Pizza Papalis and then went and validated our parking at the Greek Town Casino. On the way out, somehow, we lost forty or fifty bucks and thanked God that at least parking was free.

At around 1pm my father dropped me off. I shut the passenger door and he hit the gas. I saw him wave goodbye and wondered if the day may have gone by to fast. But no bother, I always have next year to throw on the brakes.