Yesterday (February 14th) is annually a very big day here in the Levy household, seeing as how it was not only Valentines' Day--a cash-register boon to florists, restaurateurs and chocolatiers nationwide--but also beloved/long-suffering wife Carol's birthday (none a'yer damn bidness which one) as well as--trumpet fanfare, please--her and my 52nd wedding anniversary. Woo-Hoo! People who know us think I must have married her when she was 15 or so, but this is simply not true. She has maintained her youthful looks and wonderful outlook on life by bathing regularly in the milk of human kindness and ignoring some of the stupid, self-centered, ill-timed and/or ill-advised notions and directions I occasionally attach myself to like, as Warren Weith once wrote, "a burr in an old woolen sock."

To celebrate the occasion, our friends Bob and Ingrid (I used to sell cars with him at Loeber Motors shortly after rack-and-pinion steering was invented) took us out for a very nice dinner, and the following day (Valentines Day, etc. etc.) I left a bunch of sometimes silly, sometimes funny, sometimes sly, sometimes stupid Valentine, Birthday and Anniversary cards scattered here and there where she would find them. Manwhile, I went to early Old Geezer Tabata class (if you're a bad person in this life, they send you to a little room in hell where you have to watch the video) and then we went out to a very nice breakfast. Followed by some grocery shopping. Then we visited the Jackson Square Mall in La Grange, IL, which is kind of a major supermarket conglomeration of junk/antique/memorabilia shops scattered through all of these various, attic- and basement-like rooms, nooks and crannies, all of them simply crammed full of pictures and furniture and crockery and antiques and prints and plates and vases and old record albums that can't fail to spark memories and clothing and beads and good and junk jewelry (you be the judge) and books and...bottom line is that it's worth a visit and a meander (you WILL buy something!) even though some of the stuff is obviously "what do we do with this crap NOW?" relics, remnants, reminders and remainders from elderly relatives since passed on.

I understand that the building is currently in the process of being sold and the odd confederation of dealers and vendors who display & hawk their wares therein are planning/hoping to relocate. I wish them well. But, in the meantime, should you be in the area, it's certainly worth a visit and Carol and I enjoyed it very much. Far better than what's on TV...

So last Saturday evening was the yearly MIRPA banquet with our great friend/IMSA Head Man John Doonan as the featured attraction, and he was his usual humble, entertaining, honest & self-effacing personality and was accompanied by his entire family, which was very nice. John lives his life in a cage-full of dangerous predators with long teeth and nasty reputations (read: need-to-win car manufacturers, always-looking-for-an-edge racing teams, trying to draw more fans race promotors & track owners and the backroom guys who write, re-write and continually re-interpret the rules for various sanctioning bodies, foreign and domestic) and yet John somehow manages to keep all those balls in the air and keep them happy. Or at least smiling. Or maybe they're grimacing? But the point is that he's on a tightrope every single day and yet he is welcome and moreover welcomed wherever he seems to go, because he knows that his job is to make things work. And he tells some fascinating insider stories about his adventures and encounters. Funny, too. And I don't believe he ever betrays a confidence.

How many people can you say that about?

If you're in the area next year, you might want to drop in on the MIRPA dinner. Don't know who'll be the speaker/hall of fame inductee yet, but I guarantee it will be worth your time, real insider stuff & fun, too.

CHICAGO AUTO SHOW MUSINGS & MEMORIES

The Chicago Auto Show looms large in my personal automotive life, although it's a bit sad the way I've seen it shrink in size, stature, participation and excitement over the past decade or so. But there's a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, so lets peel back the years for a little perspective before we go any further...

Like most car junkies, I can't pinpoint the exact moment that the old needle first went into my arm, but my folks always said I could identify & correctly name every car on the road by the time I was two (doubtful, but you know how parents are). In any case, I vividly recall my mom & dad taking my older brother Maury and I to the 1954 edition of the Chicago Auto Show in early March of 1954. I would have been, lessee, a few months past my 8th birthday and living in a world of mostly knees, trouser legs and pants pockets in any crowded area filled with adults. And the Auto Show was indeed crowded and full of adults. It was quite the big deal back then, seeing as how what you drove (and, maybe even more important, parked in your home driveway) said more about your income, taste and social status than anything else in your life. And the cars had so damn much character back then...even though if you scratched beneath the surface of a Chrysler New Yorker or a DeSoto Coronado you found the bones and genes of a Plymouth Savoy or a Dodge Customline lurking underneath. Same for Ford and Generous Motors, too. What sort of car you drove identified, to a great extent, what sort of values & taste you had and which ad-hoc automotive tribe you belonged to.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION: Back a few decades ago, I was selling packaging and printed and woven cloth labels to some major retailors with headquarters in the Chicagoland area (Sears and Spiegel, in particular) and, at one point, Spiegel was on a thoroughly unexpected and amazing upswing from a dull, price-oriented, bottom-feeder clothing-and-footwear catalog business to a trendy, stylish (and yet affordable!), cutting-edge fashion source. They developed new styles, looks and brands as quickly as they could make them up, and truly enjoyed knocking off (or at least knocking at the back door of) upscale, household-name fashion houses.

This was very good for my particular slice of their business, but I was already beginning to be troubled by the forked-tongue division/differentiation between "Brand" and "Product."

To my backward, analog and thoroughly antique line of thinking, "product" could make or break "brand," but "brand" was absolutely nothing without "product" to define and represent it.

So I was out to lunch with the head of the entire Speigel womens' clothing, outerwear and footwear departments and a few of her staff, and I asked point-blank: "Which is more important, 'brand' or 'product?'"

She was a very smart and savvy executive and she didn't hesitate a heartbeat: "The brand's the thing. It has to be."

In that instant, I somehow knew that the entire house of cards was destined to crumble.

Which it did.

END OF DIGRESSION. BACK TO THE 8-YEAR-OLD KID at the 1954 CHICAGO AUTO SHOW:

The Auto Show was held at the old International Amphitheater exhibition hall on, I believe, south Halsted Street, and even though the place smelled a bit from the Livestock shows held at the same venue (and the famously pungent Chicago Stock Yards weren't very far away), they dressed it up with carpeting and lights and the cars on display were an amazing and exploding cornucopia of post World War Two American success, swagger, style and excess.

Now we had owned a couple different family cars by that point, but by far the biggest impression any family car had ever made on me was my Grandpa's Chrysler sedan. I can't remember what it looked like from the outside--except that it was a sort of unremarkable slate blue--but I would sit next to him, right on his hip, when he was driving and all I could see was the regimented chrome waterfall of that Chrysler's central dashboard and radio dial. It made me feel protected and elevated...even though I couldn't see over the top and through the windshield to the outside world.

But my dad had somehow evolved into a Pontiac Man, as it seemed to embody the right combination of power, style, sporty dignity and lack of presumption that he required. Or maybe it was just those signature chrome stripes down the hood?

In any case, I followed the back of my dad's slacks and my mom's hemline over to the Pontiac display--pausing to pick up every sales brochure on offer along the way--and they seemed to like the look and color combinations of the new-for-'54 Pontiacs. But I was smitten--gobsmacked, in fact--by a special-edition, 2-seater Pontiac show car called The Bonneville. Remember that the 2-seater Corvette was not even a year old at the time and, GM being GM, they weren't going to allow one of the other GM divisions to go into competition with Chevy's new showroom-traffic generator. But a show car was something else (all the major manufacturers had them, and they were wonderful) and Pontiac had The Bonneville. I thought it was the coolest freaking car I'd ever seen...

So then we wandered through the show some more (lots more legs & hemlines with glimpses of fenders, shiny wheels & whitewalls in between, and along the way I was adding to my two-fisted collection of colorful sales brochures & pamphlets. What I really needed, by that point, was a coaster wagon. With a bell or siren or an ah-ooh-gah horn on it to clear a path for me...

And then it occurred to me that I really wanted another swooning glimpse of that magnificent Pontiac Bonneville show car. So I headed and nudged my way in that direction. And it was while I was on that particular trajectory, moving and meandering through the crowd, that I suddenly realized I had lost sight of my father's trouser leg and my mom's skirt bottom.

I pulled up short and froze solid as a block of ice.

I was all alone...

8-year-old or 80-year-old, fear is a cold, hollowing and insidious thing. It smothers you in doubt and insignificance. I decided to continue my trek to the Pontiac display, as that's where my parents were sure to come looking for me. Only I couldn't find it through the forest of flannel pants-legs. And when I finally did, they weren't there!

A true chasm of fear opened up inside of me...

I noticed an Andy Frain usher in a blue uniform with gold braid and buttons on it standing by a column--he looked old enough that he might even be shaving!--and I headed over to him on awkward, tentative little steps. He eventually looked down at me. "Did you lose your parents, sonny?" he asked for obviously not the first time in his life.

I answered by bursting into a waterfall--hell, a Niagara Falls!--of tears. Oh, the shame of it. Plus I was getting my entire collection of Auto Show sales brochures (which I was holding crushed and rumpled to my chest) seriously damp.

"Come with me," he said.

And so I followed him. Followed those blue-with-gold-stripe pants legs until we went through a door and up a narrow, dimply-lit flight of stairs to a small office with crap furniture and a skinny window that looked out over the Amphitheater floor.

The guy behind the desk seemed almost bored with my dire predicament. "You lose your folks?" he asked like it happened all the time.

I nodded. I didn't dare say anything for fear of crying again. It was SO unseemly.

So they sat me on a wooden chair with no cushions and told me to wait and that it was unlikely my folks would leave without me...even if I'd been a VERY bad boy.

Sure enough, they turned up a bit later, my dad mad at me but relieved and my mom going off like a blessed lawn sprinkler. She was truly thrilled that I was found and okay. You could tell...

So that was my first-ever Auto Show memory and there were many others to follow. Including working the show when I was selling cars for a living. I never sold a single unit working the Mercedes-Benz or Rolls-Royce displays, but I was a true sales phenomenon on the VW stand. I just truly BELIEVED in the fuel-injected VW Rabbit, and that--plus my born-in line of bullshit--made me damn near unstoppable. I even won a fifty-dollar "Mystery Shopper" spiff for effectively schmoozing a fake prospect that the car show people sent around.

But the worst of it, strangely enough, were my shifts on the Alfa Romeo stand. Now I love and did love Alfas, but they have their quirks as well as their style, design sophistication, history and pedigree and, as sure as the sun rises in the East (where they build cars with oftentimes none of those qualities), some angry Jamoke with hog bristles sprouting out of his nostrils would come wandering out of the passing crowd, amke a beeline for the nearest salesman and begin, in a voice loud enough to be heard in Evanston, as follows:

"I had one a'these damn things, and it was the worst fuckin' car I ever owned."

At this point you start looking for someplace to hide. Only there aren't any.

"Couldn't start th' damn thing in the wintertime!"

"Well, if you'd just follow the instructions in the owners' manual and keep your foot off the blessed gas pedal..."

But it was like shooting a pea shooter at a Sherman tank. He'd just talk right over you. And LOUD. I mean REALLY loud.

"Damn thing rusted to shit. And when I went to trade it in on something decent, it wasn't even worth enough to pay off the damn note..."

The worst of it was, he was just getting rolling.

And, as an Alfa salesman, you had to just stand there and take it. Arguing didn't do any good. All you could do was think nice thoughts and pity his wife. Even though it was a pretty sure bet she'd left him. Hopefully with the guy who ran the tow truck that came to pick up his Alfa every time he flooded the damn thing when it was cold outside thanks to pumping the damn gas pedal when he wasn't supposed to...

Over the past decade or so, I've seen the Chicago Auto Show shrink in size and participation as OEM manufacturers have come under increasing pressure to make sure they're getting value (the old "R.O.I.") in return for the expense. In my opinion, the only company that's come up with a unique and effective way to use the Auto Show to attract & impress customers is Subaru. They build a solid line of cars (my biz partner has one & loves it), but the sales pitch is all about the warm, fuzzy feeling you get about their support & involvement with our National Parks (good for them) and the "puppy pen" they run (see image below) in league with a local animal shelter. Their pitch has absolutely NOTHING to do with the features, design or quality of the damn car! Then again, who doesn't like puppies? You can pet and even sign up to adopt one there if you like.

Well played, Subaru.

But I see a light on the horizon. This year's show featured "Chi-Town Alley," which was a section devoted to various car types/car geeks and car clubs in the Chicagoland area, and I think expanding this idea--I mean greatly--could have a huge effect on the number of folks attending the show and, moreover, attract more of what the advertising types call "Thought Leaders" who help their friends and neighbors make decisions about automotive brands and purchases. Plus there are so many events and places to go (Car Shows, Concours, Racetracks, Sanctioning Bodies, Tours, Museums, Restoration shops, Swap Meets, etc. etc.) that could gain attendees & publicity by reaching out to this expanded Auto Show crowd.

Watch this space...

In the meantime, here's some pix from this years' shoiw, including the Chi-Town Alley displays of Exotics, restorations, drifters, low riders...you name it!

AUTO SHOW TRIVIA!!!

Name & date the various cars shown below:

And what is THIS thing (on the window below)???

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