Often, the best stuff at the North American International Auto Show never gets covered in the automotive press. MCG fixes that today. 

 

The 6,000 automotive journalists who cover the Detroit Auto Show each year are a busy lot, rushing all over the floor at Cobo Center to cover the dozens of new vehicle debuts and other announcements. After all, that’s what the show is all about.

But meanwhile, generally we’re too busy to stop and check out all the other cool stuff the automakers have on display at NAIAS: race cars, classic and vintage autos, weird boutique vehicles, cutaways, and other hardware.

That’s too bad, for if you’re a gearhead, all these show attractions are well worth a look. Often they’re more interesting than the beige production sedans that demand all the feature coverage. We had to take a moment for this gear. Here’s some of the eye candy we found at NAIAS 2013:

 

+   Ferrari and Red Bull Formula 1 race cars — show car versions, naturally, but still neat to look at.

+   The 1903 Ford Model A Ford recently purchased at auction by executive chairman Bill Ford Jr.,  which is said to the oldest known Ford vehicle in existence.

+   A Dallara-Honda Indy car in Target Ganassi livery, parked next to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s famed Borg-Warner Trophy.

+   A gorgeous 1948 Ford F1 pickup on display at the Ford stand to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the F-series truck line.

+   An original (?)  007 Aston Martin DB5 as featured in Goldfinger and other Bond flicks. The classic spymobile was displayed by a company called Covisint, which markets car insurance or cellular service or vitamins or something. Whatever.

+   A 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford Fusion—again, a show car, so many of the details are probably less than correct. But it was still good to inspect one of the new-look Gen 6 cars up close and at length.

+   Ditto, a 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Ford Mustang in Ricky Stenhouse Jr. paint and graphics. Up close, it looks even less like a Mustang than on TV. The exhaust valence decal has fooled more than one observer into believing that the headers  actually do exit at the rear.

+  Two examples of the 2013 VL Automotive Destino, which is no more or less than a Fisker Karma with the electric propulsion system ripped out and replaced with a Corvette LS9 V8. Add one more item to the long list of things that can be materially improved via the installation of a Chevrolet V8.

+  A Nissan Deltawing endurance sports racer show car.

 

You can find all these wonders and more in the slide show gallery below.