2015 Chicago Auto Show

"Matthew Keyser" (teisco15) 02/16/2015 at 20:30 • Filed to: None

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If you were unable to make it to this years Chicago Auto Show, fear not. While the Detroit show may get all the big press, the Chicago show is still a very impressive collection of cars and deserves at least a few minutes in the spotlight.

While I could take a majority of the time talking about what a good time it was, how great most of the cars were, and how great of a day was had, I'm instead going to begin by shedding some light on the low points.

Mitsubishi. That's all I really needed to say right there. Their current line-up displayed at the show is a conglomeration of soulless, unoriginal shameful rot boxes that aspire one day to resemble an automobile. They've failed miserably.

I was first drawn Mirage. I wasn't drawn to it in the least by the styling or the performance or even the pink paint, which is barely striking enough to be considered pink. It's more an off shade of Bleehh than anything else. Owning a pink car in general is one of the most sinful automotive sins I can think of. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbors goods." I won't. Especially if 'thy neighbor' owns a pink Mitsubishi Mirage. The main reason that I was drawn to the Mirage is because it stands out, and not in a good way. The whole day I had been looking at the highest specced up versions of this and the newly redesigned that, and amidst that kind of competition, pink Voldemort here stuck out like the sorest of thumbs.

I thought the Mirage was bad, then I got in the i-MiEV. It looks like the illegitimate love child between the Mirage and a Roomba. The plastics were coarse and nasty, the seat felt like a folding lawn chair, and the whole car gave off a very second-hand vibe. It was terrible, and it appeared to have been built using aluminum cans. Click !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to watch me demonstrate just how flimsy this piece of crap is.

For the pleasure of owning the nastiest new car around you have to cough up $21,000. You can buy a car for that! I shouldn't be to mean to Mitsubishi however, because both of these cars would be fierce competitors for the 1995 Car of the Year.

The Ford GT was everything I had expected and more. It's low, it's sleek, it's everything they said it was. Pictures really do not do this thing justice, and the constant ring of of people surrounding the car in awe confirms my claims of this cars beauty.

Acura NSX. It looks cool yes, and it was shown in a very nice color, but let me get this straight. It's a "production car" as Acura finally claims. This means that in a matter of a few months this thing should be rolling off the assembly line, and into the hands of professional road testers so they can tell us that it's almost as good as a 12C or 458, but the 650S and 488 leave it in the dust. If this is the case, then wouldn't you expect it to have more than half an interior?

I don't know about you but I would be pretty aggravated if my NSX was delivered like this. Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno will be fighting trying to give the car to each other. If you're going to claim that you have a production ready car, you might want to at least make something that looks like It could be real to show off to the general public and potential customers. Way to boost my confidence that the NSX will actually be here within the next decade Acura. Kudos.

The lack of manual transmissions this year disturbed me. There were very little to choose from, most of the offerings with them fitted coming from American companies. I saw an F-Type off in the distance with sticker on the windshield "#SAVETHEMANUALS" I naturally gravitated towards it. It was unlocked so I hopped in hoping to row through some gears and exercise my left leg only to find that the clutch pedal in this particular example was broken and permanently fully-depressed, as was I.

Alfa Romeo had quite the display this year showcasing the new 4C Launch Edition/Spyder as well as a few cars from their heritage collection.

Toyota, as usual, took up far to much floor space as all the cars are basically the same barring the FT-86 shown this year in silver, some weird fish looking concept things that will never make it anywhere near production and weren't interesting enough for me to take my phone out to snap a picture, a SpongeBob Sienna which is awful, and a very clean example of a 2000GT.

Mazda had a nice little set up with the New Miata displayed proudly with a shimmery white paint job. Just to the side of it was the cleanest robins-egg blue NA Miata I have ever seen. They also brought along all those other cars they have to make to fund the Miata, cause we know that's all they're around for.

Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep/Fiat/Ram brought their usual set up. Jeeps crawling up things. Some middle of the road Challengers accelerating hard to 20 before slamming on the brakes to 'exhilarate' the passenger who waited approximately half their life for the ride. Hellcats made an appearance though both were locked and automatics. There was a 500 Abarth also cursed with a slushbox.

I the corner of the Chevrolet display behind the crowd surrounding the new Zo6 sits a lone SS with a 6-speed. Nobody pays any attention to it, I sit rowing through the gears knowing that someday, after the Chevy SS is long disconnected, people are going to want them wondering why we never bought them new.

The Mercedes-AMG GT was one car I was most looking forward to this year at the auto show, and while it is desperately pretty, it was pretty under-hyped. It sat on a solitary stand with very little happening around it. I think it was being neglected and I should adopt it and show it the love it deserves.

BMW had some interesting cars like the X5M and the X6 which only really appeal to you if you're.... Weird. The i8 and i3 were pretty much the centerpieces of BMWs display. "Everybody say electric!" an overly enthusiastic mother calls out trying to get pictures of her children wiping boogers all over the interior of the i3.

Prettiest Car in the Worst Color of the Year:

Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster finished in carrot puree.

Best Color of the Year:

McLaren 650S Spyder finished in.... well... Red.

Lightest Blue:

Bugatti Veyron Super Sports Vitesse Ultra Mega Super Please Just Buy Me Already Edition

Darkest Blue of the Year:

Porsche 918 Spyder

Remember that part a while back where I said I should start being nice to Mitsubishi? Well I'm not going to because amidst all their other crappy cars, they also brought a concept to Chicago this year. Would you like to see it? No? Well too bad, here it is.

This abomination is the best their designers could come up with? Wow.

So thats the 2015 Chicago Auto Show, now that I paid for $21 parking, you don't have to. You still should however because the Chicago Auto Show is a great way to see most of the stuff you read about from the Detroit Auto Show in the flesh without actually having to go to the Detroit show. Below are some more pictures, enjoy!

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:44

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21k for an i-MiEV? shouldn't that be closer to like 15? That's only like 3-4k less than what you could get a WRX or a BRZ for and despite Subaru's usual meh interiors the build quality is at least solid and will last for a few decades.

scoob > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:44

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BECAUSE IT'S GON KEEL YOU.

Coty > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:47

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Still ugly.

Coty > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:50

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As a Hyundai salesman I hop they make it just so I can drive one.

TheHondaBro > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:50

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...into the hands of professional road testers so they can tell us that it's almost as good as a 12C or 458, but the 650S and 488 leave it in the dust. If this is the case, then wouldn't you expect it to have more than half an interior?

Do people forget the whole car was re-engineered 18 months before the NAIAS?

Coty > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:50

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So the clutch was stuck down and you couldn't go through the gears? Huh?

Matthew Keyser > Coty 02/16/2015 at 20:52

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the clutch pedal was down so you couldn't get the full feel of the controls.

CAcoalminer > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 20:52

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This is Volcano Red. It is terrific.

Matthew Keyser > Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ 02/16/2015 at 20:54

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I thought it should be around $15k as well, but no

Coty > TheHondaBro 02/16/2015 at 20:57

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Yeah.

Mostly because looking exactly the same makes it seem, well, exactly the same.

Michael Woyahn > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:00

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Nice pictures! I actually went to the show with my dad today too. I'm glad I checked before I posted any pictures because I was about to put up basically the same ones you did. That would have been embarrassing haha!

This was the first time I've been to the Chicago auto show (I've been to Detroit five times) and all I can say is holy crowds! I was not expecting it to be that busy, but it seems like it cleared out a bit while you were there. We made it there at around 12:30 so that could have been a prime time, but who knows? Anyway, I really enjoyed the show and I'm glad you had a good time there too!

TheHondaBro > Coty 02/16/2015 at 21:02

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I suppose. I mean, couldn't they have been a bit more creative with their styling? I mean, for reasons, it looks exactly like an R8. I mean, what were they thinking?

/s

Pictured: the reason it looks like the car it's competing with.

Coty > TheHondaBro 02/16/2015 at 21:03

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That's not what I said.

TheHondaBro > Coty 02/16/2015 at 21:06

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Oh, okay. I get it now. Kind of difficult to understand what you wrote though, no offense. I also thought you were being derisive.

Coty > TheHondaBro 02/16/2015 at 21:07

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I was, just not in the way you took it.

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:10

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I doubt they will sell at that price point. I always keep forgetting Mitsubishi is still around.

Matthew Keyser > Michael Woyahn 02/16/2015 at 21:12

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I got there around 10 ish, way before the crowds got to back. We left around 1 and it was getting pretty crowded

TheHondaBro > Coty 02/16/2015 at 21:14

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desertdog5051 > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:22

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Great cover of that show. You are to be commended. On so many I kept saying, "Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks". Cause I would write them. Thanks.

Michael Woyahn > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:32

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That's definitely the way to do it! The problem I have is that we live in south eastern Wisconsin so unless we leave at 6 am or stay in a hotel overnight, it'll be really tough to get there by 10. It also didn't help that our Grocery Grabber (2004 Lexus RX330 with 196,000 miles) decided that it wanted to be a five cylinder car today. It started misfiring and shaking like crazy. Luckily it was 10 minutes away from home and not in Chicago! So we had to go and drop that off at our mechanic and switch it out for our Rav4.

I wonder if we walked past each other at some point... That would be pretty funny. I didn't expect to meet any people from Oppo, but it could have possibly happened if I planned ahead!

Matthew Keyser > Michael Woyahn 02/16/2015 at 21:39

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Yea man that'd be weird! I threw a post up this morning asking if anyone was going. No takers though. Oh well! Haha glad you had a good time as well

CAcoalminer > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:40

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Most likely to steal.

Michael Woyahn > Matthew Keyser 02/16/2015 at 21:49

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Yeah, I didn't think to check Oppo this morning before I left for some reason. Probably because that just makes too much sense. Who knows, maybe there can be a mini Oppo meet up next year!

Arben72 > Coty 02/16/2015 at 22:15

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I agree, until I saw it in person. It looks stupid good for what it is in real life. It does not photograph well at all.

B_dol > Matthew Keyser 02/17/2015 at 10:05

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This is the Toyota FT-1 concept. The FT-86 concept has been a production car FRS/BRZ/Gt86 for the past 3 years :)

Matthew Keyser > B_dol 02/17/2015 at 10:41

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Dang it! Youre right. I'll have to change that when I have more than my iPhone and schools crappy wifi haha. Thanks for pointing that out!

Rico > Matthew Keyser 02/17/2015 at 18:44

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Live Cobras Inside!