Chrysler was once the king of crazy auto-show stunts
Stellantis’ decision not to attend auto shows in North America, including next month’s Chicago Auto Show, serves as a reminder of how many memorable moments the corporate parent of Dodge, Ram, and Jeep has provided at the once-premier North American International Auto Show, typically called the Detroit show. At its height, the show was arguably the most important one in the world, and it benefited from being the hometown production for Detroit’s Big Three.
Jason Vines, former global vice-president of communications for Stellantis precursor DaimlerChrysler, was the lead architect of several of the company’s top auto show stunts. Now a crisis public relations consultant and author (What Did Jesus Drive? Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity, available on Amazon), Vines wonders if auto shows will make a comeback.
Manufacturers “don’t like the show business aspect” of auto shows, Vines says. “I get that. So much of the business is online now. I get that, too: I’ve been shopping for cars for my wife and my daughter this last month. But unlike auto shows, online doesn’t let you sit in the car when you’re at home or in your office on your laptop.”
One of Vines’ most famous productions at the Detroit show was “the cattle drive,” where cowboys on horseback, paraded up Detroit’s Washington Boulevard in January of 2008, en route to Cobo Hall, the site of the show. Vines and his colleagues rounded up 120 longhorn cattle and had them shipped up from Oklahoma, where they surrounded several of the then-new 2009 Dodge Ram Crew Cab pickups.
Ford, that same day, introduced its restyled F-150 pickup at the show in a far more conventional setting. “The perennial number-one best-selling vehicle in America, and I know we got double, maybe triple the coverage for the Ram,” Vines recalls. That year, 2008, the Detroit show claimed to host 5500 media members from around the world.
Possibly the company’s best-known product reveal came in 1992, and was arguably the first of multiple major Chrysler auto show stunts. The attending media gathered near the north end of Cobo Hall and watched a brand-new Jeep Grand Cherokee slowly creep up the steps. Seconds later, it crashed through the plate glass window, and continued driving inside the building. Bob Lutz, then Chrysler’s vice-chairman, was at the wheel, and his passenger was Detroit Mayor Coleman Young.
The real glass had been replaced with movie-stunt glass, and the moment the Grand Cherokee reached it, a series of small explosives that had been planted around the window were triggered by remote, allowing the Jeep to enter amid thousands of “glass” shards.
“It was designed to be safe, and it was a brilliant demonstration of how you can use a low-cost PR stunt to far more effect at a product introduction than you could ever get from conventional advertising,” Lutz told the Detroit News in 2022. “That stunt was on every TV station, every major news media in the U.S.—and around the world.” According to the News, “There would actually be a sequel in 2006 when Jeep drove another new product—the ’07 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon—off its stand and through Cobo’s glass into the street.”
Some other memorable moments from the Stellantis crew:
In 1993, Dodge slowly dropped the new Ram truck from the Cobo ceiling onto the stage.
In 1994, “Chrysler holds the limelight for the third consecutive year,” said Automotive News. “Peter Graves, of TV’s Mission: Impossible helped Chrysler President Bob Lutz unveil its ‘cloud cars,’ the 1995 Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Cirrus, accompanied by showbiz theatrics. Wall Street is so impressed, it sends Chrysler’s stock soaring the same day.”
In 1995, Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth were introducing redesigned minivans, featuring sliding doors on both sides. As Lutz and Chrysler Chairman Bob Eaton sat on fake rocks, with Eaton wearing a Mister Rogers–style sweater, they read aloud from children’s storybooks as a red Dodge Caravan emerged from the right side of the stage, six feet above ground, driven by Kermit the Frog. It passed over Lutz and Eaton and settled into a patch of fake lily pads, splashing water onto the gathered media. The message: Chrysler was “leapfrogging” the competition.
In 2003, for reasons no one quite understood, the company developed an enormous, sinister-looking three-wheeled motorcycle called the Tomahawk, with a Dodge Viper’s V-10 engine. Riding it onto the stage: A leather-clad Wolfgang Bernhard, the company’s chief operating officer. In 2023 Stellantis recalled the Tomahawk as a “sleek, rolling sculpture that combined styling with extreme engineering.”
In 2006, the Chrysler Aspen, the brand’s first SUV, was introduced in an absolute blizzard of fake snow, as clowns from Slava’s Snowshow, a touring theater production described as “a universal and timeless theatrical poetic spectacle,” joined Chrysler executives on stage.
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As a kid growing up on the lower east side of Detroit, every year I pleaded with Dad to go to the new car launches at EVERY dealership in town. Searchlights danced in narrow arcs across the hopefully semi-clouded skies to announce their exact locations. “But Daaad, the (insert name) is TOTALLY new”, I pleaded which meant nothing as EVERY car was punched out of new sheet metal EVERY year. The 60 Plymouth Belvedere being the one exception. In one of the rare cases where I prevailed, Dad held me up to see inside the floodlights. WOW! (not hazardous because I wasn’t held high enough to look into the center of the mirrored beam)
Other memorable events were when the Studebaker dealers gave away a paper cutout dealership complete with cars, a showroom and service center. My sister’s expertise with doll cutouts came in handy as she served as the technical consultant for the build.
The only thing the Detroit auto show provided were bags and bags of brochures. a few treasured trinkets and exhaustion. Just not the same but the new Motor City ritual.
In time, I graduated from “Car Kid” to genuine “Car Guy”!
This was a bit before my time. I came right at the end of it. But we used to get a new car every year ordered in June. We would have to be taken to a back building to see it for the first time as they were not allowed to show it or sell it till the release date. It always felt special to see something before anyone else in town.
There were some dealers still doing the search lights and I could recall seeing them from out of town. I imagined it was like a war movie looking for planes.
Nicely said Jimmy. Ah … nostalgia at its finest.
I was lucky to get to Detroit every year for the auto show during the big years. I never saw anything like it as displays were multi story and you walked from displays that were like room to room in Cobo.
And the cold below zero walks up to the Hard Rock for lunch.
Today much of the glitz is gone. The cuts have been harsh and I expect we will never see the days we used to have. Even the show cars pale to what was once the high point.
It is not just the auto shows but SEMA is not what it used to be either.
PRI is still fun as you never know who you may run into and it is still for the retailers and racers. I still loved the time I was scolded by Smokey Yunick to come to his seminar at 3 PM for ARP. He did not invite you he told you to be there. I am sorry I had to miss it as the snow moved in and our 2 hour drive became 6 hours home.
I hate to sound like an old timer but I was just lucky to be at an event when it was at the top of its form. Sadly it makes those to come pale.
Most will argue with this statement, but I think there was a period when Detroit was the most important city in America.
Agreed! Boy, those were the days of our early auto interest and development. The birth of the car virus for many young kids. I’m glad to have been born when I was when new car showings were a major part of the changing seasons. Only wish the release month was June vs September.
Never understood why Chrysler would chose to re-use the ‘Aspen’ name for anything. The original Dodge iteration was a hot mess.
I still have the Hot Wheels size steel car they gave out for answering questions about the ‘New’ Dodge Challenger at the 2008 show.
Frankly, it is hard to figure out the corporate strategy at Stellantis. In addition to skipping some of the North American auto shows, the “Mother House” in France also decided not to participate in the Retromobile show in Paris. This is one of the biggest heritage/classic car shows in the world. Their Citroen and Peugeot marques have always been a huge presence there. Denying their own rich history is not likely to improve their image.
I was at the show in ’92, but a day or two after the glass had been replaced. Went for several years in a row, from ’89 through the late ’90s. Went last year. It was dismal (In comparison).
As a kid, teen, and young adult, I went to the Detroit Auto Show almost every year during the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s. The spokesmodels wore slinky shiny Las Vegas type glitz and glamour, the prototypes were mind boggling examples of design engineers imagination gone wild, there were contests such as guess how many ping pong balls inside the VW Beetle etc. Since then, the event has slowly evolved into nothing more than an overhyped gigantic car dealership. Haven’t been in years.
My first trip to the Chicago Auto Show was in 1966, I was 8 years old. My father being a Rambler Dealer, knew all the people involved in the Rambler displays. I was truly a “kid in the candy store”, getting the behind the scenes special treatment. It made a huge impact on my life as I looked forward to attending every Chicago Auto show the next 50 years. Not missing even 1 show. Over those years I attended with my father, high school car buddies and later girlfriends. When I became a family man I would attend with my son and my Father for years. It was so glamorous with the models, concept vehicles and sports & TV personalities. Drawing for prizes for almost every vehicle marquee trying to get your undevided attention. I purchased my only 3 brand new vehicles that started comparing vehicles at the Chicago Auto Show. A 1979 Plymouth Trailduster, 1987 Nissan Sentra SE Coupe and a 2016 Nissan Titan XD. Gone are the sexy models, full-size brochures and cool concept vehicles. The new concept cars are electric vehicles I have zero interest in.
OMG, my dad worked for AMC and we went to Chicago tons of times too. The one show I remember most was when they introduced the AMX. They had one on a circular stage and it was set up to drag race. When the light turned green it was off and around that stage were Hurst shifters. Participants would shift as if they were racing and the winner got some sort of goodie. I won an AMC racing jacket that I still have to this day. Fun times.
Never was crazy about those “stunts”. It seemed to me if you have act out to draw attention to your products there probably inferior to begin with.
In the 1930’s Chrysler had a spectacular stunt driving a new Chrysler Airflow off a cliff to demonstrate the strength of the body design. The car rolled over and the doors still worked and the car drove away.
A friend of mine rolled a ’55 WV over with the same result.
The Tomahawk actually has four wheels, or, at least, four tires.
I used to go to the Chicago Auto Show every year. It was so much fun, so much that was new to look at, brochures, posters, etc. Moving to Texas I was underwhelmed by the Houston and especially Austin auto shows. They just looked amateur hour compared to Chicago. I have heard from friends in Chicago that it has been on the decline for a bit so losing the Stellantis group does not help the situation.
The EV manufacturers missed a golden opportunity to present their vehicles on a stage replicating the original Frankenstein movie set. Imagine a shrouded car on a tilting table, with arcs shooting out of Jacob’s ladders and (hint, hint) Tesla coils. As the table tilts to vertical, a costumed character could have said ” It’s alive!” and the shroud would have been whisked away, revealing the future… oh well, coulda happened, but it didn’t.
and where to start I was a photographer for a series of newspapers and my job was to take the interior shots of all the cars because Chrysler at the time
The fire hall was one of the best spots where you had the president of Chrysler, serving your beer at the bar with the major donations to the fire department, in a fire boot,
all auto manufacturers would show beautiful pic of the outside, but often didn’t show you the dashes or the interiors so I would go in and sit in the backseat or put a camera in this location this was the beginning age of the digital cameras,
The Lamborghinis and Ferraris were the most interesting having to get there before the show actually opened to set the camera up inside the car take the remote photo with the wide-angle lens.