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How Auto Shows "Yoostabee" by Mike Davis (1/13/2003)
Before the glitz and the hype, there was glitz and hype. Just a different kind.

Whenever I wander through the mammoth exhibition in Detroit's Cobo Center at the Society of Automotive Engineers' (SAE) Annual Congress and flip through its telephone-book-thick program, I can't help thinking back over the monumental changes I'd seen there since my first such Congress in 1966, a few months after joining Ford's engineering staff.

My subjective impression is: not only has the Congress grown over the last 40 years, its very complexion has changed. In the 1960s, as I recall, it "yoostabee" that the only women seen were those professional models luring marble-eyed engineers to witness them exhorting the virtues of supplier products at exhibits. Virtually the only skin pigmentation present was white, and the only language overheard, English. The exhibitors were mostly old-line American trademark names.

Objectively, however, I thought it would be easy to present this account of the SAE Congress today in the hard facts that business journalists and engineers alike demand, by comparing a 1966 SAE program with that of 2005, SAE's Centennial Year.

Alas, there was not one of 1966 to be found, nor even of a 1970 program for a 35-year comparison. Not at SAE headquarters in Warrendale, Pennsylvania, not at the SAE Detroit office nor that of the Detroit Section, nor at two local universities nor two auto-company libraries to which I had access. The technical papers get archived because, among other things, they have a long shelf life for sales, but not so the programs.

Fortunately for this retrospective, the National Automotive History Collection at the Detroit Public Library came to my rescue with some fascinating materials that, while not precisely what I had in mind originally, more than filled in the details.

Can you imagine today holding the SAE meeting with all its technical sessions in just a couple of rooms at the then-new, now-former, General Motors Building on Motor City 's West Grand Boulevard ? That's the way it was 79 years ago in 1926 when there were all of 24 papers delivered in 12 sessions spread over four days.

The only exhibition then was the separately held, but simultaneous, Detroit Automobile Dealers' Association annual new car model show. SAE attendees were instructed to take the " Woodward Avenue street car or Second Avenue motorbus" for that show "downtown." Tickets were available at the SAE registration desk, complimentary from the DADA.

Can you imagine today the chaos of holding these two events, the Auto Show and the SAE Congress, in Detroit at the same time? Even ONE is almost too much to think about! Parking at the vacant Silverdome in Pontiac and the Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor?