Photos and footage from any of the big auto shows are excellent snapshots into the history of automobiles, something we have spent tons of time perusing through YouTube for over the years. However, someone in charge of the Chicago Auto Show’s YouTube channel dropped a ton of video clips onto their feed earlier today, and it’s pure gold. Most of the footage is from the mid-1980s through the later 1990s, and it shows the good, the bad, and the downright ugly sides of the business. We picked a handful of clips to share, with a good mix of years and vehicles to show off just what we’re on about with all of this starry-eyed explanation. Click play on the clips below to go back a couple of decades, and see what was hot and what certainly didn’t work out, and be sure to take a look at some of the other clips while you’re surfing.
1. Pontiac Sunfire, 1994: It’s a very accurate prediction of the J-car that debuted in 1995, but it’s 20,000 times more appealing in this form.
2. 1985 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z: From back when a 0-60 of 7.2 seconds was astonishing. Glad we got past that.
3. “The Geo Dancers”, 1991. It’s not like the Metro was going to sell itself.
4. Dodge Intrepid Concept, 1988: It claims to be on a Daytona chassis, but most of that body screams “Stealth”, and the rest of it reeks of Chrysler Portofino.
5. Dodge M4S, a.k.a “The Wraith”, 1986. The most badass 2.2-powered Mopar ever built by the factory.
Man I loved the wraith as a kid. Todays agenda: finding this movie dvd
Those concepts look so much better than what was actually produced. A favorite game of mine used to be trying to figure out what would actually make it through from concept to production.