Detroit Autorama

The Detroit Autorama, also known as "America's Greatest Hot Rod Show" is a showcase of custom cars and hot rods held each year at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan, in either late February or early March.

It is promoted by Championship Auto Shows Incorporated (CASI) and hosted by Michigan Hot Rod Association (MHRA), and is part of International Show Car Association's (ISCA) schedule for the Summit Racing Equipment Show Car Series-which includes other prestigious show car events such as the Chicago World of Wheels and Houston Autorama.

The Detroit Autorama is best remembered as home to the Don Ridler Memorial Award, which is presented to the "best in show" at each year's event, and has been won by many well-noted car designers and builders, such as Bobby Alloway, Chip Foose, and Troy Trepanier.

The first-ever Detroit Autorama was held at the University of Detroit Memorial Building on Six Mile Rd and Livernois, on January 31 and February 1, 1953. It featured only 40 cars, and was hosted by members of the Michigan Hot Rod Association (MHRA), which was created only a year before to "organize small local clubs into one unified body that could raise the money needed to pull drag racing off the streets and into a safe environment". Eventually, the MHRA grew to also include clubs from the custom-car and hot-rodding scene, such as the Bearing Burners and Spark Plugs, who combined efforts to pull-off the first event, along with other Detroit Car Clubs such as The Road Kings,Shifters, and Milwinders.

For the second show, activities were moved from Six Mile to the Michigan State Fairgrounds Colosseum, where it was held from 1954 to 1960. For the fourth event in 1956, the MHRA hired local band and sporting-event promoter Don Ridler to help the show reach a broader audience. Ridler served as the show's first-true promoter until his death in 1963. The following year, the MHRA created a "best-in-show" award for Autorama-named after the man who made the biggest impact in the show's first eleven years, and thus the Ridler Award was born.

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