Auto show touts toys for kids big and small
Grown-ups aren’t the only ones having a blast at the event
January 21, 2008
BY NAOMI R. PATTON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
There were the big kids and the little kids at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Sunday.
The big kids were enraptured by things like the exotically tuned cars with even more exotic wheels and the bass thumping from the DJ’s booth at the Dub magazine exhibition at Cobo Center. The little kids, brought in tow by the adults, were enthralled by the road race video game, the photo booths and the rock-wall climbing.
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Admission is free for children under 7, so next to Disney World, the auto show could be the happiest place on earth today for kids with the day off for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.The auto show isn’t inherently kid-centric, but who doesn’t like a shiny new car and that intoxicating new-car smell beckoning you in to a lush leather or premium cloth seat?
“It is cool,” 10-year-old Robert Balthrop said about the auto show, emphatic and smiling. He came to the auto show with his mother, Kathy Balthrop, and his nephew Jeremiah Lightner, 5, all of Detroit.
The Jeep rock wall was a big draw for an orderly but never-ending line of elementary school-age kids.
Robert and Jeremiah both climbed it as Balthrop cheered them on, taking pictures with her camera phone. This was Jeremiah’s first auto show, but Balthrop said the two boys love cars.
“I can’t make up my mind,” Robert said about his favorite car. “Right now it’s the Ferraris,” he said, hoping to head back in that direction, “and the Shelby” Mustang.
The other big draw was the Mini road race video game.
Like most of the kids perched on the platform in the steel-framed race car, Ethan Reid, 7, of Clinton Township had an audience as he raced through the game’s city streets.
“It was good … great,” Ethan said about the game.
The audience didn’t bother him one bit.
He had just arrived with his parents, Michelle and Greg Reid, when they found the game. But Ethan, attending his first auto show, already managed to find a favorite car — he said it was a Toyota Sienna minivan.
His father — who works for Chrysler — wasn’t so sure about that.
For Maia Wiederhold, 6, it was the pictures. She came from Saginaw, attending her first auto show with her parents, Stevin and Laurie, and brothers Gage, 6, and Caleb, 14 months.
She had her picture taken twice in two hours. Her favorite thing about the auto show: all the people.
The auto show, however, is not stroller-friendly. But that didn’t stop Jessica Collins, 18, of Livonia and Amy Adams, 20, of Westland from pushing their babies through the throngs of people at Cobo. A call for Sunday’s attendance figures was not answered.
“We wanted to bring them,” said Collins, though it was unclear which car caught her 1-month-old’s eyes.
Adams’ 19-month-old son will soon have a sibling: She is pregnant.
“We wanted to do the whole walking thing,” she said as she looked for a place to sit down.
Contact NAOMI R. PATTON at 313-223-4485 or npatton@freepress.com.
Parents if you want to look at exotic cars and give kids a fun thing to do take them to DFW Elite Toy Musuem. It’s in the same garage as the the big kids toys DFW Elite Auto Rental. And admission is Free for all.