The new year is fully underway, and with the start of the North American International Auto Show this week, another year of auto shows and advancing auto tech is also officially out of the blocks. New Atlas roamed the floor of the Detroit show to bring you a look at everything from brand-new concept cars, to custom-tuned classics, to revived Hollywood hero cars. We present you the cars of Detroit.
A few Detroit cars turned our heads more than the rest:
Future of design and technology: Infiniti Q Inspiration
The newest in Infiniti's line of smooth, curvaceous concept cars, the Q Inspiration is a head-turner wearing new design language developed around advanced powertrains. The snow-white mid-size sedan's styling comes across as effortlessly sleek and sexy. The Q Inspiration is also a high-tech powerhouse, featuring Infiniti's Variable Compression Turbo engine tech, ProPilot autonomy and a simple but focused interior with plenty of digital screen space.
Number one from a Bullitt: 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback
The new-car news here is the limited edition Mustang celebrating Bullitt's 50th anniversary, but the real draw is the original 1968 Mustang GT fastback that is appearing alongside it. The car, which was driven by Steve McQueen in the movie's famous chase scene, appeared hopelessly lost forever, but recently popped its head above ground.
"Sean Kiernan, owner of the vehicle, inherited the car in 2014 from his late father, Robert, who had purchased the vehicle in 1974," explains Ford. "To fulfill his family's lifelong dream, Sean contacted Ford and the two parties worked together to reveal his movie star car alongside the all-new 2019 Mustang Bullitt at the 2018 North American International Auto Show in Detroit."
Such a backstory just makes the appearance of an iconic movie car that much cooler.
World record speed machine: Koenigsegg Agera RS
Koenigsegg isn't necessarily a brand we expect to see at the North American International Auto Show. In fact, this year marks its Detroit debut. Michelin is showing a special Koenigsegg at its booth, the very Agera RS that boosted the Swedish hypercar-maker back up to the top of the production world speed record charts. The 1,360-hp Agera RS hit a two-way average of 277.87 mph (447.19 km/h) on November 4, beating Bugatti's 2010 record by a full 10 mph (16 km/h). It did it on a piece of (closed) public road in Nevada. The same car also set four other records, including a 33.29-second 0-400-0 km/h.
It's always cool to see an exotic hypercar and especially cool to see one hot off of rewriting the record books.
These were a few of our favorite sights of show, but you can find your own by browsing through the full fleet in our 2018 Detroit Auto Show photo gallery.