Specials

Concept cars, dream cars, experimental cars -- they have been around for a long time. Every year at auto shows, concept cars are a feature, exercises by the auto companies to provide a glimpse into the future. They are also rolling laboratories with which the auto companies try out ideas in the real world. The first concept car was this so-called "Y Job," built by Buick in 1939, but incorporating ideas that were used for years throughout General Motors' lineup.

Probably the most famous concept car of all was GM's 1950 LeSabre, shown here with Designer Harley Earl at the wheel. Earl used the car as his everyday driver for a while. Many of the styling concepts used on the LeSabre found their way into GM models and the name was used on a Buick car line.

This 1963 Chrysler Turbine was one of designer Elwood Engel's first jobs for Chrysler Corp., which explains why it looks so much like the Thunderbirds he had designed for Ford. Chrysler built 50 of these experimental cars and let consumers use them under normal driving situations and comment on them, an unprecedented test. The corporation then destroyed most of them. This rare survivor belongs to the Detroit Historical Museum.

This 1953 Dodge Firearrow roadster was the last of a series of four showcars designed by Virgil Exner and built for Chrysler by Ghia of Italy. The car was on display at the 1995 Concours d'Elegance at Meadow Brook, the elegant 1,400-acre estate of the late Matilda Dodge Wilson, once the wife of John Dodge, a founder of Dodge Brothers, on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Mich.