There was a time when every kid on the block dreamed of owning a powerful piece of Detroit Iron just like their old man. Teen-agers decked out in scuffed leather jackets dreamed of the day they could race down the strip on a Friday night in a high-powered, gas-guzzling, automobile that proudly sported the badges of good ol’ companies like Packard, Ford, and Oldsmobile, just to name a few.

There’s just something about attending an auto show that appeals to the seventeen-year old kid hiding inside all of us. The faint smell of high-octane gasoline, ridiculously expensive cars, thumping sound systems, ladies who are clearly out of our league—and the dream of sliding behind the wheel of a car that cost more than most college funds…x3.

The 2013 New York International Car Show which will be held March 29-April 7 at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC is no exception—it’s the kind of show that will fill your head with ideas of recreating the shopping mall scene from the classic Blues Brothers flick...drifting around large groups of people in an indoor venue while the authorities chase you with little hope of actually stopping you from smashing through the front doors and driving off into the sunset behind the wheel of a supercar.

Corvettes, Camaros, and Apple Pie

Leading the pack with headline grabbing unveils, the folks over at Chevrolet recently announced plans to introduce the refreshed 2014 Camaro. The bow-tie wearing crowd is keeping quiet about the details leading up to the show, but leaks suggest that the Camaro could gain a new twin-turbo 3.6-liter V-6 engine. There is also talk that the long discussed X28, with a 7.0-liter LS7 V8 engine could be making an appearance at the New York Auto Show. As General Motors made sure to point out in the announcement of the 2014 Chevrolet Camaro debuting at the 2013 New York Auto Show, the bowtie clad muscle car has been the bestselling car in the class for each of the last three years

Although it was officially unveiled at the 83rd International Auto Show in Geneva, the convertible version of the new seventh-generation Corvette, which is expected to go on sale later this year, will make it’s North American debut in the Big Apple.

It was also recently announced that the first Corvette Stingray convertible off the assembly line will be auctioned for charity at Barrett-Jackson’s event in Palm Beach, Fla., April 4-6. The first coupe was auctioned in January at a Barrett-Jackson event in Scottsdale, Ariz. It sold for $1.1 million.

The retail price of the convertible has not been disclosed.

Beyond the Bowtie

Mercedes-Benz will finally stop playing hide and seek with its CLA models at the New York International Auto Show, where the CLA45 AMG version will debut.

This is the most powerful version of the entry-level front-wheel-drive sedan from Mercedes. The CLA45 AMG will be powered by 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine, producing peak power of 360bhp and peak torque of 450Nm. The engine transmits power through seven-speed dual-clutch transmission system to the all-wheel drive system with 40:60 distribution.

And if you prefer your supercars to come with a more Italian flair, the 113th New York Auto Show is sure to please with a wide range of high-tech racers gracing the showroom floor including the Lamborghini Aventor J.

The Aventador J packs 691 hp from the same 6.5-liter engine as its fixed-roof sibling and is clad in a nice little shade called Rosso Red. The car makes extensive use of carbon fiber, including a patented material called "carbon skin" for the interior.

This Lamborghini is so extreme that the driver must wear a helmet, though the car can be registered for road use, Lamborghini says.

It’s not clear if the recently unveiled Lamborghini Veneno, of which there are only three, will grace the stage at the NY show. The Veneno made a huge splash in Geneva not only for its radical design, but the hefty $4 million price tag.

Powering the Veneno is a 12-cylinder engine and a 7-speed transmission with five different driving modes. Lamborghini says the Veneno can reach speeds of 220 miles per hour and accelerates from 0-60 mph in a heart-thumping 2.8 seconds.

No matter what your automotive preference, the 2013 New York Auto Show is sure to have your dream car among the more than 1,000 vehicles that will be rolling into the 900,000 sq ft. Jacob Javits Center later this month.

Less than a month after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and three months before the final Studebaker would roll off the line in South Bend, Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche profoundly changed the future of motorsports with a flip of his wrist when he unveiled his rear-engine Porsche “Neunelfer.”

In the 50 years that followed, more than 820,000 Porsche 911s have been built and sold making it by far the most popular sports car in history.

To celebrate this amazing feat, the German automaker has planned a year of celebrations to mark the 911s birth. Starting at the Salon Retromobile vintage and classic car show earlier this month where an original 1963 911 began a worldwide and yearlong journey that will span five continents and will feature stops in Geneva, Melbourne, Los Angeles, and others.

But for this year-long celebration there are even more presents still left to be unwrapped, including the unveiling of the company's latest track-focused GT3 at the Geneva motor show in March and the what could be the fastest Porsche 911 ever built, the 991-series Turbo, which is scheduled to premiere sometime in the latter part of the year.


What the Future Holds
Porsche has yet to confirm details of the 991-series GT3, but if rumors are correct, it will be offered with both the conventional seven-speed manual gearbox and an all new PDK dual-clutch transmission.

Fans are anticipating that the latest-gen 911 should see the PDK-equipped GT3 accelerate from 0-100km/h in less than four seconds.

As you can imagine, the Porsche 911 Turbo is expected to be even faster. As the first variant of the new seventh-generation 911 to be powered by a twin-turbo flat six, with it's all-wheel drive transmission, some speculate that it will give hypercars such as the Bugatti Veyron, which can accelerate to 100km/h in less than three seconds, a run for their money.

Apart from the GT3 and Turbo models, there is also expected to be a limited-edition 50th anniversary model of the 911 this year.

Porsche released a specially equipped 911 Carrera to celebrate the 911's 40th anniversary, and it’s a sure bet that they’ll follow the same formula for the 50th celebration model.

The Porsche 911 50th anniversary edition is expected to be built in extremely limited numbers; only 1963 units of the 40th anniversary were built as a nod to the 911's birth year, all of which were coated in an exclusive GT metallic silver previously only available on the Carrera GT supercar.


A Blast From the Past
These days, the 911 brand is so iconic that it is hard to imagine that it was originally badged differently—A quick name change following an argument with France’s Peugeot, which claimed only it had the right to use car names made up of three numbers with the middle one being a zero, the then renamed 911 eventually entered production a year after its Frankfurt debut.

Many of the ideas and technologies that made their debut in the Porsche 911 were conceived on the race track. The 911 was committed to the performance principle from the start, and motor racing has clearly been its most important test lab.

From the very beginning it has been at home on circuits all over the world, earning a reputation as a versatile and dependable winner. Indeed, a good two thirds of Porsche’s 30,000 race victories to date were notched up by the 911.

The 911 is instantly recognizable, whether you love ‘em—or simply prefer not to drive them around sharp corners. And, because its styling has remained largely unchanged throughout that time, the Porsche 911 not only still looks good for its age, but has also become one of the most easily recognizable sports cars in history.

Hyundai has officially revealed the HCD-14 Genesis Concept at 2013 NAIAS in Detroit.
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