The One Percent Get Their Own Detroit Show

Sherman’s father had always taken the subway to Wall Street… It was a matter of principle. The more grim the subways became, the more graffiti those people scrawled on the cars… the more determined was John Campbell McCoy that they weren’t going to drive him off the New York City subways. But to the new breed, the young breed, the masterful breed, Sherman’s breed, there was no such principle. Insulation! That was the ticket. That was the term Rawlie Thorpe used. ”If you want to live in New York,” he once told Sherman, ”you’ve got to insulate, insulate, insulate,” meaning insulate yourself from those people. The cynicism and smugness of the idea struck Sherman as very au courant.

— Tom Wolfe, “Bonfire Of The Vanities”

As the United States slouches towards Rio to be reborn as a place where one can only live in the one-percenter heaven or unemployed, lower-class hell, insulation has become a concept with validity far outside Manhattan. The latest manifestation of this sans hoi polloi attitude: “The Gallery”, where “high-net-worth” individuals can meet their next status symbols without the offensive presence of regular people.

The Detroit online magazine Mlive quotes one of the organizers and describes the delights to be had:

According to Caza, The Gallery gives the “1 percent” a unique chance to meet with the executives from the luxury brands and be able to compare all the vehicles in one place.

The Gallery also features a strolling pre-glow dinner with renowned celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck and a post-glow fashion event.

Puck, who says he is not a “car guy,” said he has brought food from all over the world for the one-night event in Detroit.

“I really like this blue collar town,” said Puck, who drives a Cadillac Escalade. “I really think what I like about Detroit, as bad as people saw it was, that our car industry really got their (stuff) together and they do better.

Hard to imagine that Mr. Puck will get too much of the blue-collar experience serving meals to $500-a-ticket “HNW” consumers, but there you have it.

TTAC couldn’t get anyone in to see the “Gallery”, since we were unwilling to kiss the proverbial rod ring, but we did find this picture of a Lamborghini on Twitter:

While it’s easy to understand why the luxury marques don’t want everyone in Cobo Hall banging up against their inventory — a decade ago, your humble author saw a fellow in a “FUBU” jacket uncaringly drag his zipper along the entire rear flank of a Porsche 996 GT2 — there is something disturbing about the idea of there being a Good Car Show and a Show For The Rest Of Us. Naturally, TTAC will be covering the Show For The Rest Of Us, starting tomorrow. See you there!