Copper Canyon Classics

Michael Karesh
by Michael Karesh

This being metro Detroit, you’d think that weekly car meets would be thick on the ground. But, perhaps because I spend too much time attached to a computer, I’m not aware of one in the northwest suburbs. So I was quite happy to trip across the inaugural event of the “Copper Canyon Classics” on Saturday morning at the Copper Canyon restaurant in Southfield, MI.

Today’s event was largely composed of local Lamborghini, NSX, Jaguar, and Thunderbird clubs, but other makes were present and even my lowly Protege5 was welcome. The NSX group included a husband and wife (with a manual orange car and a blue automatic one) and a black car with a huge turbo in what used to be the trunk (good for nearly 600 wheel horsepower in its current tune, and nearly 1,000 with a few software tweaks; the transmission is the weak link). Boost reportedly arrives north of 5,000 rpm. Best listening: the Lamborghinis.

The restaurant, which sponsored the event, provided a $12 breakfast through lunch buffet (go back as many times as you’d like). A raffle was held to benefit a Sri Lankan children’s charity. Winners got to ride shotgun in one of the Diablos, the boosted NSX, or the Exige. Didn’t win, but still want a ride? Just make a donation to the charity.

The plan is to have the meet every Saturday going forward, starting at 10 AM and lasting “all day.” They had a good turnout for an initial event, and as word spreads it should only get better.

Not in the Detroit area, but want to attend an event like this, to see some interesting cars and actually meet other enthusiasts in the real world? There’s probably one near where you live. If you know of a good one, post about it in the comments. Don’t be like me. Use your computer (or phone) to find a meet–then get away from the keyboard for a while.

Michael Karesh operates TrueDelta.com, an online source of car reliability and real-world fuel economy information.





Michael Karesh
Michael Karesh

Michael Karesh lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with his wife and three children. In 2003 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. While in Chicago he worked at the National Opinion Research Center, a leader in the field of survey research. For his doctoral thesis, he spent a year-and-a-half inside an automaker studying how and how well it understood consumers when developing new products. While pursuing the degree he taught consumer behavior and product development at Oakland University. Since 1999, he has contributed auto reviews to Epinions, where he is currently one of two people in charge of the autos section. Since earning the degree he has continued to care for his children (school, gymnastics, tae-kwan-do...) and write reviews for Epinions and, more recently, The Truth About Cars while developing TrueDelta, a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.

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  • Skotastic Skotastic on May 14, 2012

    The Volvo is pretty cool, and I'm sure the Jags are nice though not my thing. Did anyone in the Lambo club have anything remotely interesting like an Espada?

  • Drewdub Drewdub on May 14, 2012

    Check out Cars, Karts, Coffee. First Saturday of the month at Kart 2 Kart in Sterling Heights. Last month was a very solid showing, and there are Kart rides for $12.00. There is a facebook group under Cars, Karts, Coffee Detroit (it may be Cars, Coffee, Karts). . .

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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