America's Finest Motor Cars Ready for Big National Show.

The New York Times
December 31, 1922

Exhibition Will Open on Saturday in Grand Central Palace, With Many Luxurious Models and Hundreds of Accessories.

Next Saturday afternoon the New York National Automobile Show the first motor car exhibition of the new year, will be opened in Grand Central Palace, Lexington Avenue, between Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, conducted under the auspices of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.  There will be presented seventy-nine different makes of cars, all of which will be shown in the latest open and closed models.

The display will be on a more elaborate scale than ever before.  With an accessory list of nearly 400, the show will be the biggest in the history of the automobile industry, not only because of the number of exhibitors, but also because of the quality of the exhibits.  Arrangements have been made to provide space for more than 350 individual car models.

Manufacturers have spared no expense to get the very best ready for the annual exhibition, with the result that the public will see an array of cars such as has never been gathered under one roof before.  Competition in automobile building was never greater, and for this reason more individuality is being built into cars.  Some very striking effects in artistic designs will be seen.

The seventy-nine makes of cars to be displayed are: American, Anderson, Apperson, Auburn, Barley, Buick, Cadillac, Case, Chalmers, Chandler, Chevrolet, Cleveland, Cole, Columbia, Courier, Crawford, Dagmar, Davis, Dodge Brothers, Dorris, Dort, Durant, Earl, Elear, Elgin, Essex, Franklin, Gardner, Gray, H. C. S., Handley-Knight, Hatfield, Haynes, Hudson, Hupmobile, Jewett, Jordan, King, Kissel, LaFayette, Lexington, Liberty, Lincoln, Locomobile, McFarlen, Marmon, Maxwell, Mercer, Mitchell, Moon, Mash, National, Noma, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Overland, Packard, Paige-Detroit, Paterson, Peerless, Pierce-Arrow, Pilot, Premier, R. & B. Knight, Rauch-Lang, Reo, Rickenbacker, Roamer, Rotary Six, Stanley, Star, Stearns, Stevens, Studebaker, Stutz, Velie, Westcott, Wills Sf Claire and Willys-Kniht.

The exhibition will occupy the lower four floors of the Palace, an area equal to four city blocks.  The first two floors will be devoted entirely to cars with perhaps three or four manufacturers showing on the third floor.  The remainder of the third floor and all of the fourth will be filled with accessories.  Never has there been such a group of devices that go to aid the motorist assembled as will be seen at the coming show.  All records were broken by the list of applications for space in this division of the show, and the total is approximately 100 more than for any previous year.

The coming show will be made more interesting and informative to the motorist than any previous affair of the kind in the history of motoring.  Every exhibitor whose product lends itself to actual proof of merit has been requested by the Show Committee to make his exhibit as complete an illustration of the action of the article under working conditions as possible.

An elaborate decorative scheme has been devised.  The gorgeous coloring of the American Beauty rose brought out in velvet, its richness accentuated by touches of gold, will be the dominant note.  It will probably be the most conservative, yet the richest note ever struck as a background for the great exposition, and thoroughly in keeping not only with the architecture of the building, but with the luxury and comfort of the new models of motor cars.

Mirror chandeliers, glittering with hundreds of electric lights, will be suspended in the centre court, both for beauty and illumination.  The idea of palatial grandeur will be carried out at the inner main entrance by the employment of a great French window, backed by mirrors.  The entire rear of the main floor will be a series of French curtains, shutting off the view of the windows and freight elevators.

Blue, set off by foliage and flowers, will be the color scheme for the second and fourth floors, and green will be utilized for the third floor.  The great urns that surmount the corners of the balconies around the court will be treated with floral decorations.

So great has been the congestion around the main entrance at times during previous shows that the management has increased the number of entrances.

Among the accessory exhibits there will be many practical illustrations of their utility.  Windshield cleaners will be shown removing actual water; the carbon removers at the beneficent task of disintegrating real carbon; lubricants and the methods of using them being demonstrated as the motorist will have to utilize them.  The show will go further than any others, not only in showing the motorist the latest devices, but in teaching him how to make the most of them.

Beginning Monday, Jan. 8, the show will be open all day and night until 11 o'clock, closing Saturday, Jan. 13.  The Show Committee consists of H. M. Jewett, Chairman; F. C. Chandler, J. Walter Drake and S. A. Miles, manager.

Announcement was made yesterday by Mr. Miles that the winner of the prize offered by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce for the best design for an invitation that has been issued to 35,000 automobile merchants throughout the country was Miss Louise H. McLendon of the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts.  The design is simple, yet striking, showing Washington Arch in this city on one side and the Logan Monument in Chicago on the other.