PALACE AUTO SHOW WILL OPEN TO-NIGHT

The New York Times
December 31, 1909

Acting Mayor McGowan Will Make Address of Welcome to Visiting Trade.

PRIVATE VIEW FOR GUESTS

Decorators Complete Their Work and Exhibits Will Be in Position—Many Novelties in the Show.

The automobile show season is here again.  To-night at 8 o'clock, Acting Mayor McGowan will put the municipal stamp of approval upon the tenth annual International Automobile Show in Grand Central Palace with an address of welcome to the visiting trade.  This will mark the second time Mr. McGowan has represented the City Government at the Palace show.  That the automobile plays an important part in the Nation's advancement was recognized a year ago when the most successful exposition of the American Motor Car Manufacturers' Association was ushered in in the same manner.

This afternoon a private view will be given.  All the city officials will be guests as well as members of the Automobile Club of America and others identified with the progress of the industry.  But the doors will not open to the general public until this evening.  The show will run seven days.

Cars to fit the pocketbook of every prospective purchaser, and accessories to fill every want, completely fill the three floors of the Palace.  There are more cheap, dependable cars than ever before, and a greater variety of trucks and commercial vehicles than any previous exhibit has boasted.  The larger and more expensive variety of pleasure cars are also to be seen in large numbers, but a casual visitor who has followed the development of automobiles will be struck at once by the absence of freak types.  Bodies have become standard in shape, the exception being the new gunboat body, which bids fair to become so popular that every maker will include it in his output.  Motor construction has also reached the stage predicted for it several years ago.  From tires to cushions the motor car of to-day has ceased to be an experiment, and the fact is plainly apparent in this exposition of all that is best in motor cardom.

Twenty-seven models are exhibited of cars costing $1,000 and less, thirty-three priced from that sum up to less than $1,500, twenty-nine range in price from $1,300 to $1,999, thirteen from $2,000 to $2,499, twenty-nine sell from $2,500 to $2,999, twenty-four from $3,000 to $3,999, and twenty-nine in the class that retail from $4,000 up.  This list shows what a wide field the present exhibition covers and how evenly divided the manufacturers are in providing for the desires of automobile users.

When the doors open to-night the exhibition will be complete.  In several instances in the past the work of placing exhibits was delayed until the eleventh hour, and there was some confusion on the opening night.  This has been obviated under the handling of Manager Alfred Reeves, who started early with the placing of decorations, thus giving the exhibitors an added day in which to install their exhibits.

That this year's show is a record-breaker in more respects than one is indicated by the fact that no less than 325 exhibitors have paid for space, including 84 different makes of foreign and American cars, which is the largest number of makers that have ever exhibited at a show in this country.