MCACN - Chicago

[toolmanmike]

They sure attract some high caliber cars. Good to see the orange Superbird out for display.
However....That show seems more like a walk through a museum than a show.
This may appeal to many but I don't care much for shows where you can't walk around all the cars and see them from all angles.
We have an annual "Autorama" here in nearby Sacramento. I've had my car there with our Sacramento based Mopar club. It is usually the same....a group of cars in a row with ropes around them.
That isn't much fun but I understand the reasoning. Ignorant adults and misbehaving kids can be a problem.

I have seen a lot of parents and strollers driving between show cars. A scratch down your $20,000 paint job can't be just "touched up" usually.

 

[XS22J8R]

It was originally an all Mopar show, and Bob Ashton, the main guy behind the whole thing, is a Mopar guy. At some point it was opened up to all makes.

I thought the show has some connection to the late Chevy VetteFest but maybe not. MCACN was never a exclusively Mopar or any other make, it has been all makes since its inception in 2009.
I do recall Bob Ashton saying something one time about they wanted to drop the "And Corvette" part of the name after the first couple years, but by then the name and especially its acronym "MCACN" had become etched in stone, so the plan to change the name to just "Muscle Car Nationals" was canceled.
The show has a rotation for the big feature display you see when you first enter the hall, between GM, Ford and Mopar. This year of course was Mopar, with the wing car theme. Last year was GM intermediate based Muscle cars like Chevelles and Buick GS. For 2023 there will be a Ford feature. The last time Mopars were the main theme was 2018 and you might remember the cool lineup of cars that matched cars in the back in the day advertising, along with the 3 RTS tour show cars from the recently deceased Steve Juliano's estate. I haven't heard what Bob has in store yet for the theme of the 2023 Ford main feature yet.
This year did certainly have its makeup skewed towards Mopars. That was partly by design due to the main feature by the entrance, but I believe Bob realized in late summer /early fall the entries in the show were biasing too heavily our way and had to discourage any more Mopars entering and try to get more Ford and GMs to sign up. I'm sure none of us on this forum are complaining that Mopars did end up over represented at this years show!

 

[Bee1971]

From a chat

S’more

 

[64BEL]

I thought the show has some connection to the late Chevy VetteFest but maybe not. MCACN was never a exclusively Mopar or any other make, it has been all makes since its inception in 2009.
I do recall Bob Ashton saying something one time about they wanted to drop the "And Corvette" part of the name after the first couple years, but by then the name and especially its acronym "MCACN" had become etched in stone, so the plan to change the name to just "Muscle Car Nationals" was canceled.
The show has a rotation for the big feature display you see when you first enter the hall, between GM, Ford and Mopar. This year of course was Mopar, with the wing car theme. Last year was GM intermediate based Muscle cars like Chevelles and Buick GS. For 2023 there will be a Ford feature. The last time Mopars were the main theme was 2018 and you might remember the cool lineup of cars that matched cars in the back in the day advertising, along with the 3 RTS tour show cars from the recently deceased Steve Juliano's estate. I haven't heard what Bob has in store yet for the theme of the 2023 Ford main feature yet.
This year did certainly have its makeup skewed towards Mopars. That was partly by design due to the main feature by the entrance, but I believe Bob realized in late summer /early fall the entries in the show were biasing too heavily our way and had to discourage any more Mopars entering and try to get more Ford and GMs to sign up. I'm sure none of us on this forum are complaining that Mopars did end up over represented at this years show!

I thought I read it was born out of an all Mopar event - which wouldn't have been called MCACN. I don't remember where I read that, but thanks for your clarification. I'd say it's been heavily Mopar tilted each of the 4 or 5 times I've attended.

 

[XS22J8R]

I’ve lived in the area my whole life, we’ve never had an indoor all Mopar show anywhere near here or I’d certainly remember it.
The Chicago Auto Show, Chevy Vette Fest and World of Wheels are the only Chicago area indoor car shows we’ve had prior to MCACN.
Stephano Bimbi of Nickeys is one of the owners of MCACN and was a bigwig of the late Chevy Vettefest so that is probably the tie-in between the two shows.