Mainstream Assimilation -- The 2008 New York Auto Show

Though strange and possibly hard to believe, the auto industry and the videogame industry in America are tied together in a variety of ways -- whether it be Pontiac paying homage to Spyhunter with their newest commercial (as seen above), Dodge hosting Wii Sports and Guitar Hero 3 kiosks on the edge of their 2008 New York Auto Show floor displays or Lexus sponsoring a massive Gran Turismo 5: Prologue area for showgoers to check out (all seen below), this year's New York Auto Show was intricately permeated with nods to the videogame industry it has repeatedly collaborated with. We scoured the floor and were there to play GT5:Prologue (in stupid automatic only, unfortunately.) It's quite possible there was a brand new Nissan Skyline GTR, also...

As you see above, one excited security guard was left to insure no one tried making off with these huge metal contraptions that housed GT5:Prologue -- foiled again! These wonderful looking machines came equipped with a go and stop pedal as well as a non-force feedback wheel. This should be read as, "These machines were excellent at showing GT5: Prologue and nothing else." We here at QP appreciate the fact that these machines were open to the public and thus need as few barriers to entry as possible, however, it's goddamn Gran Turismo. The game is meant for racing/car enthusiasts and is damn near worthless to play in automatic, none the less with no force feedback. We digress...

That's right. Pictured above is certainly Guitar Hero 3, surrounded by a line all day. Though tempting, we didn't bother melting the faces of all within the Jakob K. Javits convention center with our ridiculous shredding abilities. We can't stress enough how intelligent it was of Dodge to sponsor this kiosk on the edge of their event, especially given the amount of children nipping at the ankles of their enraptured parents.

We spotted this bad guy wondering around the Mercedes-Benz show floor, throwing out koopas and kidnapping squeaky-voiced strawberry blond ladies...errr...looking at a classic Merc -- fiiiiiine. Though you'd think a Bowser sighting would be the scariest encounter one could have here, you'd be mistaken...

Unfortunately, there was no removable gatling gun, but this complete ripoff concept Hummer is "modeled after" the legendary, multiple Halo-traversing, Warthog. The Hummer floor rep noted this model is most likely not headed for production, though it was hard to hear him given how completely full of shit his mouth was. Yeah, we don't like Hummer or PR reps (and no, we refuse to make the obvious joke.) Below is one more shot of the Hummer concept, provided for your viewing pleasure -- though if you're really looking for something amazing (and completely non-videogame related, sorry), scroll down a bit further to see a little sample of the (finally in America) Nissan Skyline GTR.

(No joke)