Upholstery inspired by Marlon Brando’s made-in-Detroit motorcycle jacket.

As a colleague said to me the other day, the NAIAS media preview is for networking, interviews, and asking questions, not covering reveals. You never really know ahead of time who exactly you’re going to run into but you will run into friends, colleagues and industry insiders. 2014 is the Dodge brand’s 100th anniversary. In November it will be a century since Horace and John Dodge started selling cars under their own names after more than a decade of being Henry Ford’s primary supplier. While looking at a display of Dodge memorabilia adjacent to the brand’s centennial editions of the Challenger and Charger, I got to talking with a guy when I noticed he was wearing an Alexander Brothers lapel pin. I’m a big fan of the legendary Detroit custom car builders and have interviewed Mike Alexander. Someday I’ll publish my work on the Dodge Deora. Right now it’s somewhere between TL:DR and a book. Anyhow, the guy with the A Bros pin turned out to be Dan Zimmermann, who is the interior design manager for the Dodge brand at Chrysler, and it turns out that the 100th anniversary Dodge models coincidentally celebrate another Detroit contribution to gearhead culture.

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