As we first waded in, I was most impressed with crowds. I even wondered if we would ever see the cars themselves. People could get in and fiddle with most cars. The story was that good deals were available on the cars in the show but I'm not sure I'd want such abused machines.

Some cars were kept away from the crowds. This Mercedes "Vision CLS" was in fact not even in production yet but rumored to hit showrooms within a year.

The center piece of the Mercedes building was the new "Gull Wings" (the old original is in the background). These new status symbols run around 400,000 euros. In case you're intereted, the show had three or four so you can get one and give another to a good friend. (Volunteers?)

Up close, the batmobile was impressive indeed. A powerful Mclaren engine sends these things down the German autobahns faster than any of their German bretheren.

But, for only 100,000 euros, you could pick up a Mercedes truck. Well, that's what this four-wheel-drive started out as but in its urban finery it too is a status symbol.

But, if you need a Mercedes and can't afford the fancy truck, maybe the bike Art is looking at is just for you. It has a multi-speed manual transmission, disk brakes and leather seating. Accelleration is variable.

Finally, if you want to get close to a Mercedes, you can apply for a job. At least that's what I think this opened transmission was advertising. It attracked all us nerds. (Sorry Art.)

At the other end of the luxury spectrum were the plain cars. I don't even remember what brand car this is. I do remember that the plainer the cars, the fancier the display accessories.

Some cars needed no additional decoration to be sexy. These Ferraris were also off limits to most show attendees and it was still a fight to get close to the rope guarding the Italian compound.

Speaking of Italian, this Bugatti was reportedly the priciest car at the show. At the Messe, there was no price displayed ("if you can afford it, you don't need to ask") but a web search gives a price of 650,000 GB Pounds - that's about one million dollars plus a Porsche.

By the way, the first year's production of 50 cars is already sold out.

Of course our favorite displays were the Porsches. They had some cars that were good for pictures but not touchable. Others were out in the throngs and absolutely impossible to photo. The Stuttgarte car maker still charms the crowds - and us.

For two years, we've driven our car without ever seeing the engine. The car show allowed us to see a similar engine so I had to get a picture. This is further incentive to NEVER try to open the hood - where ever it is.

Our last car was the Maybach. This may be the most luxurious car in the world. At just a bit over 400,000 euros, I'm not sure how big the market is for this land yacht.

Maybach 62 back seats are the way car seats CAN be, if money were no problem. It's hard to imagine taking the kids to the local K-Mart in this. It probably doesn't even have kiddie seat anchors.