It would be difficult to find a more appropriate setting for the vehicle that RM is featuring in its annual Vintage Motor Cars of Meadow Brook auction. The car, seen above, is a 1932 Chrysler CL Imperial Convertible Roadster, while Meadow Brook Hall is a 1920's Tudor-revival-style mansion built for Matilda Dodge Wilson (the widow of John Dodge). The Dodge marque, as I'm sure everyone reading this already knows, eventually became part of Walter P. Chrysler's empire.

RM's event is but one of several happenings during the Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance, held on the mansion's broad lawns. The Concours itself is the culmination of a week-long celebration that will focus on, among others, GM's 100th Anniversary. In a special tribute to a luxury marque from an earlier era, RM will offer an extraordinary collection of classic Packards, headlined by a 1936 Packard Twelve Collapsible Touring Cabriolet by Brunn and a 1938 Packard Twelve Convertible Sedan, backed by nine additional Packard Twelves and Eights, all of them built in Detroit.

Great cars for sure, but as an architecture enthusiast I might be tempted to bid on the Albert Kahn-designed entrance façade (1907) from the original Packard factory on East Grand Boulevard. Often described as the "architect of Detroit," Kahn was credited as an influential force behind the automobile industry's own industrial revolution. It would be a magnificent replacement for the rather bland entry on our condo building if I could persuade my fellow owners that the gate to an historical auto factory is worth the price.