State Farm Garage insured having lots of ideas

A few years back, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company had a “Garage Makeover” Sweepstakes in which they gave away a $35,000 garage redo by a company called GarageMahals (www.garagemahals.com)that hails from Scottsdale, Ariz. Someone at the insurance company must be a car collector and the State Farm Garage theme was used in the company’s Chicago Auto Show (www.chicagoautoshow.com) exhibit again this year.

“Automobiles have changed over the years, but our love for them hasn’t,” was the main theme that State Farm was promoting and the garage decorations the company brought to the show were colorful, attractive and great for getting ideas from. I especially liked a model car display wheel that someone put a lot of thought into. It was actually a tire and wheel and was made of clear plastic. Inside the tire section were compartments for displaying large model cars.

The models included several Mustangs, a Camaro, a Tucker, a “shoe box” Ford, a ’59 Cadillac, a boattail Buick Riviera, a ’57 Chevy Bel Air convertible, a ’55 Chrysler C300, a port hole Buick, an early F-1 Ford pickup, a couple of ‘Vettes and a Jeep. All of the models were in different shades of red to match the red-and-white garage elements. The center of the unit was a bright metal six-spoke mag wheel. Like I said, a lot of thought went into designing it.

The State Farm Garage also had red-and-white couches made from the rear end sections of ’59 Caddys and ’56 Chevys. These were positioned in front of large video screens for a kind of drive-in movie effect. The State Farm sales counter was made up of stainless steel tool chests.

In another area there were about a half dozen custom-made driving simulator machines tricked out in black and red color schemes with white racing graphics and chrome exhaust headers. Apparently, when the show opened, these were to be used in some type of driving skill contest that will award tablet computers to good drivers, or something like that.

Nothing in the booth was in operation on the press days at the show and there were no reps around to ask questions of. But I sure got some ideas for my home garage and I got the impression that anyone visiting the State Farm booth during the Chicago Auto Show (www.chicagoautoshow.com) was going to have fun.