Combine living legends Lee Iacocca and Richard Petty, with the late design genius Virgil Exner and Tonight Show host/auto enthusiast and collector Jay Leno, and you've got a pretty impressive class of inductees at the inaugural Walter P. Chrysler Legacy Gala. Mr. Exner was represented by his namesake son.

The gala is part of a major fundraising campaign for the non-profit Walter P. Chrysler Museum, which is located on the grounds of the Chrysler World Headquarters and Technical Center in Auburn Hills, MI. 

Here are some highlights of the induction...

Before there was a crossover, actually before anyone thought of the name "crossover" for that matter, there was the 1967 Dodge Deora concept.

Those were wild times for America and for designers. And 1967 might have been the peak (even though this humble blogger was not yet born).  The Deora was Dodge's take at a multi-purpose vehicle, one that could haul both cargo and in-vehicle technology in equal measure.  Looking through the old brochures that Chrysler Historian Brandt Rosenbusch kindly supplied me with, this truck sure was, in a word, fabulous.

"A space age vehicle -- a futuristic pickup...