Automotive Forums

I was reading on a couple of 'sites where the writers wondered why we still have them. They argued you can get all the information on the latest model, speeds, comparisons, prices, etc., on-line. There are few surprises these days due to the Internet. Lot's of people knew about the latest Saturn stuff before the New York show, for example.

What do you think? Time to put the 'Closed' sign on autoshows? Or are there reasons to keep them open?  

I just wrote an article about this, that I now feel obligated to post..


The Best $20 I Ever Spent

The line is long, out the door, way out the door and I, of course, am in the back. Hundreds of people swarm around. Old men, little girls, teenagers with baggy shorts and men with shirts that symbolically say Piss on Ford. Making my way to the ticket booth I hand over my $20. $20 some people might snarl, but not me, I hand it over with a huge grin on my face, just like the hundreds of people in front me, knowing that the Los Angeles Convention Center Auto Show is going be a good investment. There are a few cars displayed on the first floor before you enter the show room, expensive cars, cars I dream to own. But nonetheless I don’t and they only add to the excitement and anticipation of what’s to come. Entering the main show room the atmosphere has a quiet reverence to it.  I gaze around and see the shiny reflection of a huge front mount intercooler belonging to a supercharged  Nissan 350z, a display of how Subaru’s all wheel drive system works, a Chevrolet Corvette C6 spinning around like a succulent rotisserie chicken and a Mercedes Benz SLR Mclaren high above on a pedestal, rightfully so. I can hear the occasional damn, muttered under the breath from other drooling spectators, as if they were staring at a stripper dancing on stage. I have seen more than I could ever have hoped for and I have only been here for a few minutes.  

For $20 I get to experience what it must feel like to be Jay Leno, all these cars at my disposal, begging me to slip into them and cruise up and down the coast. I can only imagine what that’s like and being at this show only makes it that much easier.  Then I begin to understand, this is more then just a room filled with cars and displays, this is a room filled with dreams. When I walked through those doors I entered my dream world, a world where my greatest fantasies are fulfilled. And that is a very good thing for the auto industry.

More than a sum of engine blocks and 20-inch wheels, cars are dreams. If you want to live out your movie star fantasies like Vincent Chase in Entourage you can go buy a Maserati Quattroporte. Or maybe you idolize Tony Soprano, you can go buy a Cadillac. Nowhere is this realization of dreams more obvious than at an auto show.  And there is nothing like a close connection to your dreams that will persuade you to drop that twenty, fifty or even a hundred large on your dream car.  

Commercials, catalogues and magazines all offer the sights and sounds but here, the action is authentic. There is something special that happens when you are engulfed by a theme you not only can hear and see but also touch.  Nissan tried to envelop this idea as best they could in one of there latest commercials in where a man touches a Maxima and instantly he’s whipping around town without a care, happy and exhilarated.  Automakers understand the power of touch and dreams.

Just like the Nissan Commercial, I also begin to fantasize.  As I kneel down and touch the cooling fins of the intercooler on the Supercharged Nissan 350z I find my self cruising down the shores of California with Angelina Jolie at my side, wind blowing through my hair, and my favorite c.d. blasting through the sound system and… well, who needs anything more then that.  

All this fun, excitement and fantasy for only $20, I find myself asking, when can I come back?



-John Mazzante  

hey, great story, man. though for me it was hittin' the mazdas. sweet. nothing can replace sitting in the latest miata. and taht cx7? nasty. even my wife liked it and she hates anything that's not a mini including when i look at mini's!  

Thanks. I worked hard on that one.    

automotivejtm:
Thanks. I worked hard on that one.  

wheer's the artikle printed?  

To be honest im really not sure.  Its somewhere though, I just hand them in.


but thanks agoain for the interest.