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If anybody has a story they would like to post.. please feel fre to post it up or p.m. me.  

It may not be actively understood by the average Joe on the street but we as a culture harbor primitive, deep seeded character traits pertaining to beauty, which hinders our judgment and leaves our rational thinking minds akin to that of a teenage boy alone with a girl for the first time. While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, it’s the beholder collection that adds to the black for the auto industry; and the auto shows are their catwalk.

It used to be that any well made and reliable automobile would bring in customers and perhaps add to the company’s legion of faithful. However, with once seemingly unreliable brands earning top billing in J.D. Power and Associates, Consumer Reports and other consumer data collecting agencies, these are no longer top priorities of car buyers. In taking their technological prowess as seemingly far as it can go, the automotive industry clamors to perfect their ability to fulfill mans most fickle character trait: Desire.

Is it love; or is it lust? With untold billions on the line, the auto industry is intent on figuring that out. Science tells us it’s lust with its dopamine and serotonin raising abilities that grab our attention, starting the snowballing effect on our psyche and upon settling, it’s oxytocin that generates the long-term phase of love and manufacturers have always tried to manipulate these chemicals in their potential customers.

But statistically we are not a faithful bunch. With upwards of 40 percent of us ready to switch brands because of our normal brands inability to supply us with the color we want on a vehicle, it is important as ever to display products and listen for feedback as soon as possible prior to release. Turning the head of a competitor’s faithful certainly wouldn’t hurt either.

As can be seen by the average midsize family sedan, it is an amalgam of their competitors with a bit of faux super sedan sprinkled on the outside for good measure. It isn’t at all odd to see a German luxury sedan’s taillights represented on the latest Japanese midsizer, or a crease that once distinguished an Italian steed adorn an American fleet-bound economy sedan. Like Darwin’s “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,” auto manufacturers are trying to understand mans decision-making sense and come up with that new design that will not only take the breath away from an unsuspecting, but willing, car shopper, but keep their attention among the parade of their competitor’s advancements.

With increasing venues for consumers to experience the message of the automotive world, one would be forgiven for questioning the importance of the Auto Show in our culture. After all, with the click of a mouse, one can be swept to countless reviews and photos of every make and model ever produced. You can procure more technical information than your spouse ever cares to hear about or any car salesman bothers with. With each brand, a make; and each make a model that can grasp the attention of even the most Ritalin-needed young male. However, it is this “see it for myself” character that demands a first person’s account of a subject. With a vast majority of our shopping done in person, taking advantage of our senses and their ability to contrast and compare, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this type of venue used in the future as a shopping outlet for those looking to purchase an automobile on site.  

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  

LA Autoshow is a must go every year. But I do remember though that the admission ticket is only $10  

The Fantastic New Eclipse
(sarcastic)

so me and my brother were driving down (to the bank, wanted to get money for games) the freeway in southern cali, fallowing all traffic laws (for now) in his 2006 Z track edition, when a moron in a 2005 brand new eciplse GS pulls up, soo new it dosnt even have a licence plate. he starts to rev his engine, holding the clutch, trying to look fast next to my bros black Z. next thing you know, i hear a gunshot like sound, and the eclipse pull over to the side. on the way back, i discover the eclipse on the shoulder with the hood open and smoking like hell. we pull over and ask what happened, this is his quote.
"you mother *** blew my engine! get the *** outa here before i kick your *** laughed, and knowing that the kid was a 200lb punker from college, and my bro was a 230lb body builder, we laughed, laughed, and burned right out of the shoulder lane.
i guess you just never know how much some of the newer cars suck untile you see them blow their engine reving.  

Interesting stuff.

John,
I've got a weird thing happenin when my truck is shifting into 3rd gear.  Whenever it shifts, it's like im stomping on the accelerator and then left off real quick.  Everything other shift of gears is fine but this is bothering me.  I have checked the transmission oil level and its ok. Anyone heard of somethin like this?

John,
http://www.dripslipper.com/  

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