Carfest

Yesterday had been to the Detroit Auto Show. The Detroit Auto Show has primarily been one of the world's most looked forward to of all, thanks to the presence of GM, Ford, Chrysler. Due to the gas price wars and the economy not doing great either there were many skeptics present. Then again if driving is a passion for some then an auto show is a treat to attend.

I knew what to expect since I had been to the one in St.Louis sometime back. The cars to attract the most spectators this time around were the Camaro, Prius, 10' Buick Lacrosse, Ford Taurus and the Audi R8 (wow). The Viper SRT10, Shelby GT500, AM DB9 , Gallardo Spyder's are always present to attract crowds but they are like the white elephants of the show as there will be very few from the general crowd who will buy them ultimately. And the people who will buy those cars don't need to mess around in admission tickets and the food court. So they are basically just there to remind people that there is something called as the 'driving experience' too.(without bothering about gas prices,traffic jams,bad roads etc.)

There were quite a few desis scattered throughout the show as well but no surprise that they were mainly milling around the new civics and camrys. I saw very few around the R8 and even fewer around the Lacrosse. (Expect a post on this trend sometime.) There was a 'test-drive' session of the latest hybrid cars too for which there was a long queue,(I skipped that and went onto the Sprint nascar racing sim instead and ended up winning that :).

Also since this is Detroit there was a special 'Tuner' section too which had the cars and bikes from the Midnight Club games. The tuner series had a very rare Saleen Mustang. But since not a lot of people were aware of the tuner possibilities there were mainly car nuts like me around it. My only disappointment was the Bugatti stall as there wasn't one for the general audience but only for the press release. Also since Nissan skipped out too so couldn't get the Skyline GTR or the new 370z. The other usual suspects were present too including BMW,Lexus,Merc etc. The Jaguar stall brought back some desi pride but which was later squashed when Alok told me about the bailout package Tata Motors had asked for the marque.

This was the first apperance of the Chinese brands Brilliance and Denso, both of which were quite brave and innovative. (Denso even had a snowmobile...probably the most apt vehicle for Michigan). Overall the Auto Show could have been bigger (The St.Louis one was bigger than this 2 years back.) and more extravagant. (I remember seeing pics of the Dodge Tomahawk when it was unveiled in detroit some years back.)