NAIAS 2011 - observations

[kach22i]

I went to the NAIAS 2011 with my brother on a Wednesday morning (yesterday). Attendance was down compared to other years, but other years I was stupid enough to go on a weekend too. My brother may be relocating and will need a commuter car, so we sat in a bunch of those.

Highlights and observations.

1. As you enter you spend the first 25 minutes in Ford territory (had to be over a dozen Mustangs - maybe 20). Marketing in full force, see certain exhibits and get a form filled with stickers and get a free aluminum water bottle. I did not fall for it but many did - genius. The local design colleges LTU and CCS had lots of student fiberglass models, gone are the days of pinning up hand drawn cars. Drawings are converted in to wall covering type background displays.

2. The Ford Fiesta was nice, much nicer than the Yaris for example. My brother likes the Mini club and did not think the Fiat 500 was a good value but it was cute. The Mazda 2 came off as a Geo Metro, and not in a good way. Hyundai had a production style concept with a squished down sporty roof called the Veloster we liked. The big shocker for econo-boxes though was the new Sonic by GM. No official mpg but expected to be close to 40 mph hwy. Made in the USA - Michigan one might start to think there were strings attached to all those government loans.

3. Acura had a new cross over sport utility, to enter the back seat you bump your knee, scrape your butt and then bang your head. It looked cool as heck though (fastback), just cannot use the rear seat unless you are a mountain goat. The sales person knew her stuff and was not just a pretty skirt. However nods to Subaru though for the most gals in tight knit body skirts and long legs per SQ FT.

4. Lexus LF-A all 10 cylinders was there in a Talbott yellow they just call "orange".

5. Tesla was there although I heard they could not get any more bodies from Lotus had a couple of recent looking roadsters there. The all aluminum body buck for the Model S - sedan was there but not a single image of what a completed car looked like. The user display screens did not seem to be working right but a couple of paper flyers were available. There was for most makers a real green or real cheap thing going on, a lack of paper in general was the trend.

6. Porsche took it's 918 to Dubai or some place in the Mideast with money right after the private party fundraiser for charity. I ran into a couple of the local PCA RSR club guys who told me this. I guess Detroit should feel lucky that Porsche came back at all to the Detroit NAIAS.

Gotta go, been real busy picking up work. 2011 will be better than 2008,, 2009 and 2010 - thank goodness.

[kach22i]

More..............

Scion had a truncated version of one of their small cars, two seats - very Smart-Car-ish. The display included placing a bunch of cars on the wall in a steel frame box set-up, very much like a set of MatchBox cars.

The little spring clip on my camera battery failed shortly after taking a photo of the parking garage tube passageway (Joe Louis not Cobo - saved $10).

I now have a bunch of rubber bands holding the camera together. I got about eight years of use out of it, so I suppose I got my monies worth by today's electronics scale.

Some scans......................