by Lloyd Frazier
Another automotive circus, filled with hype, drama, and some actual visionary thinking, has rolled into Denver and right back out into the sunset. I wanted to wait one week before I wrote my observations in the black hole known as Al Gore’s internets. This year’s show had a little more content then in 2009. However, I only recall seeing one concept, the Corvette Stingray. There were a lot of perks by going on a Friday instead of the traditional Saturday, for me and my photographer, aka son-in-law. I call him Joe Photographer. In fact, go to jjhphotography.com to bask in his photographic wonders. The Denver Auto Show has become our annual get-together-and-opine-over-cars-we-wish-we-had-parked-in-our-garages bonding time outside of our own personal man caves whom we share with our better halves. It’s a guy thing. Back to the perks. By going on a Friday, the crowds were much more subdued. Saturdays are filled with more families looking over the barges they might like to have to tote their loved ones around in. This allows the older kids to wander around and get crazy in the cars while mom and dad argue about what the most important part of that new car experience actually is. Horsepower….no, safety….no, horsepower. Well, you can picture the rest of the domestic spat in your head. That makes it tough to take some time and actually sit in the cars and enjoy the ambiance for a millisecond or two longer. We both agree, all future shows WILL be attended on Friday.
One of the more intriguing highlights of the show, nostalgic as it may be…a sort of back-to-the-future kind of moment, was seeing the four DeLoreans in their perfect glory. There was a gentleman that was part of a DeLorean club in Denver, I do believe, that spouted out DeLorean trivia like it was coming directly from the original source, ‘ol John himself. In fact, it was so interesting, those things I was not aware of in the DeLorean realm, that I will devote a future post to dig deeper into how those unique cars came to be. And about their short lived existence.
An anthropologic observation should be noted. You had to know it was coming. More piling on Toyota. Why not strike while the drama is fresh in all our minds with all the media frenzy spewing from our e-readers, RSS feeds, and talking heads. I noticed that fewer people were hovering over Toyota’s offerings and more were huddled around Ford’s and GM’s sideshows. Ford with its virtual ride in a Raptor and GM’s engineer showing off its latest engine diagnostics testing techniques…which perfectly segued to a magician/sales-guy, which then segued to an info babe twirling around on a platform, next to a Chevy Equinox, dizzyingly touting its benefits. It was all very entertaining.
More of the aging wine and cheese crowd than usual were found gawking at Cadillacs and Lincolns. Cadillac actually has a distinctive lineup that doesn’t take the badge engineering route. I am especially fond of the CTS wagon. Very nice vehicle. Lincoln is slowly starting to redeem itself and finds it is on the same track as Cadillac, but still lagging behind. More Camaro iterations were displayed. A Transformers version was there. Ford had the Fiesta and new, soon to be released, 2011 Mustang. Very sweet looking car. Ford probably has the best, most versatile line-up of vehicles they ever have had in their history. I hate to say it, because Joe Photographer, being a Ford guy that he is, is going to rub this in my face, but facts is facts…I am proud of them. There I said it, now go get a life! Preferably in a domestic variety of vehicle.
Lloyd…signing out!
Very well-written and entertaining article. I hate to admit it, but my favorite practical vehicle this year was the GMC Terrain (not a Ford if you can believe it). Of course there were many non-practical favorites that ran the gamut of automakers (Cadillac, Audi, DeLorean, Jeep, Chevy, and of course Ford).