memoryloot

Despite the weather here being wet and cold, my gf and I decided to head on over to the LA Auto Show at the LA Convention Center. I was surprised to see so many people there this year. I went about 3 years ago and remembered there being a lot less. But with cars like the 2006 Bugati Veyron, I can see why the mass arrived. On the subject of the Veyron; This has got to be the most popular car in the show. Crowds of people was constantly flowing in and out of that car’s exhibit room for a chance to peak and see the $1.3 million car that top out about 250 mph.

My personal favorite was the new Lexus IS. That was “the car” that I had to see before leaving the show. Many people were buzzing over that car waiting to take a seat in the driver’s seat. I was one of them. Not only did this new IS seemed a bit more refined than the older one, the new one had many other great features. One being the paddle shifting on the steering wheel, much like what Ferrari is doing. The finished look of this car was very nice and up to par with Lexus standards. I didn’t feel they achieved this with the prior model, but they made sure the quality and luxury of all their Lexi (?) was represented here.

My other favorites were BMW and Mercedes’ exhibits. I was very disappointed with what Audi had to offer. All but maybe a couple of their models were silver colored. Alot of Audi and VW models are designed to look similar from one another, it was very difficult to tell an A6 to an A8 to an S8.

My favorite part of the show was the aftermarket section. They had more exotic cars there for the regular Johns and Joes to come up close and look and touch. These cars were probably customer cars that was brought in to sell the product the aftermarket store was selling such as rims or those invisible bra/stickers. I have not seen that many Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Bentleys assembled under 1 roof anywhere.

Like many other years, Porsche exhibit was at the same location and again their cars look pretty much the same. So it wasn’t too exciting. I didn’t really dive too much into the domestic market except the new muscle cars like the Chevy Camaro Concept, the Dodge Chargers, Chrysler 300, and Cadillac’s XLR.

I have to admit, this year’s auto show was much more impressive and kept my attention for a much longer time span than previous year’s. If you haven’t checked it out, you still got 1 more day!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2006 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.