2018 Auto Show Review

Superbird281

Registered User
Here are my impressions, in no particular order.

The technogeek award goes to the Acura RLX. There’s 97 (more of less) buttons, switches, and levers within reach of the driver. Other than that, there’s really nothing that makes Acuras more special than Hondas.

There’s a green metallic Bullitt mustang available again. The Mustang GT again has the most awesome front seats, but there’s a few other cars at the show that were just about as comfortable. And Ford seems to be quite proud of their Shelby Cobra GT-350 whatever they call it. They have a statue of The Stig made of Lego, and other Legos for Super Coupe owners to play with.

The F-series pickup trucks have become a bit of a downer. An F-150 costs $80,000 and an F-350 is $101,000. The interiors have gone cheap. The GM competition seems nicer and for less money.
Ford is now trying to market itself as an SUV company, with 5 different models. Like the Fungus and Siesta, there’s an Edge Sanitary Towel version. The Fungus and Siesta Sanitary Towels have nice interiors for the price, but the seats are for skinny people only.

Oh if anyone was wondering, the Lincoln division does still exist. They redesigned the Navigator too if anyone needs a luxury short school bus.

I gotta say Cadillacs actually seem pretty cool now. They don’t look too boring or too ridiculous and have some kickass engines and are very comfortable, and seem to be well built too. The XTS is now made in Oshawa, and has a cool place to hide your weed. But I don’t like the Star Trek touch controls much.

Mercedes and BMW model names are becoming increasingly misleading. Like, A Mercedes E450 has a 3.0L engine, not a 4.5L. The C63 seat is hard as hell. The C43 is a nice compromise between price and performance. The C class wagon doesn’t seem any bigger than a Golf Wagon. And a Mercedes ballpoint pen costs $6.95.

A BMW M6 Grand Sport costs $165k. A 440i Grand Sport costs $75k. The seats and instruments and controls in the 440i just felt awesome. BMW has a talent for making interiors that seem very focused on driving. The interiors however have a hard, plastic style that makes it hard to justify the prices they ask. Plus there’s the poor reliability and incompetent dealership service.

Hyundai has a new model called the Kona, which is a Portuguese word for vagina. They also win the typo award for spelling height as heigth.

The Lexus RX350 has a new longer 7 seat version. It still seems to have a higher floor elevation that other SUVs. Lexuses are fine vehicles I guess if you like sci-fi instrument panels. And huge foot rests that prevent you from stretching out your left foot. I prefer Infinitis to Lexussess anyway. They seem sportier.

The new Camry finally has something that no Toyota has ever had before: style. The Corolla has flappy paddles, which is funny because no Corolla owner knows what flappy paddles are, what a transmission is, or has ever watched Top Gear.

Nissan still holds on to that annoying Japanese belief that when you pull the interior door handle, the door must remain locked unless you deliberately unlock it first. Fords from the 1980s were smart enough to know that when a person wants to get out of the car, it should let him, not keep him trapped. Even the Subaru Outback finally lets the door lock open when you pull the interior handle. GM cars unfortunately are all adopting a compromise strategy that you have to pull the handle twice: once to unlock and a second time to open.

The Camaro continues its slow evolution from being hideously ugly to being only somewhat ugly.

The Corvette is truly a marvellous achievement in design and engineering. Too bad it still retains a bit of that 1970s douchebag image. The interior is also a little too tight.

I sat in the Buick Envision. Then someone told me the thing is made in China. I insisted emergency personnel take me and my clothes for biohazard/chemical decontamination before I could continue the show. They refused to let me set the vehicle on fire.

The Stephen Hawking award for space-time distortion award goes to the Mazda MX-5. The car is the size of a go-kart on the outside, but on the inside I was actually able to fit myself in the driver seat comfortably.

Best paint colour in the show: Chevrolet Spark in peach. Just kidding.
Best paint colour in the show: Bentley Continental in metallic orange. Second best: Mazda CX-9 in metallic red.
Worst paint colour in the show: Audi, for forgetting to add a top coat to several of their models, and just putting a clearcoat layer over the grey primer.
Second worst paint colour in the show: Audi, for painting an R10 neon green. There's also no legroom or headroom in those things, an unfortunate quirk most mid-engine cars seem to have.
Audi has also brought back the RS5, but it doesn't have the 4.2L V8, it's now a 2.9L V6 turbo.

Volkwagen Golf GTI is $39k. Golf R is $49k.

Fiats aren’t all made in Mexico anymore. The SUV version is actually made in Italy, with a 2.4L Chrysler engine.

Mercedes has a second floor café with free coffee and cookies for Mercedes owners to relax in. That’s a pretty cool thing.

The Dodge Journey is in bad need of a redesign. They had a lot of RAM 1500 pickups on display, showing the wide styles they come in. Too bad Dodge still tries to be cheap in everything they do. It’s also completely random if a Diesel engine is available in a model from one year to the next. But the Jeep Grand Cherokee has become a nice luxury vehicle, with a high price to go with it.

There’s some new exotic cars this year, like the KoeniggseggegggggABBAegg and Bugatti the Panzeritti, er, Pizza, I mean Pagani. Several McLarens too. No Ferrari display though. I guess Remo Ferri didn’t feel like it. The 70 years of Porsche display was strangely small. Maserati makes people line up before coming closer to see the cars. Like, whatever. The Maserati Gimli has Dodge window switches and navigation system fer crying out loud.

Honda has some of the best assembly quality in the business. The Civic is a fairly cheap car but feels very tight. So does the new Accord.

Mitsyoubashi is still around even they don’t have the Lancer anymore.

The 4 cylinder Subaru engines are the easiest to do oil changes on. The oil filter is right at the top of the engine right-side up.

Er, that’s all I can think of for now.
 
I went this year for the first time in probably 7 or 8 years. I'd have to agree with most of Michael's impressions ... :)


cheers
Ed
 
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