Auto Show Review

Superbird281

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

Mercedes and Volvo suck. They just suck. Both decided to not participate in the CIAS because, as they put it, it’s not profitable for them to do so. Fine. They lose market exposure, people think what's wrong with them, or think they're jerks for not coming to the party. I think they're jerks.

Ten years ago, the auto makers gave out free brochures, bags, USB chargers, all sorts of stuff. Now, all they want to do is datamine you by getting your name, email address, and phone number, for stupid contests. And bombard you later with marketing ~~~~~~~~. The marketing douchenozzles at the companies figure that pestering customers and invading their privacy is better than giving out some neat, useful goodies.

The Auto Show Carguide was a lot better back then when it cost $5 instead of free like it is now. It's gotten so thin, with very little specs on the cars, and less of everything.

Ford was very proud of their electric Mustang SUV, the Mustang Mach-E. Mustang. Electric. SUV. No, I’m not kidding. Vomit.

Ford also had toy building blocks for Super Coupe owners to play with.

An F-150 costs $80,000. An F-250 costs $101,000. An F-350 costs $86,000. Go figure.

The Ford Edge is very spacious and practical and seems very well built, in Oakville. Still looks like an egg though.

Honda didn’t have an Accord. But they did have a couple of cool robots putting magnets on the side of a car.

Rice is alive and well in the Civic Type R. Otherwise, gotta admire Honda for how far the Civic has come.

Hyundai Genesis G90 is impressive. They’ve come a long way since the 1980s when the Pony and Stellar were biodegradeable. The Sonata has undergone a nice modern restyling.

The Kia Stinger really struck me in a good way. Beautiful paint. Flawless assembly. I think they copied the Maserati Quattroporte styling. Notice a pattern here? 25 years ago Korean cars were a joke. Today they're like state of the art luxury cars. It sucks, but Korean cars are now worthy of a lot of respect.

The Subaru Outback has the easiest oil change in the world. Look under the hood. You'll see what I mean. At the other extreme, the 1996 Thunderbird V8 has the hardest.

The Chevy Perverse is now larger than the Blazer.

The 8th generation Corvette is impressive, especially if you like cars that look like jet fighters inside and out. The two on display, red (nice!) and powder puff baby blue (puke!) were kept locked. I wonder what the front legroom is like since it's mid-engined now. If it's like the Audi R8, anyone taller than 5'10" will feel cramped. The Mazda MX-5 (a.k.a. Miata) had more legroom.

BMW seats aren’t very comfortable.

Audi RS6 wagon is coming. No A4/S4 or A5/S5 on display though. Weird.

The Buick Endeavour is made in China, and isn’t under Corona Virus Quarantine. I made sure to not touch it.

Challenger Scat Pack shaker hood is $69,000. Interior is very good but exterior assembly could use some improvement.

Toyota/Lexus still hates people who have left legs. Their entire model lines have intrusive foot rests that are annoying, not convenient.

Lexus instruments and controls look like a home theatre system.

Too many damn electric cars at the show. Most Porsches at the show are electric, or some combination of electric and something else.

I liked the displays of modern and historical exotic cars. The cars from before World War 2 are interesting to read about.

September 13, 2020, there's a car show at Ontario Place of cars from the 1980s and 1990s. Would be nice to get a lot of our cars there for the show. Are there any SCs or XR7s left in Ontario?

The army has 3 old vehicles on display, including a Leopard 1 tank, and retired soldiers talking about them and answering questions.

Lots of OPP cops hanging out there. I guess there's nothing else going on in the province that might need their attention.

Dodge trucks have a neat feature: The tailgate splits into two halves and you can open them sideways.

Hyundai is still selling the Kona. https://k-international.com/blog/hyundai-kona-translation-fail/

Ford actually makes a 3 litre V6 Diesel engine. I wonder if they actually put it in any vehicles. Ford is in trouble. They are actually going to kill off ALL their cars, except the Mustang. I don't remember seeing any Lincolns at the show. Fiesta is gone. Taurus is gone. Ford is like a restaurant who's menu has shrunk from 6 pages to 2 pages.

Cadillac has become a pretty cool lineup of cars. All the luxury gizmos and good assembly quality and some kickass engines, like a 500hp 4.2L turbocharged engine.

Whatever happened to Lincoln? I missed them at the show. No big loss.

Mazda 3 is like a mini-luxury car, and has a 2.5L engine.

Volkswagen sucks. Everything is made in Mexico. And their engines are wimpy. 1.4L turbo is the usual standard. The 2.0L turbo is considered the high end engine. And they're still too embarrassed to make Diesels.

Why does Mitsubishi exist anymore? The Evo is dead and gone. Now it's just like a Japanese Dodge, but with only boring cars.

Fiat was missing, or maybe I just mentally filtered it out.

Minis are still kinda cool. Nicely built. Not too expensive.

Several cars have a strange quirk: The cup holder lid flips left, not right, so the driver access to the cups is blocked a little by the lid. Weird.

Nissan has another mini-SUV, the Prick. It's even smaller than the Quashquay. The Nissan Grief electric is $54,000. I'm disappointed that all Nissans, and even the Infinitis, have manual, pedal parking brakes instead of electric pushbutton ones.
 
Great review, as usual, Mike. Did you happen to notice if most of the manufacturers are still treating the exterior lighting as an afterthought? Nissan pretty much invented the concept with the Puke model. Bumps and pimples all over to cover the lights. Stupid, ugly and copied by many.
Chrysler hasn't made any sedans in the US for years. If you want a Charger, it's Made in Canada!
Ford is just staying with the market demand. Just hope they don't totally ruin the Thunderbird marque by putting it on an SUV. The last girly T-bird they made was bad enough. Pastel colours and wheezy engines ... also vomit inducing.
Keep up the great work!
Alan
 
I never talk smack about the last Thunderbirds (mostly because I try to be friends with anyone driving a Thunderbird), but I do prefer Supercoupes over the Lincoln-esque Thunderbirds.

I also hope ford doesnt make a disappointing car and then slap a Thunderbird on it. With that said, I wouldn’t mind a luxury-Mustang or an electric Tesla-like sports car bearing the Thunderbird badge. Thunderbirds have been everything from roadsters to land yachts and race cars; I think it would be cool for Ford to make something really outstanding and impressive and call that a Thunderbird. Granted, it probably wont ever have a manual transmission again.
 
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