Hot Cars and Industry Big Wigs
Here’s the latest from inside NYIAS.
Ok, it’s a Ford, but it’s still cool. Apparently made in Turkey, this unit is sold in Europe for commercial use. Instead of the usual 10 miles per gallon these types of vans get, this thing is expected to get around 24 mpg on the highway. Very spare interior but looks good. This is a concept car version, so I guess we will have to wait for real McCoy.
Jean Jennings, president and editor in chief of Automobile Magazine gets to ride the GM/Segway two-seater. Designed for places like college or business campuses, its top speed of 35 mph seems a little high, but I guess that’s no more than a moped. I was wondering when Segway would put that technology into something other than a scooter type vehicle.
Scion tC, nice looking race car. Don’t know if you’ve ever been around rally cars, but they have an unmistakable ‘new car smell;’ like a blend of gas, grease, tires and exhaust – just a pure machine smell. Couldn’t get any info since there was no one around. And because my attendance pass says ‘Volvo,’ most manufacturers refuse to give us press kits. We’ll give anyone a press kit.
Camaro and Transformer. We often talk about design languages; Asian, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and American. This could only be an American design.
Mark Gillies, executive editor at Car and Driver magazine is ‘walking the show’ with a group of analysts. I think their Editor in Chief Eddie Alterman was doing the same thing today.
As a kid, we used to attend autocross events. Mini’s were great sporting cars, flying around turns with one of the rear wheels airborne. They always seemed to be quicker than the ‘Vettes. It had an 850 cc engine, with pistons the size of silver dollars. Come to think of it, perhaps the same engine my neighbor had in his Morris Minor woody wagon that he rebuilt one summer, and I think the same my ex-father-in-law had in his Hillman Minx. He also had a sweet Ford Cortina powered by Lotus – but that’s another story.
Here’s why media attend auto shows: press announcements. Hard to show, but attendance was good. Probably 200 people, but still down about a third from last year.
Perry Stern is MSN Autos senior editor. Typically he is holed up in some dark corner of an auto show managing interview schedules — who goes where and what should be covered. I asked him what he thought was the most interesting new car show at NYIAS this year.
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