Autoloud goes to the Motorshow!
February 10th 2008 12:17
Autoloud made his yearly pilgrimage to the grandly named Brisbane Imternational Motor Show. Considering that last year over 1 million new vehicles were sold in Australia, the general atmosphere of the show was akin to discovering that the beer has run out at the barbacue and the bottle shops are already shut! I know there was a death in the family but Jeez!
The manufacturers not represented this year include Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Jeep/ Chrysler/ Dodge, Jaguar and Mini. Except for Jeep yadda yadda, all the others have new models to display: the Volvo XC70, Mini the Clubman, Jaguar the new XF and over at Benz the all new C-Class. The other inspired act of lunacy include the absence of the all new Fiat 500!
The Mitsubishi stand was a massive two storey affair with lots of visitors, but they only wanted to play rally drivers on the Lancer EVO big screen X-Box games upstairs, as the poor stand staff twiddled their thumbs below, they were the guys trying their best to ignore the 380s parked there. Oh, Mitsubishi, pimping your ride involves more than big Chrome wheels and window tint, as the blacked Grandis and SWB Pajero only proved. Yuck.
The only shining light on the Ford stand was the new Mondeo, the stand out example being the TDCI version. Good looking and frugal, everything the new Falcon wont be!
Holden, being Holden, try to have one of everything on their stand but it was the stunning VE wagon that was grabbing all the attention. A great looking car with loads of room, the vehicle on display had "biofuel" badges? Interesting. Holden already export ( and have since VT) a version of the VE which runs on pure ethanol to Brazil (from memory), they have the techonology so why not offer it?
The luxury marques that were represented were beautiful to look at, no question there, loved the Bentleys, Maserati's. Having not seen one in the flesh before, I was a bit surprised at the porkiness of the Ferrari Scaglietti on display, man thats a big car!
The German brands took up a fair amount of stand space, BMW had the new M3 on display, but I did prefer the new 1 series Coupe, I did try to like the Audi A5 but failed, Audi did have my one of my dream cars on display though, the A8 4.2 Turbo diesel Quattro, with the optionally 20" S8 alloys, God, how I love that car! Volkswagen and by default Skoda had a good range on display. Skoda could make in-roads into the Australian market, the Octavia wagon is good value in turbo diesel form and I love the Roomster, its Kooky but cool!
The French, well, they continue to be different for the sake of it, the Citreon C6 is a pretty car but the Picasso is the piece de resistance. Vive la Republic!
My charitable act of the day? I spoke to the nice girl at the SAAB stand, well, no-one else was talking to her and she looked lonely!
The manufacturers not represented this year include Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Jeep/ Chrysler/ Dodge, Jaguar and Mini. Except for Jeep yadda yadda, all the others have new models to display: the Volvo XC70, Mini the Clubman, Jaguar the new XF and over at Benz the all new C-Class. The other inspired act of lunacy include the absence of the all new Fiat 500!
The Mitsubishi stand was a massive two storey affair with lots of visitors, but they only wanted to play rally drivers on the Lancer EVO big screen X-Box games upstairs, as the poor stand staff twiddled their thumbs below, they were the guys trying their best to ignore the 380s parked there. Oh, Mitsubishi, pimping your ride involves more than big Chrome wheels and window tint, as the blacked Grandis and SWB Pajero only proved. Yuck.
The only shining light on the Ford stand was the new Mondeo, the stand out example being the TDCI version. Good looking and frugal, everything the new Falcon wont be!
Holden, being Holden, try to have one of everything on their stand but it was the stunning VE wagon that was grabbing all the attention. A great looking car with loads of room, the vehicle on display had "biofuel" badges? Interesting. Holden already export ( and have since VT) a version of the VE which runs on pure ethanol to Brazil (from memory), they have the techonology so why not offer it?
The luxury marques that were represented were beautiful to look at, no question there, loved the Bentleys, Maserati's. Having not seen one in the flesh before, I was a bit surprised at the porkiness of the Ferrari Scaglietti on display, man thats a big car!
The German brands took up a fair amount of stand space, BMW had the new M3 on display, but I did prefer the new 1 series Coupe, I did try to like the Audi A5 but failed, Audi did have my one of my dream cars on display though, the A8 4.2 Turbo diesel Quattro, with the optionally 20" S8 alloys, God, how I love that car! Volkswagen and by default Skoda had a good range on display. Skoda could make in-roads into the Australian market, the Octavia wagon is good value in turbo diesel form and I love the Roomster, its Kooky but cool!
The French, well, they continue to be different for the sake of it, the Citreon C6 is a pretty car but the Picasso is the piece de resistance. Vive la Republic!
My charitable act of the day? I spoke to the nice girl at the SAAB stand, well, no-one else was talking to her and she looked lonely!
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