I’m writing but nobody’s reading. Maybe that’s because v7 was on top-secret hiatus and this is being written on version 8.
Anyway, I couldn’t really wait much longer to write about the two major events of January. We’ll start with the North American International Auto Show. In all honesty I’d have to say some of the best and most in-depth, straightforward coverage of the event belonged to Autoblog, so check it out there. Otherwise, let’s break it down by geography.
America: Not a bad showing. GM was forgettable, but that could be because I didn’t look at it in the first place. Now that I think about it, they showed those Saturns which were ridiculously good. The inherent problem with me even considering a Saturn is that it’s a Saturn, and no matter how good they get, I still can’t see myself in one. Chrysler had that Jeep thing, and that was pretty cool. There was the Dodge Charger. Chrysler has possibly figured out the concept of brand-management? I mean, the Charger and 300C definitely share some blood but are different enough to be treated as their own separate entities. There was also the new Viper Coupe, which looks exactly like the old Viper GTS. Maybe they should’ve given it new taillights. Heck, it’s only an $80,000 car. Ford had the new Mustang ragtop which was overshadowed by the rehashed GR Shelby something which was in turn overshadowed by the ugliest car they could possibly think of. Great.
Europe: VW showed the new Jetta and Porsche showed the 911 Cabriolet and nobody was excited because we’ve seen both of them before (not that they’re bad cars). Audi had the Quattro “concept” in spite of there being nothing vaguely conceptual about it. BMW flaunted the M5 since it’s the only decent new car they have because its power overshadows its looks. Volkswagen also had the Ragster which I wanted to like but I just couldn’t get the roof proportions. It was said that the creased up body of the Ragster will find its way to the New Beetle line (can we just call it the Beetle now?) which is not at all a bad thing. I like the taillights. The Viper should have had those. M-B had the new M-Class and that was wholly uninspired (not a bad thing, I’m just saying) which apparently was to make up for the hot hot hot CLS55 AMG, a car for those who think the E55 is “boring.” Volvo is building a coupe. I hope it doesn’t resemble any of their prototypes, because those are horrible.
Asia: Honda showed the new Ridgeline which is almost tolerable outside but looks like a late-90’s Chevrolet pickup inside (this is NOT a good thing). I guess there was also an announcement of the new 06 Civic but there was no car to go with it. Suburu had the Tribeca which is interesting and a car that I look forward to seeing in real life. Mitsubishi had some ugly new cars. Toyota had a boring new car. Mazda had a Mazda Mazdaspeed Mazda6 which I’m sure was great once you stopped saying the name.