Did I tell you how much fun I had at the auto show?
Yes. I went to the auto show.
Without my boys.
With my girl.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thing I was thinking.
“Why am I going to the auto show? I don’t blog about cars. I don’t really know about cars.”
But I drive cars. And I ride in them. And I put my boys in them. So, technically, I’m an expert.
And because I’m an expert, my peeps at GMC invited me to be art of their social media team at the auto show. I was among car enthusiasts, auto bloggers, and other lifestyle bloggers.
Can I tell you that I had a BLAST?!
I am dying to share some of my photos, and I know you’re dying to see them.
And if you’re not, then pretend to be enthused. Ok?
This is Tom Peters. Tom designed the Camaro that you see here. Every curve. Every bump. Every surface.
The new Camaro has a suede interior. Since I haven’t ridden in a Camaro since I was in high school, I can’t tell you if this is a new feature or not, but I can tell you that it’s pretty nice.
You know who this is, right?
Jay Leno has driven almost 10,000 miles with his Chevy Volt. Normally, that’s not a reason to have a party. But the Volt is an electric car. Leno has driven 88 of those 10,500 miles with gas.
I learned a new term at the auto show: hypermiler.
Jay Leno is a hypermiler, as are the guys who drive Volts to work in Detroit during the winter and refuse to turn on the heat in their car, lest run out of electric energy and force the Volt to switch to gas.
Crazy, if you ask me. But kind of cool.
This is a Cadillac concept car called the Ciel. Concept means it’ll never be manufactured like it is, but it’s pretty cool, huh? Definitely not a city car.
The paint job on this Camaro was amazing. Like, “WowHowDoYouGetItSoShiny?” amazing.
The show was a little overwhelming. It was huge. This is part of Chevy’s area. Just part. The big Chevy bowtie on the wall was a television screen. They played commercials and such every once in a while. it was fun.
Another overwhelming (but totally fun) part for this almost stay-at-home-mom? Press conferences.
This was the Cadillac press conference. On the stage, Cadillac introduced their new luxury sedan, the XTS. I’m not a car buff, but I can tell you that some of the features on this car are just COOL. Like automatic breaking and the CUE (Cadillac user experience) interface. If I had to sum up why the auto show was so cool in three minutes, I’d ask you to watch this video.
You just can’t experience the auto show with a post. I’m so thankful to Amy for building up her buff arms holding the camera and taping the XTS reveal. It really is quite an experience.
This is the Chevy press conference that Amy videotaped. Denise, you’ll want to click to 4:40 and watch from there, at the very least :)
Being at the auto show was cool, but even cooler was being able to meet people like Christine Park, who designed the XTS.
Can we take a moment to think about how awesome that is?
She designed a car!
Christine kindly showed Amy and I around the interior of the car. There was a reason for every fabric and material, every stitch and every curve. I had never thought about the person who designs a car before.
As Amy and I were walking around the convention center, we ran across some Hot Wheels cars – life sized ones.
And we took a few minutes to stop by the other car manufacturers. A few of them displayed some fun concept cars, and had some interactive props.
A grilled cheese truck, for instance:
And the fabric covered snowboarding car:
With New Balance wheels,
Room for your boards and SkullCandy speakers that look like headphones,
An iPod docking station (please excuse overexposed photo),
and… a heated footwarmer for the passenger. It is a car designed with snowboarding in mind, after all.
There are just some things you don’t see every day, and this car is one of them.
And one more thing, really quick. I’d hate to leave this out.
The nice people at Porsche were kind enough to give me a tour of their new 911 Carrera.
Knowing I was a “Mommy Blogger,” they wanted to tell me about the features in the new model.
Like room for car seats.
Porsche’s car seats.
You can buy them to fit into the back seat.
Click photo for credit
And there is plenty of trunk space!
Did you know that Porsche cars have their engine in the back and trunk in the front?
Seriously, though, it is a pretty amazing car. If I have an extra $90,000 lying around one day, I’ll totally look at buying one – without the car seats, though. It’ll be all mine.
So, there’s my auto show experience. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Have you ever been to an auto show? Would you ever go to one?
Thank you, once again, to the amazing folks at GMC, who brought me with them and asked nothing of me in return. Every GMC employee that I have met thus far impresses me more than I can say. They are, by far, the high of all my blogging experiences combined.
