AutoPresstige

I would like to make one thing very clear: the show, as a whole, the presentation, and aura is what gets me all riled up. But, there is no better feeling than walking up to COBO’s main entrance where Jefferson “ends,” walking in the door and just smelling hard work, tire bright and leather interior.

This is where I get my “kid in a candy store feeling” and always will. While other shows may be bigger or have Ferrari this and Lamborghini that and exotics that I will never buy because I find owning one pointless, we get to see what the Americans were thinking and the best they can do.

Even though I currently own a Toyota Corolla XRS, I still believe it is American at heart which is why I honestly became connected to it. Yes, it’s got the swoopy Toyota symbol thingy and the Japanese “stigma” of being a foreign car but it was actually assembled in warren with Pontiacs and based on a common design created in part with GM, which had been building the Corolla for the Japanese since the early 90′s … you’re welcome … under the unassumingly, ehh i mean, wonderfully camouflaged Geo Prizm/Metro .

But anyways I digress to back to my point, the aura of seeing an American car, in the greatest automotive city in the world, literally (-ish) where mass produced motorized personal transportation – honestly I don’t know where the bicycle or motorcycle was created and kinda don’t care – but anyways that whole mantra, if you will, is the translated whiff of bubblingly warm chocolate on the stove at your used-to-be local Saunders and Strohs store when you were young.

To honestly have to wait another day or two is killing me inside. I wish I could play hooky and spend the whole day there and forget about responsibilities and the real world. It’s my escape, like for most children, away from everything and allows you to be just that – a child – with the ability to press your face on the window, drool and dream about the slight chance to experience the joy that what you’re looking at can bring you. It’s the idea of bright colors accented by brighter lights and laser light shows that makes the dealership experience just that much better.

Because, let’s be honest, when you get down to what the show really is, it REALLY is just a huge dealership with every car you can imagine. But, I refuse to have it any other way. It works. Wonders, actually.

I can honestly say off the top of my head, as a car guy, I initially only want to see six or seven cars there: the Ford Fusion, GMC Terrain, McLaren MP4-12c, the Dodge Dart, the Lamborghini Reventon and Aventador, and the Toyota/Scion/Subaru/Lexus boxer creation.

And like a dealership, five or so percent of their offering is all they need to get you in the door.

That’s why I anticipate this experience so much. There is always something you forgot about or something you secretly want to get talked into falling in love with that just reverberates through and emanates from you. It really is an experience all should be exposed to because there is something that you will find that will – even if it’s just for a moment – drowns out the thousands of people buzzing around you.

The free swag helps too… but let’s be honest, for $15, that stuff isn’t really free.

But this is my carnival, my escape and my reversion back to childhood where I can “play” aimlessly until my little heart’s content or fall asleep from exhaustion of overexcitement.

I definitely can’t wait …