All Cars, All the Time

San Francisco Auto Show Coverage


I made a visit to the San Francisco Auto Show last night. After a quick dinner at the Metreon, we skipped on over to Moscone Center. As I had hoped, the Tuesday evening crowd was pretty light. Folks weren't waiting long to sit in cars, with the only real lineup being at hot cars like the Solstice. The SF show doesn't have a lot of fancy displays, pretty much everything is rolled in with a few highlights on turntables. If you want glitz, you've gotta head somewhere like Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. Below is my account of event. It's very stream of consciousness.

I started off at the Pontiac stand. Since I've already driven the Solstice, I only stopped to take a look a the G6 Coupe. I like overall shape of the car, much more so than something like the Monte Carlo. The interior isn't a bad place to hang out, but it's not up to rivals' in terms of touch and feel. I've just about had it with GM putting plastic blanks in the A pillars when you don't buy the side impact package. #1 Why aren't the side curtain bags standard? #2 If you are going to make it an option, then make two different trim pieces: one with the badge and one that doesn't have a chunk cut out of it. Grrr. I don't know what that bothers me so much, but it does. On to Buick and a wait to sit in the Lucerne all because some guy is trying to make time with the Buick rep. C'mon! I waited for five minutes before giving up and coming back later. If you see people waiting to check out a car, take you time to get a sense of the interior but don't just sit in the damn car and talk all day long. That's rude! Saturn had the Sky and Aura concept on display, but no touching! Saturn needs these products on the lot ASAP. Saab did not have the restyled 9-5 on display. Very disappointing. The car is supposed to make it to dealers by December, so what's the delay? Saab did have several Sportcombi's on display. The hatch area of the wagon is very nicely finished, with a big subwoofer fitted into the spare tire. I went to check out the new 2007 Yukon at the GMC display and as I was standing there the product rep jumped up on stage, put on his microphone, and started talking...to me. I looked around and there was no one within earshot as my wife had scurried off once she say what was happening. Crap. Now I'm stuck. I guess I could have walked off, but it seemed rude as he tried to keep eye contact. I guess they teach that sort of thing. Anyways, after a few minutes the rep spotted some other people walking by and tried his little eye contact trick with them. He tried to play us both, but while his eyes were bouncing around I was able to escape. As soon as I walked away he ended his presentation. Why not just ask folks if they have questions? Maybe he has to do so many demos per hour or something. We zipped through the Hummer and Chevrolet stands and stopped at Audi to check out the A3/A4/A6. I really like the idea of the A3, but when I sat in the A3 and then sat in the A4 I couldn't help but think the A4 was worth the extra money. Certainly the A3 is a smaller package and quite trick with the 2.0t and the DSG, but the interior is worlds apart from the rest of the line. Zipping again through BMW, Scion, and Mini we arrived at Lexus. The new IS is great! I love the gauges on that car! I think the IS is the best looking of the bunch right now. The car is definitely bigger than the outgoing model, but she's still a bit tight. I guess I'm a GS guy with an IS budget (although the IS can skyrocket in price if you get trigger happy with the options). On through Porsche and Toyota, stopping to look at the Avalon--that car is BIG! Honestly, the Avalon is a pretty nice piece, especially for the price. I liked that the bin in the driver's door tilted out, that's a great feature! We zoomed through the Acura/Honda pavilion. The Civic dash is something to behold. With the aggressive rake of the windshield, you've got VW Beetle style real estate on the dash--that's a lot of plastic! Honda tries to conceal this fact with a bilevel instrument panel, but that can only do so much. I'd have to test drive the setup to form a real opinion on it, though. On through Land Rover, Volvo, and stopping at Volkswagen. The Passat's on display didn't have the wood trim, so I think they looked rather stark. It's a nice interior on the car, but it just doesn't stand out like VW's used to do--the other manufacturers' are catching up. Speaking of catching up, we dropped by Infiniti next. The M looks great! I love the rosewood interior trim. Jaguar was next and the new XK was on display. The car looks good, but I'm a bit troubled by the front end. Some people say Taurus and I can see where they get that. To me it just doesn't look "gorgeous." A quick sit in the Mazda 5 revealed a fairly roomy car in a small package. Mileage isn't much better than a regular minivan, but the smaller dimensions would help in a crowded city. On through Ford stopped at the Explorer to see what the whole fuss is with the door grab handle. Doesn't seem that awkward to me. A quick check of the Fusion/Zephr/Milan crowd shows a car company that is trying. The interior is passable, much better than previous attempts. Some trim pieces did seem flimsy and there were a few pieces missing--like a cover for the wire going to the rear view mirror. I couldn't decide if the piece was removed or never there. Granted, you don't notice it right away, but having this wavy cable leading down to the mirror looks unfinished. The cable was black, but it looked rather naked. A cover should be placed over it. The Suzuki Grand Vitara looks sharp, but when closing the rear doors they seemed amazingly light. Is there no crash protection at all inside them? Subaru had the honor of "hottest product rep" and quite a few folks were crawling over the Tribeca. It was hard to determine if they were more interested in crawling over the rep or the car. Another Tribeca off in the corner sat all alone, so I think some of the interest in the car was a false positive. Zig zagging through Mitsubishi, Nissan, Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep. Why does Dodge still have the smart roadster based Slingshot still on display? Doesn't that seem odd to you? Walking past Mercedes and Hyundai. The Azera was on display, but no touching. The interior looks pretty good and I like the exterior's swoopy flanks. Zipping through Toyota and on to Zap. Much bigger crowd at Zap this year. Last year Zap looked rather forlorn, but they were doing alright this year--especially for a slow night. The OBVIO, Zebra, smart, and all the scooters were there. My beef with Zap is that they are great at generating buzz, but woeful when it comes to delivering on promises. I'd be very wary of buying anything from them. Up in the exotics section, the big highlight was the fact that you could actually sit in the Lotus Elise! It's a real challenge to get into the tub, but fun none the less.

That wraps up this year's coverage of the SF Autoshow. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!