Car Shows

By Preston Lerner / Illustration by Sylvia Park



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I gaze at the stylish lines of the new Cadillac CTS sport wagon at the Orange County Auto Show, I hear a voice behind me: “Look! Isn’t that cool? You think we should get one of those?”

Father and son, I think, bonding at an auto show—a car-guy rite of passage from coast to coast, and generation to generation. When I turn around, it’s not quite what I pictured. It’s a father and his 6-year-old son, making the rounds on a Friday afternoon. But it’s the adult who’s jabbering away like a little kid while his towheaded son dutifully listens.

Car shows are like that. They’re fantasies sprung to life, a venue where we can play what-if for a few hours. There’s something universally appealing about all those shiny new toys arranged in crowd-pleasing displays without a legion of salespeople demanding to know what they can do to get you into a car this afternoon. Want to know what the interior of an $80,000 car feels like? Just open the door and find out. “Maybe we should buy two!” a grandmother jokes to her husband from the lavish cockpit of a 510-horsepower Jaguar XFR.

Four decades after the fact, I still remember attending my first car show—accompanied by my father, naturally—and I still remember getting my first look at an exotic Lamborghini Miura. I’d been interested in cars before that. But the Miura, improbably sleek and impossibly low-slung, was the most stunning piece of machinery I’d ever seen. I can date my lifelong love affair with cars from the moment I spotted it in the New York Coliseum.

My ardor for car shows, on the other hand, has long since cooled. As an automotive journalist, I no longer attend shows for funzies. The only ones that interest me now are the Big Four—Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, and Chicago—where automakers introduce new cars. But even then, I go only to the so-called press days, when manufacturers hold news conferences and the public is barred.

Still, I’m curious about the Orange County show even though no new cars are premiering here. And while a few concept vehicles are on hand to create some buzz, the show’s raison d’être is to move sheet-metal. It’s no coincidence that the event is co-sponsored by the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association. Says John Sackrison, co-director of the show: “Auto shows are the most effective form of marketing for people who are in the market now and up to six months out.”

Orange County’s is among the largest of the 80-or-so car shows held annually across the country. (There’s even one in Davenport, Iowa, which is smaller than Fullerton.) Although shows exist primarily to drum up sales, they’re also in the business of business, which is to say that they’ve got to attract enough paying customers to turn a profit. “We’re competing for entertainment dollars,” says John Marriott, senior vice president and general manager of Motor Trend Auto Shows, which has two dozen venues in its portfolio.

The Orange County Auto Show features the usual automotive suspects—the outrageously hedonistic Bugatti Veyron, the traffic-stopping Corvette Stingray concept car, even a few cars that could be test-driven outside the Anaheim Convention Center. But to pump up attendance, the schedule also includes a meet-and-greet session with the Hooters Calendar Girls, the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Orange County Model Search, and mixed martial arts demonstrations culminating in a cage match.

I’m not sure Henry Ford—or my father—would approve. But the promoters must be doing something right. When I arrive at noon, there’s a long line outside the convention center. Once inside, I’m impressed by the show. A couple of high-line automakers (Mercedes-Benz, Porsche) are missing. More surprisingly, so are a few locals (Nissan, Mitsubishi). But just about every other manufacturer is represented, and a handful of booths are selling guns, sunglasses, fight gear and, my personal fave, the ShamWow. (Buy one, get one free!)

In the vast hall, attendance seems light. It is, after all, a Friday afternoon. But I’m betting that the show is far more crowded than, say, South Coast Plaza is right now. And the folks at the Orange County Museum of Art would kill for this turnout. In fact, other than blockbuster shows, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a bigger turnout at any art museum in Southern California.

I’m not suggesting that cars are modern art. Nor am I one of those people who believes that Southern Californians are peculiarly passionate about their cars. For most Americans, an automobile is a form of transportation, a means of getting from here to there quickly and comfortably. But even people who don’t care about cars understand that what they drive is a fundamental part of how they’re perceived by friends, neighbors, and perfect strangers. It’s the face they show the world.

An auto show is a chance to try on a different persona. The grandmother sitting in the driver’s seat of the XFR isn’t going to end up with a pair of Jags in her garage any more than she’s going to stock her closet with Chanel gowns. But you’re never too old to play dress-up.

Preston Lerner is an Orange Coast contributing editor.