We went last week to the Frankfurt car show. Lotsa people, lotsa cars, old and new, the usual, you know. I will try not to bore you with the run-of-the-mill account of an auto show, I will only tell you what I remember about it, good and bad.
First of all, it's HUGE. You can get blisters walking around cars. Which I find ironic. Walking and cars in the same sentence.
Compared to the Geneva one, is like an melon and an apple put together. The same might be only the number of people of square metre. The good thing is that some stands really stood out. (Oh, how I love me puns!)
The best of them (and quoting our friend Fred from Lyon, çà m'arrache la tête de l'dire) was the BWM stand. Enormous. They had a small circuit inside it! That big it was.
A circuit where you could have a go with one of the beemers. And they had a couple of beautiful, dressed and decent girls standing by their concept car.
Tasteful and interesting. BMW is not my car of choice, but they really did win the "best in show" stand.
Then (almost a tie, they only lost to BMW 'cause of the circuit thing) it was the Renault stand. Most precisely their concept cars stand. Which was spacious, with pastel colours like aqua and pistachio-green, and the cars were all fluffed up and girlish. Don't know about the rest, but I, for one, liked it. It was the first time when a car showed its gender (in most languages, car is feminine, in case I am being too obscure). There, see?
Et bon, çà va, toi...And talking about gendered cars, what about this Citroen?
Oh, cheri, comme je t'attends, oh, la, la...The filtered look between luscious lashes, the rounded little mouth, it is definitely a she. No doubt about it.
To wrap up the French, Peugeot had a very interesting water display.
A car show is not only an occasion to see all cars together (more or less), but to see cars that you don't usually see. Like Brabus, the Mercedes tuning company. Had no idea who they were anyway, but I found it impressive. Now, THAT's a German car, Clarkson, don't you agree?
Or the British red Vantage. V 12. Gorgeous. The people behind it were crowding to get inside a closed set to see a new Aston Martin. Or whatever, I don't really know, I refused to queue, even for an Aston.
Talking about queuing, those airheads at Jaguar pulled the same trick as they did in Geneva. Namely, they closed down their stand, and locked up their cars. You could not get closer to any of the Jags, you had to stand in line to be allowed to enter the exclusive Jag space. They got another "sod off" from us, thankyouverymuch. I do not understand this attitude, you could go touch an Aston, but not a Jag, come effing on! The cars are beautiful, owning a Jag makes you instantly 10 cm taller, but I could not stand their idea of stand. There.
(imagine a picture with the logo and only JAGU in the background;
that is the only picture of Jaguar from Frankfurt, but since the blogspot image uploader is weird, I am not willing to go through all the hoops again just for that)
Moving on. Still an enclosed space to display the cars, only that the cars were very close to the enclosure and you know, a Maseratti is not a Jag. By stretching a bit (more), I could get 10 cm taller (without high heels, but with serious loans) this lifetime. Not the same with a Maserati.
Incidentally, I may have not told you yet, and this is the best occasion ever, to tell you a bit of trivia about my home town. There, some 120 km away from Bucharest, there was a pair of brothers whose father was a true petrolhead. So much that he named his sons... Maserati and (what else?!) Ferrari. No, I am not kidding. They were famous when I was in high school. Haven't heard anything about them in more than a decade. So no, I have no idea if they had little Porsches of their own.
And then, there was... rghini. Lambo-rghini. Neither shaken, nor stirred. I still wonder how this car did not get to be James Bond's. The only explanation I have is that it is not British.
We got to say "Hi" to a movie star. Hi, Shelby. You were the star in Gone in 60 seconds, not Nick Cage, not even Ange.
Last, but not least, the reason for which we drove to Frankfurt.
Which Scandinavian Experience could mean this:
Oy, where IS the steering wheel anyway?!
Or the fluid lines of the new Volvo S60:
But no, Scandinavian for us is...
The stand was more sparkly than the one they had in Geneva.
And I must say here that we only went because we were sent tickets to go see...
And here is the new 9-5.
I like the new rear. (I checked with the usual suspect and I am not wrong, this is indeed the new rear of the new 9-5. If you find any inadvertence is only due to the fact the hubs was not at home to double check.)
So, there it is. This is what we did last Tuesday. More photos, in case you want to see more cars, can be found on the flickr account.
For now, toodiloo.
To wrap up the French, Peugeot had a very interesting water display.
A car show is not only an occasion to see all cars together (more or less), but to see cars that you don't usually see. Like Brabus, the Mercedes tuning company. Had no idea who they were anyway, but I found it impressive. Now, THAT's a German car, Clarkson, don't you agree?
Or the British red Vantage. V 12. Gorgeous. The people behind it were crowding to get inside a closed set to see a new Aston Martin. Or whatever, I don't really know, I refused to queue, even for an Aston.
Talking about queuing, those airheads at Jaguar pulled the same trick as they did in Geneva. Namely, they closed down their stand, and locked up their cars. You could not get closer to any of the Jags, you had to stand in line to be allowed to enter the exclusive Jag space. They got another "sod off" from us, thankyouverymuch. I do not understand this attitude, you could go touch an Aston, but not a Jag, come effing on! The cars are beautiful, owning a Jag makes you instantly 10 cm taller, but I could not stand their idea of stand. There.
(imagine a picture with the logo and only JAGU in the background;
that is the only picture of Jaguar from Frankfurt, but since the blogspot image uploader is weird, I am not willing to go through all the hoops again just for that)
Moving on. Still an enclosed space to display the cars, only that the cars were very close to the enclosure and you know, a Maseratti is not a Jag. By stretching a bit (more), I could get 10 cm taller (without high heels, but with serious loans) this lifetime. Not the same with a Maserati.
Incidentally, I may have not told you yet, and this is the best occasion ever, to tell you a bit of trivia about my home town. There, some 120 km away from Bucharest, there was a pair of brothers whose father was a true petrolhead. So much that he named his sons... Maserati and (what else?!) Ferrari. No, I am not kidding. They were famous when I was in high school. Haven't heard anything about them in more than a decade. So no, I have no idea if they had little Porsches of their own.
And then, there was... rghini. Lambo-rghini. Neither shaken, nor stirred. I still wonder how this car did not get to be James Bond's. The only explanation I have is that it is not British.
We got to say "Hi" to a movie star. Hi, Shelby. You were the star in Gone in 60 seconds, not Nick Cage, not even Ange.
Last, but not least, the reason for which we drove to Frankfurt.
Which Scandinavian Experience could mean this:
Oy, where IS the steering wheel anyway?!Or the fluid lines of the new Volvo S60:
The stand was more sparkly than the one they had in Geneva.
And I must say here that we only went because we were sent tickets to go see...
And here is the new 9-5.
I like the new rear. (I checked with the usual suspect and I am not wrong, this is indeed the new rear of the new 9-5. If you find any inadvertence is only due to the fact the hubs was not at home to double check.)
So, there it is. This is what we did last Tuesday. More photos, in case you want to see more cars, can be found on the flickr account.
For now, toodiloo.
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