Nobody stays the same forever. It seems impossible to believe that I used to attend the NAIAS every year at the Charity Preview, spending $800 so I could eagerly discuss my next $100,000 German ooober-mobile purchase with a variety of vacant-eyed, soulless salesmen. No more. Nowadays I travel on foot and by foot it?s a slow climb, but I?m good at being uncomfortable so I can?t stop changing all the time.
TTAC is changing as well. For the first time, we are going to bring you the Detroit show as it happens. We will have a representative at each and every press conference, including ? ooh! the scandal! ? a well-known autojournalist from another firm publishing under a nom de plume. We will be reporting on the outrageous journo parties and perks. If there?s enough Ketel One in my system at the time, we may try a brute-force Panther invasion of Porsche?s ?summer bar-be-que? media handjob in Greektown Monday night.
I?m excited. We are excited. It?s our goal to bring you the best coverage yet. If you are so inclined, click the jump to read a few reasons why it?s difficult for even the most jaded among us to be truly cynical about the stationary trainwreck known as the North American International Auto Show.
Start with the lights. They are everywhere, burning like a constellation of second-class suns. Sometimes literally; it?s not quite an auto show if something doesn?t catch on fire somewhere. Quick-build construction, frozen-fingered stagehands, and million-watt illumination can be a dangerous combination. The entire auto show floor is lit well enough that only the most hardcore photographers demand additional lighting. Since the ratio of photographers to writers at Detroit is something like 100 to 1, that means the flashes are always popping. It?s life in a fishbowl.
Celebrity. All those famous old men, all the Pieches, Lutzes, Doctors Zee ? they are all there. Some of them are ensconced behind a layer of security, others roam the floor, outpacing their handlers. The German press conferences always have some face time for the executives, who appear smiling on Steadicam in their obnoxious square-toed shoes and shock-white full heads of hair. Then you have the quick glimpses. Are you actually standing next to Chris Bangle? Roger Penske? Childhood heroes and billionaire manipulators alike pop up out of nowhere after the last conference of the day, battered but unbowed in majestic navy blue winter dress coats and rushing for a courtesy car.
Cars. All gorgeous, polished to perfection, brand-new, on white floors. The acknowledged evils of our automotive culture are nowhere to be found. There is only the joyful scent of leather, plastics, headliner glue. Outside, dirty dented taxis plow through oil-blackened snow, but inside, the 2012 and 2013 models will be fixed forever, white, clean, and neat. Anything is possible. Reliability, total cost of ownership, a frightening night for a single mother and her two children by the side of a cold freeway twelve years from now when the lowest-cost-sourced waterpump fails. None of that seems to matter when the music plays, the free drinks circulate, and the press kits have the creamy paper and considered weight of a Mailer first printing.
Women. Yes, the boothbabes are majestic, icy, and sexy, but more than that I appreciate the Argentinian correspondent gorgeously emoting into her GSM phone, the glimpse of a tramp stamp in a field of downy blonde as a tanned California photographer leans for the difficult brake-caliper shot, the chisel-cheekboned native-Michigan PR girl effortlessly reciting the talking points for the thousandth time and smiling through it. It?s commerce, promotion, money changing hands in untold amounts. Sexy.
Friends. People you haven?t seen in weeks, months, years. Some of them are happy to catch your eye. Others are a mission from God, Ray Wert, or some unholy combination of the two. The observations are quick, cynical, humorous. Will you see that person at a party later? Maybe, or maybe it will be at the next press event, or maybe they will fall out of the business forever. We are chewed up and spit out by the machine.
Competition. All the journalists you?ve called out. Most of them will lower their eyes. Some will whisper to their friends. None of them will ever stand still and personally take the beating you intend to give the entire corrupt, fucked-up business. The PR people who pretend you aren?t standing next to them or turn up the wattage in their smile to match the hatred they have. They will be there long after you are gone, because they intend to sell themselves first and they obtained a fair price.
Sentiment. Hustling across the broad expanse, you will see her. She will look up and see you. The hurt, the mistakes, the unreturned emails, the times you put the phone back in your pocket when you saw her name on the screen, the night you lay drunk in a Village bar because you knew she was hooking up somewhere else and it was too late to do anything about it. She won?t smile, but you have to. That?s the business. Plus, my God, look at her friend.
You won?t find TTAC at the ?Volt Lounge? this year, but if you want to meet and greet our team, drop us a line, okay? Enjoy the coverage.
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