The Auto Show

There’s no charge to get in, I get fed and I always get free stuff when I’m there. And yet the love affair between me and the Auto Show appears to be fading.

I go to Media Day every year, and while there have been moments – I met Carroll Shelby one year – it’s become more mundane with each passing year.  I love beautiful cars, but after the first dozen or so Aston Martins, Jaguars, Ferraris and Corvettes, how many do I need to see? I love beautiful women, but after the first seven or so dozen beautiful models, how many of them do I need?

Maybe eight or so dozen models, but you get my point.

I even saw a Rolls-Royce I didn’t like. A Rolls! And it was ugly! What happened to me?

The day started off well enough. A pleasant ride on the GO to Union, followed by a hike on the Skywalk to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre that got me to the show in plenty of time, without taxing my tender shins unduly.

Once inside and all credentialed-up, my goals are simple:  get to the General Motors exhibit and get a GM story (‘cause all we care about in Durham Region is GM stories); get the free lunch, and get as many manufacturers data sticks as possible.

I found the big boss straight off – Kevin Williams, the President of GM Canada – and worked a story out of him on what the company is going to do about the void at the Oshawa plant when the Camaro leaves in 2016. I’d like to tell you what he said, but some models walked by just then so I wasn’t really listening. Still, once I go over my notes I’m sure I’ll have something for the magazine.

Then I did the walkabout, checking out the new models and scooping up USBs – I scored an even dozen, because you can never have enough data sticks – before arriving back where I started in time for lunch. I saw some of the world’s most beautiful cars along the way, including a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, an Aston Martin Vanquish and an Alpha Romeo 8C (the sexiest cars at the show, in my opinion), and I saw more of those beautiful models, all getting ready for the big reveal at the press conferences to follow.

And I was getting bored.  One car was starting to look the same as the last, and the models were starting to show that vacant, slightly pissed off look they get when they’ve been standing around trying to look pretty for too long.

And my shin was getting sore.

I sucked it up and forced myself to stuff my face at the buffet table – and ran into my old boss Dan (the Gas Man) – before heading over to the Cadillac booth to hear Williams speak one more time. And then it was time to get out of there.

The walk back to Union seemed longer the second time (I occupied my mind with thoughts of a Jaguar F-Type – I want – and the Rolls-Royce Phantom – shockingly ugly) before I finally arrived at the terminal, just in time to see the message that my train was now boarding.

I hurried my sore shins up the stairs to the tracks, only to see my train slowly pull away just as I got there. The next train wouldn’t arrive for another hour. Of course.

The message I’m getting is you can only stand so much beauty in one day before life kicks you in the ass. Or in my case, the shins.