2011 Chicago Auto Show

The Chicago Auto Show is the biggest auto exhibit in the US. It’s where car manufacturers exhibit the “2011” versions of their cars, their new concept cars and show off their new technologies that come along with it. It’s a lot different from the auto shows in the Philippines since over there it’s mostly newly painted Japanese cars with big rims and big speakers then there’s a small section to buy different car accessories and those Ambi pur models that my brother oh so love.

We arrived late in the event since we had to go grocery shopping at Costco. One benefit of having cold weather – you can buy a rib eye steak in the morning and keep in the car without it rotting in the evening. In Manila it would have been a pot roast by then.

Before we entered the exhibit, we signed up to test drive the Kia Optima. Joesil drove while Jaye and I rode in the back. An agent from Kia sat up front to make sure we don’t drive to the border or something. Other than the two sunroofs, I really couldn’t see anything special with it. The ride was not that comfortable and it felt like riding a horse on roller blades. What’s to expect? It’s a Kia.



When we entered the exhibit area, we lined up to play games. The first was this game where you toss a sack of beans into a hole 20 feet away. Jaye whiffed on all her three attempts. I got one in thanks to all the years I’ve been tossing my shirts into the hamper. Julius and Joesil also played this hockey game but Jaye and I got impatient and checked out the nearby Dodge exhibit. I guess we realized that we should be checking out cars on a car show.



Dodge featured a bunch of Camaros. Other than the 22 inch wheels they have, they were kinda boring.



Next up was the Kia section which I had to go through because that’s where I saw the garbage bin (oh wait, that was the Kia Soul, my bad). I saw their cool concept van – the KV7 that had comfy seats and a conference room behind. I guess “getting busy in the backseat” has a different meaning here. The van also had cool headlights which was like Geordi La Forge’s visor in Star Trek.




Mazda was next. I looked for an RX-8. Didn’t find one. Skip…

Suzuki featured the Kizashi and they wasted no time comparing theirs with the Lexus cars. The most interesting thing about their exhibit is the Tokyo2LA tour where the Kizashi together with their crappy SUV and not so crappy bike drove from Japan to Los Angeles through Russia and Canada. The actual car was exhibited together with the dirt it accumulated during the travel. You call that dirty? When it drizzles and I drive through EDSA, my car looks exactly like that.




In the Subaru section they had an engine display and Jaye asked me how Continuous Variable Transmission works. I left the area.

The Mitsubishi exhibit was more appealing to Jaye since she’s familiar some of their vehicles. I immediately looked for and Evo (they had one, looked cool) and an Eclipse (they had one, looked crappy).



I’m not familiar with Volvo cars so when we got in the Volvo exhibit, we just looked for the car that Edward Cullen must have driven. By the way, for each exhibit, we’re getting shopping bags – one for each exhibit. I was starting to wonder why there were so many cars in this shopping bag show.

In the Ford exhibit, we checked out the Ford Sync technology where you can perform functions like make calls and control the radio via voice commands. It’s made by Microsoft which means it’s possible that your car hangs in the middle of the freeway then asks for patches to be downloaded first.



Finally, I saw the Prius. I’m thankful that finally we’re getting a “green” car in production… then again, it costs 2.25 million back in Manila :S



Then there was Hyundai and their Picasso inspired concept car, the Curb. Like the Kia, this was the only interesting part and I’m not surprised – Hyundai is a part owner of Kia.




From here we went to the other exhibit where the second part of the exhibit was held. It had spaces for Porsche( very cool), Acura (boring), Mini (predictable), Saab (what the heck is a Saab?), BMW (kinda cool), Infiniti (cool batmobile), Mercedes Benz (they all look the same to me now), Cadillac (worst concept car in my opinion), GMC (trucks, trucks, trucks), Buick (they had the best… shopping bag) and Range Rover (had 1 car in the exhibit).

The Lexus LFA was featured here but instead of women standing beside it and waving, it had a guy in the suit asking the crowd to basically test him if he really memorized all the technical stuff they made him remember.



Ford had this wall climbing area where you go sideways. It says “Explorer Agility Challenge”. I don’t get it.



Last exhibit we went to was Honda and I thought the Civic concept car looked cool (especially since it was wearing sunglasses).



It was a so-so event. I missed the really really cool supercars (I was hoping to see a Bugatti Veyron or a Pagani Zonda) but they had an off-road test track where you can drive Toyota off road vehicles. I guess if you were able to line up and wait for your turn (around 30 minutes) it would have been worth it. I think it was money well spent but I’m not really looking forward for it when it comes around again next year.