To A Life Less Ordinary: Shanghai Auto Show

As you know Ashlee dragged me to the Shanghai Auto Show against my will. I mean why would I of all people want to go to one of the biggest Auto Shows in the world :-).....

I was expecting the show to be quite large but after attending the LA Auto Show for the past 8 years or so I didn't think that it was going to be any bigger. Boy was I wrong. The show made the LA Auto Show seem like a routine trip to a auto mall. The Shanghai show had every US manufacturer, every European manufacturer, every Asian manufacturer, and every exotic company.

Chris, Ashlee and I made our way to the Auto Show in a taxi, definitely the scariest taxi ride I have been on in my life. I thought the taxis in Hangzhou were crazy... The traffic to get to the Auto Show was crazy and the driver informed Chris that it was never like this and it was

being caused by the show. We finally made our way to the entrance of the show and purchased our tickets. The tickets cost 100RMB or about 15 dollars, about the same price as the LA Auto Show.

The first exhibition hall that we entered was for the Chinese manufacturers and it was seriously out of control. Every manufacturer had music blaring and workers yelling stuff into megaphones. It was like a giant competition to get people to your booth to see your cars. The place was also jammed packed with people, and the Chinese aren't know for being the most polite people when it comes to crowded situations... Needless to say we made our way out of that hall quite quickly.

When we entered the next hall it became apparent to me that the majority of the people at the Auto Show did not come to look at the cars...they were there to take picture of the various models that were posing in front of the cars... The Chinese also do not mess around with the little point and shoot digital cameras that us Americans love so much. Probably 80% of the people there are carrying around thousands of dollars in digital SLR's and equipment.

One of the first non-Chinese manufacturers that we encountered was Volkswagen. There are a crazy amount of VW's in China and the display at the show was quite impressive as well as depressing. They had on display many of the models that we can not get in the US. The Scirocco (in green below), the R36 Passat, and a car we used to have the Phaeton. Needless to say I probably told Ashlee more about these cars then she ever wanted to hear.

After walking through 5 or 6 halls we thought that we had seen most of the show. Mercedes had an amazing display that was actually multilevel in which you walked up this winding ramp that had their cars on display. Mini, as usual, had a very creative display and they were even nice enough to have a birthday sign for me!

We then looked at the guide for the show and realized that we had only completed walking through about half of the show. So Ashlee dragged Chris and I to see the rest of the show..wait...that might be the other way around... It was worth the extra few hours of walking as we made it to the hall that had most of the exotics cars. Every exotic brand was there in full force which makes you realize how much disposable income the Chinese are beginning to accumulate. In Hangzhou you usually see one exotic car a day if not several more. I have seen Audi R8s, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Maybachs, and the list goes on.