We arrived at the media center in the  Jacob Javits Convention Center just in time to see the last Danish disappear.  Could this be an omen of things to come?  Thankfully there was plenty of coffee and tea to assist in the pondering of this.  After getting vetted and badged we made our way into the upper level of the show just in time for the Bentley press conference. 

On the way there I was momentarily distracted by a trio of shiny Ferrari’s.  I was further distracted by the cool lines of a Maserati. Then, just a few yards away, a shiny Ford GT, slowly whirled.  This was going to be a tough place for the easily distracted. 

Next to the GT was a Cobra and then a Shelby Mustang.  Ern managed to grab the attention of the first of what would become a mind numbing array of blonde marketing people to see if he could sit in the GT.  Not being able to make decisions at that level (another theme of the day) Ern was forced to chase one of the Ford executives almost out of the building before finding out that the GT was only the shell of a car, the imitation seats having been nearly destroyed the previous day by the press, most likely the Danish stealers of earlier in the day. 

All was not lost however as, distracted once again by shiny Jaguars this time, I discovered the breakfast buffet.  I relayed the news to Ern and a few muffins, some nice fruit and an English Tea (and Cappuccino for Ern) later we were off once more.  Food called to us.  Suzuki was throwing a lunch.  Unfortunately, they wanted you to sit through their press conference first.  It was a nice press conference,  There was even a Suzuki song, sung mostly to Billy Joel tunes, extolling the new release of their Forenza wagon. Ern continued to scare me by agreeing with the head of Suzuki Sales that wagons were cool, and saying he couldn't wait to test drive one.  After the press conference the press was on—the lunch table that is, and Ern and I couldn’t manage to force our way between the starving masses of the fourth estate. 

There was only one thing to do.  Go hunting concept cars.  We found the Toyota.  We marveled at the Nissan and even goggled the Lexus.  They were all silver.  This would not be bad but they were all on silver displays as well which sometimes made it difficult to discern where the car started and the display ended.  Maybe camouflage for the new urban family.  We needed answers and only had blonde marketing women to ask.  We were told we’d be called when the appropriate people arrived.  (The notable exception to this was in the Chevrolet area, where a tall, attractive blonde reeled off stats, demographics and technical details with the sort of familiarity usually associated with folks who've spent too much time with their baseball cards. - Ern) (photo: Toyota Triathalon Concept car and gratuitous blond)

On we went to Mercedes where we marveled at one of the snappiest sports cars in production, the SLR.  Ern wanted to sit in it.  We were directed by the blonde marketing woman to a back room which, while it did not contain the individual we needed, did contain lunch.  I ate while Ern chatted up the blonde (this time male) marketing person.  We got a call from Nissan to come back quick while their Italian concept car designed was there and he would talk to us.  We rushed back.  We learned a new word, ecoboomer, which, we were told had been around the block a few times and referred to the children of baby boomers.  We remain skeptical about this. 

Ern got to sit in the concept car and managed not to ruin the seat too bad while I tried to figure out how they got the tire pattern on.  We then went to look at the Honda concept car.  It was silver and kind of round.  They also had an alternative fuel vehicle using hydrogen, capacitors and fuel cells.  We got to talk to one of the designers.  He could only answer every other of our questions as we kept asking about classified areas.  I smelled cookies.  The smell was coming from BMW where we looked at all of their silver cars and then asked the blonde marketing women about racing.  She rushed off to find a man.  We got to eat cookies and have more tea and coffee.  We wound our way back through Acura, Dodge, Porsche, Pontiac, Buick, Volkswagen and Audi, marveling at all the concept cars, all of which were silver and pretty round.  Maybe they had made a rule or maybe the industry just thought that people in New York liked the color silver. 

I then dragged Ern off to look at the Hummers, which were showcasing two new models, the smaller, more petite, appropriately colored lady Hummer and the Hummer concept vehicle which combined an  internal combustion engine with a small nuclear reactor.  We soon found ourselves in front of the Morgan Motor Company and their concept roadster that was Blue but had just been painted Silver.  They couldn’t tell us why.  The car cost $95,000 and has a BMW racing engine. 

Our next destination was the Aston Martin booth and the Bond, James Bond car, the Vanquish.  Ern sat in it.  I sat in it.  We took pictures and agreed that if we could own one car from the show, the Vaquish was a contender.  They dusted the car after we got out, but since they didn't let us drink tea in the car they didn't have to take out the removable cupholder to clean it.  On our way out we passed the Volvos and the YCC which was the car designed by woman for woman.  Ern got into a long discussion with the design head about how he thought it was really a car aimed at selfish professionals of either gender that didn't like children, while I marveled at the silverness of it, at least until I was distracted by a blonde (At least Volvo has an excuse for this) marketing woman standing by the Lego Volvo SUV.  Yes, it took a long time to make.  Yes, it was glued together.  Yes, there was interior work but you had to crawl into it from underneath.  No, I was not allowed to do that.  No, it was not Volvo engineers who did this but a group that builds things out of legos for a living. 

We saw more things of course, then we were off, out into the wilds of New York City, where nary a silver car was seen, the majority obviously in fear of being captured and sent to wherever the auto show wranglers head next.