Saint Louis Auto Show
The annual Saint Louis Auto Show took the stage once again, at The Dome at America’s Center, January 25 – 28, 2018. Tickets were $11 at the box office or $10 if you bought them online. The show featured over 50 manufacturers, and here are a few highlights from around the world.
Starting off in Japan, the most popular car was definitely the Acura NSX. Acura left the NSX on the show floor, not behind ropes, and allowed people to get up close. While Acura was letting people get up close to the NSX, Toyota wouldn’t let people get close to the Camry, a car they could actually afford. Mitsubishi also had a booth, with approximately 5 vehicles, the most relevant being an yellow Eclipse.
Europe’s most influential Country, Germany didn’t really make an appearance at the auto show this year. German cars were only at three booths, two of which were set up by dealers. Volkswagen had a decently sized area, with nothing really interesting in it. Bommarito Audi had a few cars including a TT RS, and BMW rounded off the pack with nothing really exciting. The Porsche owners club had a more cars than Audi, including a 930 turbo, and a Panamera Turbo. Germany’s top automaker, Mercedes, was nowhere to be found. Italy had about 2 cars there, an Alfa Romeo 4C at a dealer area, and an Aventador at Million Dollar Mile in the dome. Also at MIllion Dollar Mile was a plethora of British cars, including an Aston Martin Vantage, a Rolls Royce, a Bentley Bentayga, and a Lotus Evora. Unsurprisingly, There were no American cars at Million Dollar mile.
American automakers had large areas to show off their cars, taking up the 3 biggest areas besides the go kart track. Fiat-Chrysler Automotive had a large expanse to show off their vehicles, and they showed off everything from the Chrysler Pacifica to the 800 horsepower Dodge Demon that you can’t even take to the drag strip because it’s too dangerous. They also had about 10 dodge rams including a Ram Runner, Dodge’s answer to the Raptor.
All the Jeep dealers had a Wrangler Build-Off, which made up a small part of the show. GM made a good showing including a couple Corvette Z06s, and a couple Camaros. They also had about 10 Silverados and a few Colorado’s, the Silverado’s little brother. GM also had a couple Buicks there, but nobody was really looking at those because they were over at Cadillac looking at better cars. Ford completed the Trio with a large area split into two pieces. The Blue Oval had its entire lineup at the show. Ford was the only american automaker to have single digits of pickup trucks, but if you include vans and commercial vehicles they had about 15 total. Ford had the newest refresh at the show with their controversial new Mustang.
Most of the extra booths were American too. Gateway Motorsports park had a booth full of race cars, including a ford stock car and a dragster. There was a Classic Car Studio that did some crazy stuff to some old cars, including twin turbos among other things on an old Chevy Truck that got slammed. There was also a monster truck, and a dodge viper simulator.
To recount, the most popular car was straight outta 2016, Britain had more cars than Germany with no booths of their own, and Pickup trucks were everywhere.
