Why Do I Still Go To The Auto Show?

I have been going for a long, long time.  I loved how I could see all these fancy new cars.  Also, I could see the ones that are, shall we say, much more attainable (although I would have to bust my butt and look for a higher-paying job).  I loved getting all the brochures, and I would tell myself that I would lie down and look through all of them and maybe be inspired when the time came to purchase one.  And the bags.  Oh, the bags -- you gotta get one to put all those brochures in, you know?

Well, that was then and this is now.  I went to the auto show yesterday/Saturday, and in keeping with how the trend is going, I stayed there far less than when I did when I first went to the show.  In fact, I looked at my watch when I thought I had seen everything and there was still more than an hour before the Frozen Four Final, for which I decided to stay the whole day and night in downtown to go to our alumni group's bar and watch.  I eventually found stuff to look at -- I went to the classic and antique car rooms, separate from the main room where all the new cars you can buy are -- but things are dramatically different, from both my perspective and the show's.

It's clear to me now that, as an adult, it doesn't really pay to aspire anymore.  There is one thing I have done for some time now: Find the most expensive car in the show that I can get into (that means no show cars, no prototypes, and definitely no classic cars) and take a picture of the sticker price and the front of the car.  I get a kick out of that not because I hope to one day be able to buy it, but just to note the price.  (Aside: The add-ons of nearly all the cars I looked at ballooned the base price of the car to an exorbitant amount.  I cannot believe that the size of those add-ons were typical of previous years.  If not, there's one explanation: That Fucking Guy's dumbass tariffs.)  For the record, a Range Rover clocks in at $158,370.  But beyond that, I did way less getting into cars than I used to when I was young.  Oh, sure, I saw some that I liked.  The new and colorful Volkswagen vans, called the ID Buzz, were a splashy hit, for example.  But all the other two dozen or so cars I checked out were interchangeable to me.  Also, I wouldn't be able to buy any of them.  That's another (sad) similarity.

Parallel to this, the show has changed.  I think it was the pandemic.  The auto show has gotten smaller.  I see fewer brands on the showroom.  The convention center is a huge space, but in the years since (and I really want to say it started in 2022, two years after it was cancelled and a year after it went to the State Fairgrounds), more of the floor was ceded to an area for test-driving cars, which is cool.  But, this year I saw a corner of the center dedicated to jacuzzis.  You can't drive jacuzzis, can you?

But the big difference in the auto show now: No more brochures.  The pandemic accelerated the push to make all papers digital in an effort to cut costs.  I have gotten way fewer brochures since the pandemic and, for the first time ever, yesterday/Saturday I did not pick up one single brochure -- and I did not see a brochure available to be picked up.  The days of bringing home a car-branded bag of pamphlets I probably won't read are now gone.

But hey, at least Toyota is still offering bags.  I filled it with the auto show brochure (which in itself was cut down [and shrunken] to the size of a fold-open pamphlet -- it even had a coupon!) and some salesman's business card.  The salesman wasn't there to give it to me.  No, there was a stand, and in the middle was a pile of business cards, and I took one.  I didn't even look at the cars of the dealership he works for.  I just picked one up so I could throw a second thing in my Toyota bag.

I really am just going to these auto shows now for the bag.  That's the only free thing they're offering ... well, besides fantasies, I guess.  And fantasizing that one day a beautiful car I scoped out at the auto show will wind up on my driveway?  Heh!