Out of the Darkness

I think it's safe to say that the COVID pandemic is over, at least as far as the American Northeast is concerned.  The daytime high temperatures of late have been 25 degrees above normal with temperatures pushing 90 degrees, and given how respiratory viruses wilt and wither in warm air, I can honestly say that the heat has disinfected my area from COVID until at least December.  And when it returns, it really will be "just the flu."

As it turns out, the timing is perfect.  The New York Auto Show is in full swing, as it is every Easter Week (well, except for 2020 and 2021. of course), and, despite the smaller, more low-key nature of this year's show, I will be going tomorrow.  I just have to get out of the house - and return to Manhattan for the first time in nearly four years.  I will likely take less time a tthe auto show than I did in 2019, but that's fine - I can always check out Hudson Yards nearby, a place I have heard about but have not seen in person.  (I understand it's like Battery Park City on steroids.)  Given the way auto shows have been evolving (or devolving) lately, though, I think this may be the last auto show I go to for a long time.    

Also, NJ Transit has, for the time being, replaced DeCamp bus service with buses that run only at peak hours on weekdays, so at least there's' that.  And I can always drive to a nearby town to catch the train for Manhattan when I want to go into the city on a Saturday or Sunday or for an evening event.  As fate would have it, there is an evening event in New York I'm attending next Friday, April 21 - and you'll know more about that afterwards.

I have been under duress and in a deep funk since the March 2020 pandemic shutdown, but now, with these two excursions to New York City coming up, it seems things are finally turning around for me. 

Auto Show Blues - 2021 Edition

In New York City, Easter usually signals the arrival of the annual international auto show, as it has since 1987, when its organizers began holding it at the then-new Jacob Javits Convention Center on the west side of Manhattan.  But it was postponed, then canceled, for 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, and now it's being held in late August this year with the understanding that the pandemic won't end soon enough for staging it during Easter Week.  Heck, late August may be too soon.

At least there's a chance that the New York International Auto Show may be held this summer.  The Geneva show, usually held in March and canceled at the last minute for 2020, was canceled for 2021 as far back as this past June.  Going to a European auto show - nay, just going to Europe, period - has been on my bucket list, but it's become difficult if not impossible to hold an auto show anywhere on the planet when to do so would cause a lot of people to kick the bucket prematurely.  And I don't even expect to go to the auto show in New York this summer, either - mainly because the bus line to Manhattan that serves my town (which has no rail service) has shut down indefinitely and does not appear to have a plan to restart any time soon.     

It's gotten to the point where I don't really miss the auto show anymore.  Many of the brands that pulled out of the 2020 New York show even before the pandemic began will likely skip the 2021 event, assuming it takes place, and most of the cars I would see there are likely to be sport utility vehicles, so predominant are they in the U.S. motor vehicle market.  If I want to see the upcoming eighth-generation Golf GTI so badly, I can always see it at my VW dealer when I go back for maintenance on my Mark 6 Golf after the Mark 8 GTI's U.S. introduction.  The reasons for going to an auto show are few for me now, and those few reasons aren't worth it.  There is no reason for me to hang out at the Ford display at the auto show, for example, as there won't be a single sedan or hatchback to check out there.

So, it looks like my auto show going is over, and that will be the case even after the pandemic is over. 

Unless, of course, I make it to Geneva in 2022 or Munich in 2023.  Those exhibitions are still on for now, and I might make it overseas - at last - by then. But if all I'd see in New York are SUVs, then who cares about that?  

Auto Show Blues, Part Four

Forget the 2020 New York International Auto Show.

After postponing it from Easter Week to the week before Labor Day due to COVID-19, the organizers of the auto show have decided to just plain cancel it altogether, saying that they could not guarantee people's safety by holding the show in the middle of the pandemic despite the fact that New York and neighboring New Jersey have the virus under control.  Because who knows what it will be like at the end of August. Also, many people at the show would be from Michigan, a state that's still trying to slow the spread of the virus.  It's amazing that, apart from Hitler, nothing could stop the New York Auto Show before.  The Persian Gulf War didn't stop it.  The aftermath of 9/11 didn't stop it.  But a microscopic spiked ball of pathogen matter did.

Even without the pandemic, the 2020 New York Auto Show was still going to be a bummer.  Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen's Audi luxury brand both pulled out of the show even before the virus made the jump from China to the Western world, and BMW, having skipped the 2019 New York Auto Show, was planning to eschew the 2020 show as well.  True, Volkswagen was committed to the show, and it even planned to debut the ID.4 electric crossover in New York this year, but with Volkswagen Americanizing its lineup to cater to the ongoing monster wagon craze, I am certain that VW's display would have sucked, especially given the lack of attention given to anyone still interested in the Golf and given the fact that an all-new GTI (the base model appears to be on the chopping block for American VW dealers, a decision I'm still protesting against on my Mark 8 Golf blog) won't come out until September 2021.   

And because of the monster wagon craze, that's pretty much all you'd see at the displays from most of the domestic brands, except for pickup trucks.  The Asian brands still have hatchbacks and sedans - real cars.  And even though some of the vehicles that come out of Detroit are cars in the strictest sense of the word, let's face it.  After everything I've just said, is it really worth going to an auto show if all you're interested in is the new mid-engine Corvette?

The 2021 New York Auto Show is still on for Easter Week of next year, the same time it's always been since it moved in 1987 to the Jacob Javits Convention Center (which was turned into a COVID field hospital this past April, when the auto show would have taken place), but if going there means keeping six feet apart from people and wearing a face covering and not seeing the big German marques, I want nothing to do with it.  The pullout by Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW are an indication that the auto show isn't what it used to be, as more auto manufacturers find new, more technologically savvy ways to market their products, and big exhibitions don't matter so much, so why bother with any of that?  The pandemic accelerated an already ongoing trend against the traditional auto show, which means I'd better not look forward to going to an auto show in Geneva or Munich - both of which were on my bucket list - after the pandemic is over.  But then, so what?  The old days and old ways of international auto shows are gone.

Auto Show Blues, Part Three

Forget Frankfurt.

Remember when I said I hoped to go the auto show at Frankfurt if it was the last thing I did?  Yeah, about that . . ..  The German International Automobile Show, as the auto show in Frankfurt is called, will not be held in Frankfurt in 2021.  Germany's national automobile association awarded the show for 2021 to Munich instead. Munich (shown above) was chosen in part because it has a good reputation for organizing major events like Oktoberfest.  And while this is in some ways a good deal, considering the Bavarian capital's history and its own automotive heritage (the Bavarian Motor Works, which we all know as BMW, is located there), the show will take on a less traditional theme, looking at newfangled mobility solutions that don't necessarily involve cars and also emphasizing the concept of the digitally connected "smart" city.  It will be less like the Frankfurt shows of yore and be more like a cross between an auto show and the South by Southwest Festival in Austin (canceled this year because of coronavirus, of course).  Anyone expecting a grand auto salon like the Frankfurt shows of yore may be disappointed.

Yeah, well, to quote that great poet David Gates, it don't matter to me.  I'm looking at a future that increasingly appears to exclude foreign travel, and not just because of the coronavirus.  I simply might not be able to spare the time or have the money.  I actually began to look at going sometime last year until an unexpected disruption to my personal life (which I won't discuss here because it's, well, personal), and quite frankly, I think the year 2019 was my last chance of traveling anywhere outside North America.  I think I'll go to the Jersey Shore this summer and look out the ocean in the direction of Portugal, which is due east of New Jersey, and wonder what the other side is like, just like I did when I was a kid.

And if I see any new cars on display this year, it'll probably be at my dealership while I'm waiting for my car to be serviced.

Oh yeah, more good news: Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are all skipping the 2020 New York Auto Show, citing the great expense involved.  All of these announcements were made before the coronavirus got out of hand.  Among German automakers, that only leaves Porsche showing cars I can't get into and Volkswagen showing cars I can see at my dealer plus a new electric crossover I don't care about!  Why should I even want to go this year at this point?  Call this show "Manhattangrad," as in Stalingrad, seeing how the Germans have retreated from it.