The Cincinnati Auto Show

I went to the Cincinnati Auto Show this afternoon and took over a hundred pictures with my iPhone.  I decided to go at the last second, so I didn’t have my “real” camera with me.  Some of the pictures turned out better than others.

Here’s some galleries by automaker and I’ll have some comments afterward.

One half of the floor

The guide

General Motors

Lincoln/Mercury

Ford

Honda

Toyota

Dodge

Acura

Lexus

Mercedes

Hyundai

The Rest

My overall impressions?  As to the long term reliability of each car, I obviously have no clue just from looking at the them on the convention floor, but I can give you my honest opinion as to what I thought of the styling and quality of the interiors.

GM has some really nice interiors in its Buick LaCrosse and upcoming Regal.  Also, the Malibu LTZ has to have one of the nicest looking and highest quality interiors available in a mainstream sedan.  With that being said, the Impala is a sea of plastic inside and needs to be put to pasture asap.  No GM car should still have a 4 speed auto.

This is the first time I’ve ever sat in a Toyota.  Daily, we are bombarded with the mantra that American cars are “crap” and Japanese cars are the best thing since sliced bread.  If the interior quality of the Camry is any indication, that is a lot of hype.  The Camry interior was full of hard plastics as I noted in the pictures above.  The door panels were plasticky. Most of the dash was made of hard plastic.  Only the top of the dash was padded.  Interior wise, it was a Japanese Impala!

Tell exactly, how anybody is impressed by hard seats, a hard plastic door panel, and a hard plastic dash?

Chevy’s Malibu or Buick’s LaCrosse have much nicer interiors, which are furnished with abundant soft touch materials.

Detroit is getting a bad rap here.

Honda’s interiors for its Accord lineup was similarly  made of hard plastics in way too many places.  Plus,  its seats were hard and it felt like you were sitting on wooden bleachers. Oh, and the Crosstour literally reminds me of the horrible fastback Olds Cutlass from the late ’70s.  While I’m sure it isn’t the POS that the GM was, my only question is why?

Ford falls somewhere in between the outstanding interiors of the Malibu and LaCrosse and hard plastic interiors of the Camry and Accord.

The Taurus is actually a nice looking, big car.  Twenty cubic feet of trunk space, 250 hp, and decent mileage.  It can be had with cooled and heated seats as well.  Like I said, Ford’s dash had more padded areas than either the Toyota or Honda, but it feel short of GM’s best

That being said, even the premium brands put a lot of hard plastics throughout their interiors.  A good looking interior should be a priority, I would think, for every car company.  One other thing that all the companies could improve as well, is the quality of the carpet in their cars.  The indoor/outdoor stuff that inhabits almost every car is a little embarrassing.

Want to make your car more upscale, spend some time making a plush interior!

Sports car wise, even though I owned and loved an ’87 Camaro, I’d have to say I’d choose an Mustang first, a Challenger second, and wouldn’t even consider the Camaro.

The Camaro is form over function.  There are blind spots galore as window space is minimized, plus the styling, imho, is simply overwrought, whereas the Mustang retains a classic and more svelte form.

The Challenger is a big car as well, but you sit much higher and have a better view of your surroundings.  It probably comes the closest to recapturing the 1960s muscle car look.

Overall, I had a lot of fun looking at cars I can’t afford, but also, I think I stumbled upon a bias against domestic interiors that just doesn’t hold water anymore.

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Tags: Auto Show, Cincinnati, Dodge, GM, Honda, Lincoln, Mercedes, Toyota