Tuesday, 1500h, downtown LA
First up, hello from LA. Second? Sorry.
Call it a pre-emptive apology because if you don't like Porsches best look away now as we're going to be talking about them a lot here over the coming days. Those of specific prejudice against car companies based in Stuttgart are doubly knackered too because if I'm not going to be prattling on about Porsches I'll probably be wittering about Mercs.
All will become clear on this but an undeserving chauffeur-driven ride in an S-Class to Heathrow was about as pleasant as you can make the M25 at 7am on a weekday morning. 11 hours and a lot of typing later I've emerged blinking into the Californian sunshine, ready to switch brands to Mercedes' Swabian neighbours Porsche.
There are two strands to what's headed your way. First is the bit that pays the bills, or at least the flight out here. And that's the Macan, the unveiling for which I'll be attending later this evening. I've been reading the press pack, drawing flow charts to navigate the spec line-up and writing our unveiling story on the flight over and, dammit, the thing sounds impressive. It's clearly A Big Deal; whether it's A Good Thing or not we can debate in the coming days.
LA show and other unveilings including another big one from Jaguar out of the way I'll be drawing a line under Porsche SUVs and be concentrating on a small niche within the brand's product line-up. The one focused on those funny rear-engined sports car things. If all goes according to plan we'll be getting a 991 Carrera in which to explore a bit of Californian 911 culture with folk like Magnus Walker, Singer and a bunch of owners gathered together for us by TRE Motorsport.
And the Mercs? More on this in due course but our friends at the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center (it's the official name so we'll defer to their spelling...) apparently have a few cars they need cobwebs blowing out of. Last time I called by this included a one-off AMG E-Class custom built for a well-known celebrity, a bright yellow diesel SLK running on raised G-Wagen running gear, the Maybach Exelero concept (that's yours truly in thepassenger seat) and truly lovely 190SL historic rally car.
First job is to re-align the old body clock (fists with your toes, etc) and make sure I've got the timings for the various embargoed stories I've been writing on the plane correct to avoid any pistol-whippings from angry PRs at the show.