Wednesday, 1215h, Mercedes' secret internet storeroom
Everything's bigger in America? Not the motor shows, thank god, the LA Auto Show a refreshingly compact affair compared with the intimidating sprawl of European events like Frankfurt. It's also a show of contrasts, the 'grown-up' business upstairs and a hub of more grassroots stuff in the periphery. Which I'll be exploring later on.
But credit to the Youabian Puma for creating the first true WTF moment of the show. This beauty, 7.0-litre V8 powered naturally, boasts it was created with 'one goal in mind', that being 'to standout and be unique'. We can only hope the latter boast turns out to be true but, if you're interested, it apparently 'incorporates the most technologically advanced features offered in the automotive industry', other than taste and quaint concepts like styling.
Once recovered from the Puma I trotted into the main show hall and was chatting with JLR's head of communications on a gradually emptying stand about last night's F-Type Coupe unveiling event and the PH response to the car. The show was apparently immense, Jaguar obviously inspired to out-do Land Rover's New York Range Rover Sport unveiling and having an F-Type Coupe hammer towards the crowd at 90mph before ducking down a hidden tunnel beneath them. Dramatic stuff and even stationary the car looks stunning. After last night's event and the response to it there are a lot of happy faces on the JLR stand, the PH response noted for the overwhelmingly positive comments. And why was the stand emptying? A polite cough and a tap on the shoulder that she was meant to be introducing the press conference and we were holding up the schedule. Oops.
Time marches on though - the Subaru WRX has just been revealed and I need to write that up and there's a nifty time attack Mazda 3 I need to investigate too.