Throwback Thursday, October 23, 2014

And since we're on the subject of new car shows, we thought we'd throwback to the year 2009.  A friend of TLP suggested that we make a one day down-and-back, cannonball run to southern california to see the LA Auto Show.  So we threw common sense to the wind, packed our oversized selves into his fantastic silver Z4 and shot down road fueled by coffee, trail mix and a soundtrack with heavy Grateful Dead rotation. Honestly, 2009 wasn't the best year of the LA show.  The economy was in the dumps and most of the buzz was about what was missing from the show and how low key it was.  Regardless, we had a good time.  A few of the European manufacturers weren't afraid to display their latest and we spent a lot of time chatting with a gentleman who was reintroducing the Allard J2 to the market.  There was even an impressive display by Spyker cars including one example that came with Louis Vuitton luggage that mounted on the outside of the car that looked like a leather wing (apparently set up for lift, not downforce).

The most impressive vendor of the show was by far BMW.  They brought their line of cars and bikes including this amazing creature...this is the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept.  This (plug-in)battery+diesel system was touted to make 356 hp and a 0-62 in "just over 4.8 seconds."  All I know is that we couldn't stop staring at it.  Happy Thursday TLPers!