Visiting the Los Angeles Auto Show: Inside with the Insiders

Chances are that no matter how many of the major auto shows you’ve attended, you’ve not had the chance to attend one of them on what are called "press days," the days when the media gets a chance to cover these shows as breaking news.

Press days are when the manufacturers roll out new models and their latest concepts to show the media. It’s when top executives speak to the massed  scribes to explain the new vehicles and to underscore their company’s philosophy, all in the expectation of a few lines of ink and a picture, or maybe a bit of exposure on the evening news.

The expectations are especially high at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which takes place in mid-November. It’s the first of the major shows each year and automotive afficianatos everywhere are hungry for news. We always attend, in spite of $12 parking and crazy traffic, and this year we thought it would be fun to give you a look inside – from the Toyota perspective, naturally.

The show traditionally begins with a breakfast and a keynote speech – this year it was from Alan Mulallay, Ford Motor Company’s CEO. This address is piped into the breakfast hall – a good move. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I’m told, so this is a busy place. The halls that contain the exhibits, meanwhile, don’t open until 9 a.m.

This year, as Mulallay’s speech wound down, the crowd in front of the doors waited, fed and watered, with a sense of expectation – all that new hardware just inside, so close and yet so far. It’s a bit like a camp meeting, with the true believers and the newly converted gathering to hear, and confirm, new and old truths spoken with conviction.

At the tick of 9:00 the doors swing open and the media surges into the hall to check out what’s on display there. Immediately inside, on the left, is Toyota’s area. It’s an enormous amount of floor space, and there’s a lot to see. Sure, the cars and trucks are all here. But there’s so much more: a double cutaway of a new Tundra, huge screens showing action from the NASCAR race tracks; two different interactive multi-seat racing simulators – one for NASCAR, one featuring Lexus IS-Fs on a road course.

Just past Toyota is the Scion display, which features a three-story stack of new Scions, and just in back of that, there’s the Lexus display. Each is filled with vehicles, and with service workers waiting to wipe dust and fingerprints from gleaming paint and chrome.

The Toyota press conference – each conference is 25 minutes long, with five to 25 minutes between them - is scheduled for 12:15. Well before that, the seating area begins to fill as people grab seats. An air of expectation pervades the place. Twenty minutes before the conference, every one of the hundreds of chairs has an occupant, and the risers behind the seating area are jammed with video cameras waiting to record whatever it is that Toyota is about to announce. It’s no secret, not really: it’s the 2008 Sequoia, with a look, also, at our Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV), which just made the 2,400-mile trip from Fairbanks, Alaska to Vancouver, B.C.(see our earlier post in Open Road). Soon it’s standing-room only – and that’s before people begin pouring in from the preceding press conference. A woman sits next to me and says, "It feels so good to sit down!" Such is the size of this show, and the amount of walking required to cover all the ground.

Finally the background music wells up, increasing the anticipation, and then the FCHV drives onto the stage and Toyota Division Group Vice President and General Manager Bob Carter steps out of it. He delivers his welcome and tells the press corps – some are in dress clothes, some look like they spent the night sleeping under a bridge, one is carrying a small dog in shoulder bag - a little about the FCHV and the trip it just took. Then he gets to the meat of the matter – he introduces the new Sequoia, which drives on stage, and to the top of a tiered obstacle that’s been assembled there.

Carter introduces chief engineer Motoharu Araya and explains the philosophy behind the Sequoia and its place in Toyota’s full line of vehicles – it’s a vehicle for active families who need the seats, the stowage space, the towing ability and the off-highway mobility the Sequoia provides. He notes that even with an increase of 108 horsepower over last year’s model, that the fuel efficiency rating is increased by 12%, and that the emissions rating is ULEV.

Carter delivers a few more details about the Sequoia, a huge screen atop the stage displays information and photos, and then he invites the media up on stage to inspect it. With that, the press conference is over, the 25 minutes gone before you know it. Now it’s time for the next most important event on this day – the media lunch, and the stampede is on.

Many of us, however, choose to hang here in the Toyota area. There’s a feel of quality and confidence here; this is where the action is, and this is where the vehicles of the future can be seen. Lunch can wait.

~ Contributed by Jon F. Thompson, Corporate Communications

Comments

[Boris Kort-Packard]

I would be happy to provide additional editing/proof-reading assistance! FCHV (FuelCellHybridVehicle) gets referred to as FSHV (?) twice in this article.

Also not sure if the "tribes" are hungry for news (or just the free breakfast!). Perhaps "scribes"? (to preserve continuity from the opening of the article.) Paragraphs two/three.

[Road Master]

Gosh Boris--thanks for the sharp eye. We've re-read the post up and down and from left to right and think that all of the "sells" have been replaced with the "cells." (We're a car company and "sell" just seems to roll off the tips of our tongues.)

As for those hungry scribes mingling with the tribes, we agree that one had to go. So the tribes are now those car enthusiasts whose thirst for new knowledge about new cars can only be satisfied by the product of those scribes. But please check our spelling! That's a tough word.

[Ed Esteban]

Still Waiting For MR2???