After my last Thailand motor show experience I wasn’t overly looking foward to attending the 2008 Bangkok International Motor Show.
The only thing that drew me out of my air conditioned apartment and into the heat of Bangkok is that I heard the local BMW E30 club was going to be having a showing.
When I arrived I counted around 20 cars in attendance, with 6-8 E30’s and a nice mix of classic and ricer styling. I didn’t get a chance to look under the hood but with all the plumbing poking out the bottom it seems that many of these guys are running turbos.
<
Talk about stretched wheels!
Is it me or does this Mercedes look a lot like a Hyundai?
Looks like everyone is copying the Koreans. Doesn’t this new Lexus look like a 4 door Tiburon?
BMW had the new Mini Clubman on display. What a complete design let down compared to the original. I also noticed that the interior build quality felt really cheap, the plastics on the door felt like something from an 1980’s K-car.
BMW also had the new E92 M3 on display. My reaction to seeing the car in the flesh for the first time was meh. I mean it’s an amazing technological car on paper but where’s the soul? The passion? Did anyone honestly expect this car to be any different than how it turned out? Of course it’s going to be better than it’s predecessor but where’s the uniqueness? I say bring back the guys who built the Batmobile, the M1 and the 1983 Brabham F1 car and let them build a car!
And at 9.9Million Baht ($320,000CDN) who the hell would buy this thing?
Volvo had this on display, perhaps the Swedes should stick to furniture.
The Subaru Impreza WRX STI is an impressive piece of kit. The interior build quality is not on par with other Japanese automakers but you can’t argue with the stuff under the bonnet. 300+ HP, twin turbo, and AWD all add up to a very fun car, it’s just too bad their styling department has gotten worse every year.
Goodbye Edsel grille.
Hello boring Japanese grille.
Do you ever get the feeling that the large a car company gets the less communication there is between departments? Ford had this Barney colored car on display.
“Make Ever Day Exciting”. I hardly think owning this car would be exciting.
Maybe it’s referring to the display girls.
If you work for Jaguar or Land Rover meet your new boss!
So the cars were a bust but one thing that was on display that did catch my attention was the motorbikes. Here in Thailand the most common displacement motorcycle is 125cc, no liter bikes here. And some of these smaller bikes actually have quite a bit of performance packed into them. I think something like this would make for a perfect commuter bike.
This bike is interesting because it is electric. Go to work, plug it in, go home plug it in, you would never need gas. Of course these type of commuter bikes work great here in Thailand where it is sunny most of the time.
Performance specs are:
Top Speed: 110KPH
Range: 70km
Charge time: 2 hours
I spent the rest of the show practicing my Thai with the local girls. I had an amazing discussion with these ladies on the benefits of direct injection diesel engines. ;)
She was demostrating the benefits of having a bed in the back of your truck.
Enjoy the rest of the show!
March 8, 2009
Auto Shows