Huge changes debut for vehicles at Philly Auto Show
By Alex Lloyd Gross
The 2019 Philadelphia Auto Show is in town at the Pennsylvania Convention Center . It runs until February 10, 2019. Little has changed for the show since last year. The huge changes are in the interior design of a good portion of the vehicles. No CD player. Who ever thought it would be an good idea to leave out a compact disc player should be fired, tossed out the door and have their pension withdrawn. Manufacturers reps kept talking about Pandora or Spotify or whatever. While it’s true that sales of music CD’s have fallen they are still strong. Plenty of people still have CD’s and do not want to download or move them to a playlist of whatever else someone may be pushing. It’s stealing music, or paying twice for the same item. Reps from General Motors and Ford were clueless as to the possibility of installing an after market player. People do not want to pay for satellite radio. They want to pick their own music and go with it., without any bluetooth enabled phone or mp3 player or anything else. People want to listen to CD’s. This decision does not make it possible.
At the show, you will see lots of different cars . The prices keep rising with very little to justify the
increase. Let’s put this in perspective. In 2000, you could be able to buy a suburban house for about $100,000. In 2019, the prices of most of the vehicles there are about $49,000 and up. A lot of them hover around $100,000. When you are at the show, you can jump into and out of most of the cars there. It’s a fun time for people and a great way to kill a few hours on the cheap, even if you don’t plan on buying anything.
This year, Subaru won the show with live animals to pet and to adopt. Right in the middle of their display, was a small area set up with four dogs, of various sizes, all up for adoption. Some of the reps at the show were giving away trinkets. An insurance company is giving away bags. It’s a non issue as they have been giving away the same bag for the last six years in a row. They should come up with something new. The car club area is there, with lots of people showing off older model cars, from the 1970’s through 1990’s. Downstairs, cars are tricked out and lots of people that can do this kind of work have set up booths. You have walked into the DUB show. Some of these cars have over $200,000 work put into them, with body molding, lift kits, paint jobs and wheels.
At the show, it’s a lot of fun to walk around to see what is new and meet with people. The biggest time waster is back, the JEEP obstacle course. You wait in a line for a ride with a trained driver to drive 3 MPH on a closed course. Yawn. Next. Go to the FORD area where you can drive a virtual race car.