San Diego Auto Show

Just a couple of weeks after Rick and I attended the 2006 LA Auto Show, we felt the need to visit the 2006 San Diego Auto Show. This was late December. We found parking at a $3 lot across Harbor Drive from the San Diego Convention Center. Although San Diego is NOT “America’s Finest City“, it does have America’s finest weather and a much more architecturally impressive convention center than LA has.

As soon as we entered the convention center, we walked across the display floor and out the back door, across a street (crossing guards were provided) and into the Toyota Outdoor Experience area. At that venue, one could select from three options for a 4-wheel drive adventure over large mounds of dirt piled on a parking lot. One could drive an FJ-1, a Tacoma PU or the new, improved, gigantic ’08 Tundra.

We opted for the new Tundra to some extent because it had the shortest waiting lines. Neither of us has any interest in owning or driving a Toyota FJ-1, a Tacoma or a Tundra but we wanted to experience The Experience! Which we did. Rick drove with a friendly guide riding shotgun. I rode in the back seat. The drive was short but we did go up and down and tilted at one point and the we made the round without once tipping over. Not impressed by the Tundra or its massive, huge dashboard. The style is sort of icky, too.

After that we returned to the show and looked at all the cars we had seen at the LA show and a few more. We suffered one tragedy and one unfortunate incident at the show. The tragedy was that we got so caught up in looking at the cars (the same cars we had seen in LA three weeks before!) that we neglected to visit the second floor of the show where the after market and specialist displays were located. And we were there all day, from opening ’til late in the afternoon. The unfortunate incident was that in one of my many entries and exits into and out of cars my eyeglass case with my powerful X-Ray bifocal glasses fell out of my pocket and was nowhere to be found. (I did retrieve the case and the glasses that following Sunday, so I’m OK.)

The show was every bit as entertaining as the LA show. One show might have had cars on display that were not at the other show but it sort of evened out. The LA crowds were quite interchangeable with the SD attendees. Two very similar population groups.

By the way, my brain eventually overflowed with info on car interiors, dashboards, seats, door handles, etc. A lot of manufacturers put terrific interiors in their cars but the ’07 Ford Explorer has the worst interior door handles in the industry.