Motor Shows

Visitors pouring all over the 2nd generation Jazz during the Bangkok International Motor Show.

Improved engine will mean new Jazz remains fun to drive.

2nd generation Honda Jazz engine specification. Increased power delivered via a standard 5-speed auto, replacing the smooth CVT.

I promised a report from the 2008 Bangkok International Motor Show, which is currently on at Bitec. Unfortunately with the site problems I haven't been able to share anything until now. Over the next few days I'll post up some photo galleries and stories from the show.

Ford have a surprise in store for visitors to the Bangkok International Motor Show, kicking off on 28 March at Bitec. Ford's website has a little button suggesting that there is going to be a surprise at the motor show, and offers free tickets.

Following the link brings you to a page which seems to give away everything. Surprised?

What Thai motor show would be complete without a suitably unmemorable theme, and a piece of badly translated text to try to explain it. This year the theme is "The Environmental Auto Globalization."

What does that mean? I suppose it means that we have yet another environmentally theme to the show. This is from the 29th BAngkok International Motor Show webiste:

The 2007 Thailand International Motor Expo was supposed to be all about future vehicles stunning the world. I visited the show yesterday evening and I have to say that there was very little there to even mildly surprise, let alone stun anyone.

Actually, despite being keen enough about cars to actually go to the bother of making a web site dedicated to them, I was thinking twice about going to this year's expo. Frankly, it is always the same thing. This year was a big improvement on previous years though, and if you haven't been yet, you might actually find it worth your while to pay a visit to the show.

Here are my comments on the expo.

Here we go again. We are just a few weeks away from the start of the 24th Thailand International Motor Expo, and the event organisers have decided on a theme: "Future Vehicles Stun the World."

Sure beats last year's effort of "Bionic Vehicles...here, there and everywhere." I still don't understand what they were trying to get at with that one!

Well, here is the thinking behind this theme:

"On this fast revolving planet many phenomena happen, but only some can so stun the world as to almost stop it.
Futuristic technologies that car makers apply to vehicles today and plan to incorporate in future models are undeniably some of the world-stunning phenomena, because they are filled with miracles created by the brains of automotive engineers."

Phenomena, miracles, stun, revolving! Strong. Although I doubt that the Expo will have an effect on the rotation of the Earth, we can expect to see some revolving cars minus the miracles, and "world-stunning phenomena".

"Drive thru the nature." I still don't know what they mean. I was expecting to see a few alternative fuel vehicles, maybe a few hydrogen fuel cell demonstrations, but apart from a single Prius at the Toyota exhibit there was very little reason to believe that any of the automakers understood what the theme was supposed to be about.

After being disappointed with the lack of interesting (i.e. new) vehicles at last years Thailand Motor Expo, I had hopped that this year's "Motor Show" would offer more. So today I went to have a look.

We knew to expect at least two new vehicles, and they were there, but ....

"Drive thru the nature." What is the first thing that enters your head as you read this? For me, and most others that I asked, it conjured up imagery of 4x4 vehicles careering through a forest with total disregard for the flora and fauna being displaced and destroyed. But insects splatted against a windshield, and small animals fleeing in terror, is not the intended direction this years Bangkok International Motor Show slogan is designed to take you.