One of the responsibilities of an automotive journalist that seems like a perk to outsiders is the press drive. Automakers fly you to some remote corner of the world (or, typically, SoCal), put you up in a hotel, and feed you drinks until you’re almost ready to believe that people will care that some random crossover has added 11.7% frame rigidity.
When I was younger, the promise of free track time and a chance to poke around cars was unbeatable, and I didn’t understand the elder journalists who seemed over it. I can comprehend that view a bit more these days. While I’m not entirely jaded, I have a kid and did too many of these trips as either a producer or a journalist, so I can only do a couple of these a year without losing my taste for them.
That is, of course, unless someone does a trip within 300 miles of my house, as Volkswagen did a couple of years ago. I’m all for a launch that I can casually drive to and back from on my own schedule. Dear automakers: More of this, please!
Plus, I have the option of sending Mercedes, and she’s still young and adventurous enough to squeeze every last drop of joy from them. There are a few trips coming up and, in what I think is a first for an automotive publication, I’m going to share with you what the invites are and ask you how much you care, and what you’d like to learn about them.
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ALL of them. No other publication so consistently gives the level of in depth new product analysis as provided by The Autopian’s insightful editors, including those not mentioned in this post (Sam A., too, though a contributor vs. staffer).
Give us more, not less, particularly when it’s a budget neutral decision.
Honestly I’d be really interested in hearing your opinion on the Geely Cars, they seem to be a decent representation of an average Chinese car at the moment and selfishly a Zeekr (7X) is high on the list of cars to test drive when the lease on the Cupra is up.
The Kia K4 also promises to be cool so would love to hear about that!
K4!
Ranking in terms of my preference
I’m so down for the CX-5!
In my TV news photographer days, I covered the CES show in 1984. At the time, the biggest convention week in LV. The reporter I was with (name redacted) insisted we stay an extra day and go to the AVN adult entertainment event that immediately followed. It was a hands-off eye-opener. Perhaps scarred me for live. So much probably fake cleavage!
But at CES, I did get a Windham Hill CD that prompted me to buy a CD player for my stereo. I didn’t buy anything at the AVN show. I still have that CD somewhere.
Does the yoga involve goats?
Also, if Mercedes attends the Ford Explorer Tremor launch, will she actually get to launch it off something? 😀
If these are anything like the business conferences that I attend from time to time I would probably be drawn more to the free yoga now than the endless free happy hours and dinners.
I am always interested to hear about how capable crossovers are when it comes to offroading. They won’t ever usurp traditional BOF vehicles and solid axles when it comes to rock crawling but admittedly most people are buying a lot more offroad capability than they probably need. Also excited to hear about the K4!
Kia’s
“ Elegant and athletic. Rational and emotional. Practical and dynamic” gives me PTSD of an actress girlfriend I once had. You know the type, takes her clothes off in a restaurant just because why not, practicing lines in the elevator “cut his lungs out , I want to sit on them” as I remember got an interesting reaction. The only time someone broke up with me because I was “too rational”.
Well, these guys how to do a proper car launch
https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/uibmha/car_launched_by_a_trebuchet