Auto Show in Motion

'92Cheyenne · July 15, 2004

i'm going to the auto show in motion this weekend and looking to drive all the high powered and expensive cars and trucks gm has out there. what's the drill with this and is it just a big sales push or will i have some fun? what is your experience with it?

blue2kzr2 · July 15, 2004

I went to the Chrysler version (Route 2002) in 2002. It was fun but there were supposed to be limits on the number of times you got to try each car. Also, due to the rain the previous night, the off-road courses were closed till after lunch, the courses were REALLY muddy. They even wrecked a Jeep testing one of the courses before letting participants drive on it.

They had 5 different stations, maybe more. There was an on-road Jeep course, off-road Jeep course (stayed closed all day), a reverse-steering Jeep Wrangler, off-road Dodge truck course, on-road small car course, on-road mid-size car course.

On the car courses they had examples of other makes, like GM and such. The mid-size car course included the Dodge minivans, the 300 (not the one with the Hemi), they also had a Grand Prix GTP there for comparison. That course consisted of a straightaway for full acceleration then all-out braking, a slalom, some speed bumps, etc. That GTP was a BLAST to drive, I went back 3 times. Small car course included convertibles.

Oh yeah, they also had a lot of display area, to show off the new and current models.

Overall, it was a fun day, wish I could go to GM's version.

All courses had an employee riding along with you, but you drove, they also required seat belts on all driving. No sales push, the employees get paid to do this but they're not salespeople from dealerships. I wish they'd come back to this area for another round.

carguru · July 15, 2004

I went to it when it came to Raleigh. It was pretty cool. All they ask you is to drive safely. If you push it too hard, you'll get banned. The rule here, was to get to drive the H2 on the off road course, you had to drive one of the full size p/u. To drive the 'vette or SSR, you had to drive one of the large cars or the lux cars. You can reregister and go back another day if you want. As for the trucks, they had every competitor out there. They also had the GM quadsteer trucks and Dmax. It was pretty cool to be able to drive all of the competitive models back to back and get a feel of the handling of each one. Lines were long for the Mercedes, BMW, Navigator, and GTO. With several 'vettes and SSR, that line moved pretty quickly. Much quicker for the 'vette drive if you drive the auto. You get to drive unsupervised for everything except for the 'vette, SSR and H2. Have fun and report back.