Wellington Autosalon 2004
Spending an hour of my time looking at some of the nicest cars in the country is always something to look forward to. Unless you’ve been in hiding, you will know that the car show calendar has gone from two events to six in only a few years. The Autosalon series of car shows has crossed the ditch and together with the 4 and Rotary Nationals provide a show presence previously unequalled on our shores.
For this reason I expected to be travelling down from Palmerston North to look at cars I’ve seen several times before, but that was ok. Naturally it will take a while for the scene to adapt to the increase of shows. Walking into the event the first two cars to catch my eye were a wide body eg civic hatch and a mint S2000. Neither were cars I had seen before and together they gave me some hope that the trip would be more worthwhile then I originally thought.
The amount of cars present was fairly small, however the quality was right up there compared to previous events I have attended, in both Auckland and Wellington. One thing I noticed is a reduction of bling chrome mags, entrants instead beginning to change to JDM goodness with Rays, Volks and Work wheels on many of the nicest show cars.
Car audio was big at the 2004 Wellington Autosalon with only a very few cars not showing off some kind of install. Retailer representation was unparalleled with Slap, Street Soundz or The Car Stereo Company stickers on the far majority of cars. Although I haven’t yet been to any south island event, I’ve never seen anything like this at any Auckland show. The Car Stereo Company seemed to represent the nicest audio systems and mostly alpine product while a car with a slap sticker almost always meant Power Acoustik amps and JVC subs. Familiar demo cars were also present from Fusion and Sony while Panasonic had a reasonably new Mazda Rx 8.
Multimedia madness seemed to be rampant with TVs becoming typical of many installs. However, the placement of X Boxes and LCDs in many cars seemed to be random and impractical suggesting they had just been thrown in to look the part.
I was under the impression that the sound off event was to be held the same day as I visited the show, however the hall dedicated to it had all of about 6 cars, most of which were closed up. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to see what would come of the competition and so any results will be posted up as they become available.
Overall I enjoyed the event. There were many cars present that I hadn’t previously seen, although admittedly I did miss the last Wellington car show. Judging from the last few shows I’ve attended the New Zealand show scene appears to be developing well although the competitors may need some time to catch up with the increased number of events. Unfortunately the audio competition scene seems to be going down hill (at least at events such as these) with SQ comps non existent and the SPL comp looking fairly empty.
My pick of the show cars is definitely the red S2000 and the “R RTD†CTR with Nakamichi amp and Type R subs. Other standout cars were the green “NFORCA†with a full fibreglass interior and new install, Sony wagon with face and hands sticking out and The Car Stereo Company demo car with an insane amount of alpine amps and processors and 3 way DDDrive Linear components upfront.
