Official 2008 Montreal Auto Show discussion thread

[stickshift]

CanadianDriver has gone live with their Montreal Autoshow section here: http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/08montreal/index.htm

Discuss stories and reveals in this thread.

[Blueprint]

As usual, I was there for the opening Friday at 10 am, and stayed 'till 3 pm.

First surprise : lots of expensive cars unlocked for us car geeks, and many had power to all the seat adjustments.  These include : Lexus LS600h w/ executive pkg(160 975 $  ), Audi R8, S-Class (and all Benzes minus the SL and AMG S-Class coupe), all Bimmers below 6 and 7 series (plus M3), ....

Other nice surprise : VW, always unpredictable at vehicle intros, has a complete price sheet you can take with you.  It included the Tiguan and Jetta Wagon.  The fwd manual Tiguan is 27 k$, in the high 28 k$'s with Tiptronic and 30 k$ with Tip+4Motion.  The Jetta Wagon is 5 cyl.-only for now and is about a grand more than the sedan.

All press reports hype the "green halt", the eco-car display room, stating that it is a big success; the masses just walk straight through it.  Can you say "political correctness" 

[mwqa]

Well, I was a bit disappointed with the show this year. Maybe it's just that I'm moved on to looking at second-hand cars, but I found that it lacked the energy of last year, where most exhibitors were in 2 large rooms.

This year, Ford and Nissan had a room to themselves, Kia had a tiny room and the rest were in the large room. Kia especially seemed to suffer - only one trim of each car and I don't think they even had a Rio5 (only the sedan was there). The Rondo was the highest trim, meaning that you couldn't adjust the power seats. Great for Tim, who is relatively short, but useless for me as I am quite tall.

The highlight was definitely the 40 year old cars - the Corolla and Civic (look for it at the Honda display), especially).

Big 'cute' highlight was seeing 3 boys getting their picture taken. They had been let into the display area and were standing between the old and new Dodge Charger having their picture taken. 

Not much news as far as what is coming up in subcompacts. Mitsubishi and Suzuki don't know when the Colt and EuroSwift, respectively, will be coming. Mazda is too busy with the 3 to allocate more production capacity to get the 2 over here. According to the Honda booth, the second generation Fit will be coming in April of 2009 (not this Fall). The person I talked to said that there would be some sort of announcement on the Honda website (I had the impression it was already there, but I think I'm wrong about that).

The Saturn Astra was below both Random and my radar, and I only thought about it on our way out. So Random was stuck at the entrance eying the time while I ran back to take a look at it.

Wow, I'm impressed. They had the power on and with everything backlit, the dash looked fine. Yes, it is all grey but that's OK. The information display in the middle of the dash also brightened things up.

Some smart person put a water bottle in the door to show that it can be done: I didn't notice cup holders anywhere in the car, although I was more concerned about taking a few quick pictures than checking out the features.

The build quality was great. When you compare it to the Nissan Versa, a car which is taller but the same basic design, you can't help but notice how much better the quality is. Its a quality car at a good price. It’s a shame, however, that its by a domestic manufacturer. But for those who still buy domestic cars, it's great. I hope it does well.

I'll post up my pictures as soon as I can get them downloaded from the camera, which has been complicated by the fact that there is car shopping going on in my household and the less mentioned about 'cars' and 'car shows', the better.   

[Blueprint]

Last year, Chrysler had the first room (along with ) and VW was stuck in the "hallway" Kia had this year.  Anyway, I walked right through the Kia stand.  The locations are attributed by random draw; Mercedes even had a plan of their floor display in their brochure (only the big CL coupe wasn't pointed in the right direction).

I forgot to check for a G8, but I doubt the show had one.

BMW had a nice "certified" previous-gen 325Xi on display just for ya, mwqa 

The old Civic was a '76, 32 years young, and the Corolla was a '69, not quite 40 yet (as I am, being also from my 1968  ).  I enjoyed looking at "real", non-Pebble Beach old cars : the Civic had cracking Bondo (right rear fender) and body-colour mirrors (should be black), the Charger had pebble damage, and so on.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Show did have a G8.

Astra feels super high quality to me in the way things feel and operate. Would like a little more head and foot room tho. Great car.

Blueprint, do you have more than those 3 prices on the Tiguan? Is there Comfortline, Trendline, Highline prices as well?? If so, could you kindly post?

I'd like to visit Montreal's show sometime. Seems they really tried this year to have some interesting sections to see.

[Blueprint]

Show did have a G8.

Astra feels super high quality to me in the way things feel and operate. Would like a little more head and foot room tho. Great car.

Blueprint, do you have more than those 3 prices on the Tiguan? Is there Comfortline, Trendline, Highline prices as well?? If so, could you kindly post?

I'd like to visit Montreal's show sometime. Seems they really tried this year to have some interesting sections to see.

AAARRRGH !  Missed the G8 !! 

I'll post the exact Tiguan prices once I have the list in my hands.  Astra seemed simply OK to me, above Koreans, on par with Nissan, more plain than (non-City) VWs.  Not as roomy in the back as Versa / Wabbit, the other Euro-bred hatches.

[Blueprint]

2009 VW Tiguan pricing :

2.0T  6-speed manual     27 575 $
2.0T  6-speed Tiptronic   28 975 $
2.0T Tiptronic & 4Motion  30 975 $

Transport & prep is 1 550 $ extra.

2009 VW Jetta Wagon pricing :

2.5L   5-speed manual    24 975 $
2.5L   6-speed Tiptronic  26 375 $

Transport & prep is 1 335 $ extra.

Of note, the base Tiguan is priced below the Jetta 2.0T (28 975 $).  When available, the DSG is the same price as the regular slushbox (1 400 $).

No pricing info on the options, but the Jetta Wagon displayed a total bill in the 33 k$ range...  The Tiguan had no pricing details on it.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Thanks!

I suspect VW will drop the Jetta's price a tad more, or the 2.0T will disappear next year (already gone from the US, but they had GLI before us and our 2.0T penetration was higher) which would be a shame.

Would like to know the Tiguan's trim levels, but will have to sit tight.

[airbalancer]

2009 VW Tiguan pricing :

2.0T  6-speed manual     27 575 $
2.0T  6-speed Tiptronic   28 975 $
2.0T Tiptronic & 4Motion  30 975 $

Transport & prep is 1 550 $ extra.

2009 VW Jetta Wagon pricing :

2.5L   5-speed manual    24 975 $
2.5L   6-speed Tiptronic  26 375 $

Transport & prep is 1 335 $ extra.

Of note, the base Tiguan is priced below the Jetta 2.0T (28 975 $).  When available, the DSG is the same price as the regular slushbox (1 400 $).

No pricing info on the options, but the Jetta Wagon displayed a total bill in the 33 k$ range...  The Tiguan had no pricing details on it.

Do you have TDI pricing?

[mwqa]

Busy getting my pictures ready.

Here's a taste. 

[safristi]

Lurve "BUSHI" girls......

[Blueprint]

2009 VW Tiguan pricing :

2.0T  6-speed manual     27 575 $
2.0T  6-speed Tiptronic   28 975 $
2.0T Tiptronic & 4Motion  30 975 $

Transport & prep is 1 550 $ extra.

2009 VW Jetta Wagon pricing :

2.5L   5-speed manual    24 975 $
2.5L   6-speed Tiptronic  26 375 $

Transport & prep is 1 335 $ extra.

Of note, the base Tiguan is priced below the Jetta 2.0T (28 975 $).  When available, the DSG is the same price as the regular slushbox (1 400 $).

No pricing info on the options, but the Jetta Wagon displayed a total bill in the 33 k$ range...  The Tiguan had no pricing details on it.

Do you have TDI pricing?

The litterature doesn't mention any TDI engines (so far) for either the Tiguan or Jetta Wagon.  I'll double-check, but I don't think the price sheet mentions the '09 Jetta TDI pricing.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

I see a nod from AutoBlog...
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/24/2009-pontiac-wave5-unveiled-in-montreal/

[mwqa]

Here is a sideshow of my pictures. 

http://img412.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img412/5125/12014657749l0.smil

If I can figure out how to display things in a 'static' view, I'll put a link in.


EDIT: Here's a link to my ImageShack webpage, where you can look at the photos separately.

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/mwqa/

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Here is a sideshow of my pictures. 

http://img412.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img412/5125/12014657749l0.smil

If I can figure out how to display things in a 'static' view, I'll put a link in.

Painfully slow to watch, I did 

[mwqa]

Here is a sideshow of my pictures. 

http://img412.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img412/5125/12014657749l0.smil

If I can figure out how to display things in a 'static' view, I'll put a link in.

Painfully slow to watch, I did 

Any tips would be welcome - I'm not familiar with image hosting/ImageShack.

Alternately, I can put the links for the pictures in a post, but won't that load them all? 

[safristi]

artistic BUT S      L     Ooooo    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW....made it thru 2 minutes and 3 KARS.........howdya do day stuff...might werk fer ...umm...err...ART Filuums.......

[mwqa]

artistic BUT S      L     Ooooo    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW....made it thru 2 minutes and 3 KARS.........howdya do day stuff...might werk fer ...umm...err...ART Filuums.......

Sorry, Saf - it's not me, it's the host. Maybe there are preferences I can change, but I don't know how.

Life is RRROOOOUUUGGGGHHH. 

[safristi]

  ..................T................................E......................................L.........................L.....................m..........................e....................................a................b.................o aaargghhh....

[mwqa]

Here is a link to my imageshack page - probably more convenient than the slideshow.

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/mwqa/