AKA, the
North Carolina International Auto Expo.
I attended Thursday morning. Well, I tried to attend Thursday morning, but I misread the opening time, so I sat in my car in the parking lot Thursday morning and attended the expo Thursday after noon.
It was my first time at the fairgrounds and I parked at the lot by Carter-Finley Stadium, about a quarter mile away. I made the mistake of visiting the fairground's website which implies that all the on-site parking is for participants. I should have taken the expo's only parking comment, "free and unlimited", literally and parked within shouting distance of the Jim Graham Building. It was a nice day and it's not as if I don't need the exercise.
I was there to see the FJ Cruiser and didn't pay much attention to the remaining manufacturer's exhibits. In fact, several manufacturers were noticeably absent from the expo. The only vehicles that received a real second glance were the Cadillac Sixteen concept and the Dodge Sling Shot concept. The Dodge wouldn't have looked out of place behind Scion display ropes. I also couldn't help but be impressed by the Subaru Legacy GT. The 2005 model was, to use the same words as Toyota, a surprising value. No longer. Now that Subaru of America requires
all Legacy GT's to be equipped with $3000 worth of leather and sunroof, the value to those not interested in those options has declined considerably. Those of us potential FJ Cruiser owners who really only want speed control and A-TRAC as options should find Subaru's strategy familiarly onerous.
The important part. The single VooDoo Blue FJ Cruiser that Toyota had on display was open to attendees for poking and prodding. After all the information I've absorbed here, not much was a surprise, so my impressions will be few, if not short.
•The blue was darker than I expected. Part of that could have been the cave-like lighting levels of the expo floor. I'm going to have to see all the colors in person, in full sunlight, before I can make a final color choice. It was not bad at all, just different from what I had expected. You might be able to better understand by seeing one of the pics I took without a flash. It was still very much an attention grabbing blue to be sure, and is my current color choice.
•Entry and exit. I'm 5-11 and a couple of cheeseburgers over 300. Entry and exit with the steering wheel tilted up was smooth and efficient, dare I say graceful. The hand hold on the driver's a-pillar is welcome. Even though I've daily-driven a Miata for 15+ years and have no issues with entry and exit, it'll be nice to be able to "step into" and "slide out of" an FJ Cruiser's driver's seat as I become less nimble, i. e., older.
•The driving position was perfect for me in all respects. This was an auto, and if the manual's shift lever is in about the same position, all will be well. After discovering the dimensional requirements were met, I was more impressed by the likeability of sitting in the driver's seat. It's hard to put into words, but I felt like Goldilocks, it was
so "just right". Ambiance, Feng-Shui, whatever you want to call it. The interior space, the distances to surfaces, the size of the window glass made me fell serene and at home. The materials are 100% appropriate, too. Just right.
For comparison, I sat in a 4Runner and Tacoma and experienced no joy whatsoever. IMO, Car&Driver magazine is spot on when it comes to their criticism of the 4Runner's and Tacoma's seating positions (high floor, low roof, sit-on-the-floor seats). Maybe the soccer mom's are right.
My 5-11 height includes a long torso. While there was plenty of headroom, I was surprised to find I had adjusted the driver's seat to its most rearward position. My first thought was that legroom for those long of inseam will be tight. We've had reports to the contrary from several tallboys, so this may be a personal preference on my part or I might end up scooting the seat forward for actual driving.
•The sound of the driver's door closing is dreadful. It's an awfully minor point, I know, but it was tinny sounding enough to be discordant in the quiet, muffled expo setting (at the time I attended). I can worry about that later.
•I was impressed to see that the designers made operating the features intuitive or obvious. I don't drive a lot of different cars, but my hand fell exactly on the rear door lever, folded the back seat on the first try, found the gate handle release, etc as if it were a truck I'd been driving for years. Nice.
•Visibility. While the A-pillars are subjectively wide, I think they'll disappear in daily use. I took a couple of pictures to demonstrate. The rear quarter issue will have to wait for a test drive. I couldn't get a good feel for it sitting still. Changing lanes can't be worse than my E-150 Cargo Van. I can see it being a royal pain backing out of an angled parking space especially.
•Who was checking out the FJ Cruiser? Mostly males in their 60's. That's not a complete picture though. At 2PM on a Thursday, most of the attendees were male, older, with gray hair. One was an H3 owner that had a deposit on an FJ Cruiser, but got tired of waiting.
•Toyota Babes® were not in attendance. Two reps from the Mazda exhibit came by, one definitely qualifying for babe status. She was quite taken with the FJ, It seemed as if she didn't know about it before the expo.
Toyota also has brought their
Off Road, On Site Adventure to the expo. Not being able to drive the FJ Cruiser was a major disappoint. It's probably because Toyota expects most sales to be 4x2's sold to secretaries.
I chose the Tacoma for my lap of the "550 tons of dirt" and creeped around the course and still had fun. Somehow I suspect if you drove as they did for this Adventures' website
photo, you'd be hauled off to jail.
They require plenty of personal information before and ask you to complete a questionnaire after. I took the opportunity to provide some FJ Cruiser feedback in hopes they're listening. You do get a Toyota Truck hat for your time.
Not much new, but those are my impressions. I didn't take many pictures because it was so dark. The few I took are in my gallery. Sorry for the delay in reporting. The expo continues tonight, Saturday until 9PM and tomorrow, Sunday 10AM-5PM.
Stewart
Linear Mode
