International Auto Shows are for the car enthusiasts what rock festivals around the world are for rock fans: the ideal opportunity for party! While it is true that not everyone attending a prestigious motor show can afford many of the cars that debut there, that doesn’t mean that the pleasure he/she gets is negligible. To put it differently, every fan that attends a Beyoncé concert would like not only to listen to her singing but also to spend more time with her. Similarly, a teenager girl would have only dreamt of kissing Justin Bieber. So, even if you can’t afford the latest model of Lamborghini, it doesn’t really matter; what matters is that you were there, spending some few moments of exhilaration with your favorite car.

There are numerous International Motor Shows around the world all year round. For the next month, four important auto shows are scheduled: the Dubai International Motor Show, the L.A. Auto Show, that comes with many car debuts this year, the Tokyo Motor Show and, finally, the Johannesburg Motor Show.

Dubai International Motor Show

The amount of luxurious cars concentrated in Dubai exceeds your imagination. Dubai is the new Mecca for everyone willing to spend a fortune in a few hours. Therefore, something tells me that many residents of this tiny Arab emirate are planning to attend the Dubai International Motor Show that will be held between the 5^th and the 9^th of November. Over 600 vehicles will be showcased at the festival. Practically almost all of the top car manufacturers will present new models, hybrid cars or concept cars including Chevrolet, Maserati, Aston Martin, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls Royce, McLaren, Lexus, Cadillac, Lamborghini and Jaguar among others…

 In addition, the festival will add to its calendar a brand new motor event, the Dubai Motor Festival. A large convoy of luxurious cars and bikes will parade through the city for the eyes of the city’s citizens only! Last but not least, the luxury car market is expected to double in the Middle East between 2010 and 2015. It goes without a saying, as Queen once put it, that the show must go on!

L.A. Auto Show

As one of America’s top auto shows, L.A. Auto Show surely has a vast market for car sales. Most of Hollywood stars live in the city and, as we’re being constantly reminded by the lifestyle magazines, they like to spend big money! Just like most of the celebrated auto show in the US, the L.A. auto festival has a really long history behind it. It was launched in 1907; 99 vehicles were on display that very first time. Nowadays, the show is much bigger; only the debut vehicles amount to the number of 56!

During the show 22 cars will make their world debut, with Porsche’s brand new Macan compact SUV to be one of the most anticipated. There is more on it, though; MINI will present its 2014 Cooper and I can hear a sound of relief from the legendary brand’s millions of fans already! If you can’t wait till then, check at a Mini convertible for sale to warm up! BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Subaru, Volkswagen among other brands will also present their latest creations. The show will be open to the public from the 22^nd of November to the 1^st of December.

Tokyo Motor Show

Do Japanese know from good cars? Well, it’s like asking if Italians know from pizza, don’t you think? The Japanese are genuine masters in cutting edge technology and they never quite stopped manufacturing excellent and reliable cars. Having said that, it is easy to assume that they also know how to organize an ideal motor show!

The 43^rd Tokyo Motor Show will take place from November the 22^nd till December the 1^st and it will be quite different from what we know so far. The economic downturn of Japan during the last years in combination with the high competition posed by China’s auto shows forced the organizers to rethink the present and the future of the show. They decided to shift focus to cutting edge technology and innovation; part of this new direction is the Smart Mobility City project. It concerns the interconnectivity of cars showing towards a future that is yet unwritten, when cars will be something more than a simple transportation vehicle. Go Tokyo!

Johannesburg Motor Show

South Africa might not be as rich and extrovert as Dubai or as important as the U.S.A. when it comes to international motor festivals, but, still, the Johannesburg Motor Show is surely an exception. The auto show that will be held from October the 18^th till October the 27^th is the largest in Southern Africa and will include a significant number of debuts. Ford will present its Evos Concept and Peugeot will make its debut with two new models, the 199kW PC-Z-R sports coupe and the 2008 crossover. What is more, Mercedes will showcase 20 models along with its brand new SLS AMG Black Series and Nissan will showcase its all-electric Leaf that makes for the best selling electric car in the world. Needless to say, there will be many more debuts from the best brands of the automotive industry!

Just imagine flying from the extravagant Dubai to the land of the stars in Los Angeles!  Then, visiting Tokyo only to finish your trip around the world in South Africa! That would have been a journey around the world in less than 80 days! And that would have also been a trip to a world of luxury and advanced technology. It would have also been a trip to the future, as it is in the world’s most prestigious festivals where all of the new trends and ideas are presented right before they become part of our modern lives… May the trip begin…

Sources:

http://nextravelguide.com/blog/the-weekend-blackpool-mini-cooper-test-drive/

http://www.7daysindubai.com/Convoy-supercars-lead-Dubai-s-new-motoring/

story-19847330-detail/story.html

http://www.worldcarfans.com/113080160978/la-auto-show-to-host-9-global-debuts

Electric cars are certainly the future of cars. We won’t be able to consume these amounts of oil for ever; oil is running out fast. So, electric cars will be our preferred mode of transportation and car manufacturers are already doing their best to deliver electric vehicles at an affordable price. We will have to wait a little bit till the moment comes, when every family will own its own version of an electric car, that, I can only assume, it will be recharged much faster than now. However, there is a mode of transportation that is absolutely safe for the environment: it’s the bicycles and that’s already a trend among the urban aficionados with green sensitivities.

Bicycles have been around since the 19^th century. Even today bicycles amount for the most popular vehicle in the world, with 1 billion (!) in total. This is easily explained if we think of populous Asian countries, where buying a car is not always an available option. In the developed Western countries, though, the situation is somehow different: people can usually afford to buy a car. Nonetheless, there has been a renewed interest in bicycles; we might even call it a trend. From Manhattan to Berlin and from Melbourne to Barcelona thousands of youngsters choose to move by bike.

This is what probably inspired big car companies to engage more actively in the production of bikes. Sure, in many cases the car companies just license their logo to bike manufacturers; but in other cases car brands do offer to their customers the pleasure of a distinctive and inspiring bike model. Such is the case of the MINI folding bikes: you buy it, you enjoy it and then you fold it, to just put it at the back of your MINI Cooper! BMW has been actively engaged in producing bike as well; they have been making bicycles for over 50 years, actually! Currently the Kids BMW Bike is available at the price of $325. This can be the perfect present for your kid; as for yourself, well, check at the new cars offered by BMW and suit yourself!  

And there are plenty more of these very special surprises that we can get from car manufacturers: did you know that you can buy a special edition BMC bike that will cost you… $25.000? Well, it is certainly not an average bike; it is a BMC Impec Lamborghini Edition bike and only 50 of them were ever produced.  If you find it unaffordable to buy a Lamborghini car, then you can tame your craving by simply getting yourself a bike; that will do for a while, don’t you think? Also, Porsche launched its own bike and its price is more moderate: you can make it yours with only $5.900. That’s more like it!

Apart from these somehow luxurious options, there are plenty of affordable car brand bicycles such as the GMC, Jeep or MINI, as we have mentioned before. With a few hundreds, one of them can become yours and your afternoon hang outs around the city can become faster and healthier for your body.

This relationship between cars and bicycles is not exactly new: Tour de France was launched in 1903 in order to build some interest for cars among the public. It was still the time when cars were taking their first steps before they went to conquer our modern urban landscape.

There are plenty of little heavens for bikes in the world; Amsterdam surely stands out due to its massive use of bikes in an experiment that was more than successful: it changed the whole rhythm of everyday life there. 8 out of 10 of Amsterdammers own a bike and millions of tourists flood Amsterdam streets every year to have a taste of it. A modern city must be bicycle friendly nowadays and this is, in my humble opinion, a very welcoming change.

Ride on!