Salon de l'automobile

Last week we went to the Paris Motorshow one evening. It was surprisingly packed, but still good. All the major manufacturers were there, and the French ones in particular had put on display some concept cars to illustrate design ideas (see photo). These kind of things rarely make it in to production, but can hint at how future trends may go.
As well as looking, there's the chance to sit in various cars. Not the expensive and glamorous ones though - for BMW there was a queue to get on the stand. For Ferrari/Rolls Royce/Aston etc, nobody was getting on the stand, apart from a few with poncy hair do's.

The ones we did get a sit in ranged from a Citroen C1 (nice little runabout) up to a Range Rover. The latter was very nice inside, and gave the idea that you'd have a 'king of the road' feel on a journey in it, towering above the lesser mortals in their ordinary cars. Obviously it's not going to be very good on your wallet though; the manager at your local petrol station would be pleased if you got one.

Strangely enough, one make that had their cars locked was the Russian manufacturer Lada. Given how they looked from the outside, I can only assume it's because their cars are not up to having hundreds of people get in and out of them, prodding and pulling at pieces of trim. Take a look at the photo of one of their more 'modern' models.