MotorShow 2002

They hired a country house nearby ( I assume you're talking about the blue/white propellor) - I got an invite but couldn't make it due to work committments... offering test drives and a more relaxed experience plus chaffeur driven journeys in X5s and new 7s into the show proper - in keeping with the brand... but probably not what the public want to see.

I reckon BMW saved a lot of money by not attending the show. I took up their invitation to view the new Z4 (super machine) their new Volvo look alike seven series, and also got taken to the show. There was nothing much to look at - Mercedes were only showing their OEM cars,  Bentley had what looked like a Volkswagen Beetle on show, and most of the rest looked like lighting displays with their multi faceted headlamps.

The Ford/Jagur stand had a lot of Mondeo/Jag combinations that looked as though they were made from corrugated tin!  The only decent cars I saw were the Alphas and Aston Martins. The Toyotas were quite smart also. 

BMW have no competition to worry about, and the star of the show was their Mini, doing wheelies to an audience of 700 at half hour intervals.

It's also about time that the NEC took a visit to Essen and learnt how the experts do a show. Queues for very expensive food were enormous and, and the mapping of the halls was not very good.