I was stressing out a little bit about how to get down to see this year’s Autosalon. The weather had turned sour a few days earlier, and overcast skies and drizzle greeted me on Sunday morning. That meant my plans to ride my Ninja on the ~80km drive to the Gold Coast Convention Centre were immediately scuttled. I’ve been looking after my 5D way too well to risk it getting even the slightest bit wet.. Foy came to the rescue on his shining steed and sharp sword (DC2 Integra), and picked my sorry ass up. Umbrella in tow, we met my friend Attila, who works for Channel 9 News as their camera man.
On arriving, we convinced the Autosalon crew that we were there as part of the 9 News outfit, with no intentions whatsoever about doing any filming. But when Attila saw the caliber of cars, ladies and entertainment on display, out came the massive broadcast-grade video camera from the back of the fourby, and we started off chatting with the Autosalon guys on film. I’d like to mention here a big thank-you to Brett for hooking us up, and helping us get some interviews and access to the dyno. Here’s a couple of Ash’s EG being strapped down, and spinning the rollers.
After dropping off my stuff with the Downshift crew, I gave up on trying to shoot the cars on display – far too many people were shooting them anyway – and decided to focus on the ladies of Autosalon. They went to great effort to primp and preen their way to the floor, and many with great personalities to boot (Im looking at you Luca and Kristine)! Just click on the images for full res, hosted on my flickr.
Stylish wheels had a huge stand, filled to the brim with chrome and 4(!) promo girls:
Did Queen St bring their own ladies from Sydney?
EA Games had a huge stand with copies of their currently-unreleased game, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Luca and her friend had no troubles getting people to check it out (including me):
Juiced Polishes airbrushed this freezing blondie in the morning, she was walking around sporting an interesting outfit all day:
Finished product:
Just Car Insurance ladies:
The Kam Motor Trimming girls posing with the insane methanol-injected gold Kamaro all day. When they started this thing a couple of times, it was just nuts. Everyone in the hall looked, even if they were at the opposite end. No other way to describe it:
Hardtuned.net girls:
Dan Kenneally with his 350Z drift car:
About halfway through the day, the main stage was taken over for the judging of the best promo girl for the weekend. Copious amounts of free t-shirts, caps, posters, magazines were thrown through the air into the ecstatic crowd, but by far my favourite was this little man, getting started early in life:
Anyone else think girls look funny mid-throw? :)
Hankook girls gave out heaps of posters:
BKM Automotive promo girls. The organiser insisted that I take a photo, both front & back. Who was I to argue?
Rebecca and friend from Southport Tyreshop:
A LOT of car audio firms had promo girls this year, all of them bringing along some gorgeous ladies. Orion Audio girls, with hard hitting bass:
Alpine chick, thanks for your patience!
Vibe, a car audio firm from UK brought along their bass machine, which was apparently used as a prop in Judge Dredd. Here are their ladies in front of their beast:
I believe these girls were from the Drift College / ProDrift. Anyone confirm?
Kristine was a great sport, and we shoehorned her into one of the best cars of the day, Bobby’s EJ8 K20 ITB Civic, complete with buckets and Takata Harness:
Autosalon also had this girl standing in front of Queen St’s twin turbo Ferrari all day, in a makeshift photo booth complete with monobloc lights and softboxes.. Funnily enough, the poor thing had to endure the lights blasting her full-power every 5 seconds or so all day long, because the radio triggers were picking up senders from all around the building!! Should’ve used sync cables for this one guys :)
To wrap up, some of the showgoers were gracious enough to let me grab a quick snap of them. Thanks to the Autosalon crew for putting on a good show, and all the businesses for giving our senses such a feast!
