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I’ve just had no luck in getting you, our loyal reader, the sort of in-person coverage of the past week’s cool automotive happening that I’d been hoping for! You’ll remember that last week, a traffic accident that shut down a major freeway prevented me from bringing you the reveal of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. Since Thursday, I’ve tried and failed to bring you full reports from two other automotive happenings, which I’ll get back to in a minute. I might be good at forecasting the automotive market, but a resourceful automotive journalist I am obviously not!
Had things gone differently, this story would have brought you some pics and insight from me attending a panel discussion at 2008 Comic-Con in San Diego with the creatives behind Click and Clack’s As the Wrench Turns, a new animated TV series on PBS based on those lovable Tappet Brothers who have entertained and informed us about cars and car care on NPR for decades. I would have also told you about me being an audience member at the taping of the pilot for Top Gear USA, the American version of the world’s best car-related TV show – ever.

Click and Clack, in animated form

NBC’s first official image from Top Gear USA

So why I didn’t make it to either of those events? Although I eventually did make it to Comic-Con, an overturned truck on the freeway that spilled fuel and started a brush fire meant that I made it to my destination hours after the Click and Clack panel discussion happened (that’s the second car accident that week that prevented me from getting to where I needed to be!).

Darn you!!! Fortunately, no serious injuries. Courtesy KGTV San Diego
As for the Top Gear USA taping, we simply got there too late; even though we got to the studio two hours before they told us to get there, the studio had long since filled to capacity.
Actually, that brings me to the point that I wanted to make all along by attending these events. Yes, the industry is in a whole lot of trouble and there is plenty of good reason for all the doom and gloom we’re hearing about. However, the simple fact that media (TV, online, print, etc.) about automobiles seems to continue to expand and captivate people’s imaginations goes to show how much we as a society maintain a love affair with the automobile.
Cars and trucks have always been more than simply transportation. They enable life experiences and future memories. They stoke our imaginations. Cars and trucks are a big part of the good times we have. So, even as fuel prices are high and unstable and we’re starting to change our driving habits, we still continue to love the automobile. Why else would more and more automotive-related media continue to stream our way?
There’s no doubt that we’ll see some big changes in the kinds of vehicles we drive and perhaps even the way we use them. It’s all part of the changing realities we are facing. We might drive less and substitute some of our driving with mass transit. We might change the types of vehicles we drive. We might see big improvements in efficiency, and we might even change the way we power our vehicles.
These things have been happening already in other parts of the world for quite some time. But it does not dampen worldwide enthusiasm for vehicles. Heck, Top Gear, the amazing BBC show that is the inspiration for the Top Gear USA taping that I missed, comes from a land where gasoline costs more than $10 per gallon and (wonderfully efficient) public transportation is used by a far greater percentage of the population compared to the United States.

BBC’s Top Gear always finds time for crazy tomfoolery despite $10/gallon gas
Big changes are coming, but I’m very confident that the automobile will remain a fixture of our popular culture despite these changes.