Sala de Automovil Santiago 2008

In front of one of my favorite classics, an MG.

Pretty wild new color scheme for the Volvo C30,a model

we don't get in the states.

Two of the eight Chinese brands.

The all-chocolate Peugeot 306. Ten minutes later they opened 

it up for people to start eating it.

The orgasmic Audi R8. I went from six to midnight

when they turned it on. This car really is one of the 

hottest cars I've ever seen.

Today I was invited by my uncle to go with him and Hans to the Santiago Auto Show. I will admit that before seeing it I was skeptical of the selection they would have. To my surprise they had every American and European brand that you could think of, including Ferrari, Masserti, Alfa Romeo, and Fiat in addition to many more. There were lots of cool cars to see, but what really shocked me were two fold: the staggering number of Chinese brands entering the market this year, and the high prices of cars here in Chile.

First, the price of cars here is unbelievable. Cars that you see people my age driving in the states are cars for more well-established people here. You don't see all these cars to die for in the wealthy areas. My uncle is the only exception, driving a BMW 7-series, and he only bought that after he had a heart attack and decided he couldn't take his money to the grave with him. Hans is looking for a new car now that his is almost 10 years old. He's looking at a Mazda 6, a Toyota RAV-4, or a Honda CR-V. Although these are very nice cars, no American would look at them and say "Wow! That is a nice car!" A fully loaded Honda CR-V, their mini-SUV, in the states is about $25k fully loaded. Today at the show, were were informed that the same model costs more than 19 million pesos (today the dollar has hit it's highest point, 675 pesos to the dollar; this means that the CR-V costs nearly $30k). Though this might not seem like much, keep in mind that the median household income in the US is $46k, while in Chile it's only $14k. So not only is the car more expensive, Chileans also make far less.

The other shocker was the staggering number of Chinese automakers out there. I counted 8 brands today at the show, of which I've heard of exactly none. The come in funky names from Ssang Yong to Great Wall, if you can believe it. They are much cheaper and what's funny is how easy it was to see how they ripped off popular designs from other brands. The $90k Mercedes S-Class flagship has been replicated by Ssang Yong almost exactly, offered at a price of about $55k. China has far more relaxed copyright laws, so this sort of thing happens all the time. So the moral of the story is that you might think the US was on top in the past, but as our economy is going down the proverbial shitter with our automakers today asking for $10 billion in assistance, the Chinese are exporting upwards of ten brands to more nations than the US. Think about that for a bit.

Have a great day or week or what not. If you're interested, you should download the song "Volver" by a singer named Beto Cuevas; this song is my new favorite here, and the singer is the former front man of famous latin band La Ley, also from Chile.