2020 Montreal Auto Show review

Here is what I thought about this year’s Auto show.

The Montreal Auto show has always been a big thing to this city, and like most cities that host auto shows, it provides a good opportunity for car and non-car people to gather and discuss the one thing most people own; cars!

This year, like most, boasted three floors of different automotive manufactures showing off their most recent developments (and some, the same things as the last three years, but we’ll get into that later). The layout was a bit different this year compared to previous. This year, on the first floor, the electric market had its own section, that section, being called the. Are you ready? The electric zone (or in French le zone electric). That’s right it was called exactly what you would’ve expected. But that being said, I’m actually glad that they gave a whole part of the show to electric. I think it’s the future, but if you want to know more about my opinion on that, then check one of my previous articles.

Moving along, on the second floor is where we started with some of the bigger spots. And the first booth we walk into? Buick… Ah good ol’ Buick. The car of choice for anyone whose parents migrated here with Christopher Columbus. Jokes aside, they did have an elegant booth with comfy carpeting that made it easy on the back and a bakery. Ok, seriously I’m done with jokes. Continuing on the second floor, we went past Acura, BMW, McLaren (shout out to Chris from McLaren Montreal for giving me a tour of the booth and letting me get up close and personal with one of three McLaren Senna Can-Am’s), Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes. 

I was a bit surprised by the layout they had on the second floor. In the past, the high-end dealers didn’t have their own booths, they were all merged into one and it was basically stuck in a corridor. You couldn’t see any of the “cool stuff” because people were always blocking, trying to get pictures for Instagram and pretend like it was their car. Buddy, we all know you were at the auto show, YOU POSTED THAT AS THE FIRST THING ON YOUR INSTAGRAM STORY.

We then walked through what they call the Modified section, with all of the 10 ish cars they had on display there, my favorite being a s13 convertible drift car. I was unfortunately surprised as they had made this part of the show substantially smaller. Continuing in the same section, they had another (regular) Senna, and a Pagani Huayra, brought to you by OB Prestige.

Once that was over, we made our way to the third and final floor (keep in mind we were already three hours in… I was talking to a lot of people). Here we saw more of the common brands, some of which included; Volkswagen, Toyota, Jeep, Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford, Hyundai, Lexus, Honda and Jaguar. Nothing really special to mention about it other than, the new Corvette, Mustang Mach-e and the Ford GT500. 

Before we get into who wasn’t at the show this year, I want to go back a minute and talk about some manufactures that keep bringing older models back. One of the most common that I’ve seen is Jaguar. Now, don’t get me wrong I love Jaguars (mostly for the look), but if you’re only going to release a new car once every five years. Then maybe you should just get a smaller booth and not have to fill it with older models. For example, I’ve seen the Jaguar SV XE Project 8, for the last three years. And even though it is one of my favorite cars at the show, I’m getting kind of tired of seeing it. 

It took me awhile to realize and I actually needed to google it to confirm my point, but one of the big players that wasn’t there was; Audi. I know right? I would’ve thought for them to have been there for sure, but it seems as though it is a part of their new goals to pull out from all auto shows across Canada. Will they be there next year? Probably not, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Other manufactures not at the show this year included; Volvo and Mercedes, now that might confuse you and I know you went to go check, but yes, I wrote them as there on floor two. But it was not Mercedes Canada that brought the cars, it was independent dealers that brought in a number of Mercedes vehicle for the public to have a look at. Volvo, honestly, I’m just not that surprised. 

So, what is my final verdict? Well, the show overall was good but not great, although every year I am glad that Montreal is still the host. I like to see how the show is progressing and I am excited to see where is goes in the future. Obviously, I hope that more manufactures don’t continue to drop out (BMW next year), but I understand their point of view. One thing I can hope will change, is the fact of not having enough staff to help you when you have questions, and having to deal with people asking if you want to sign up to some stupid contest and go home with a fucking poster.

I think the selection of different cars was excellent, and for anyone going there to shop, it really does provide a great place to check out the cars. One issue I found if you are going there with the intention to shop is that you might have a hard time finding a salesperson. On the second floor I was surprised, there was salespeople everywhere and all of them seemed nice and ready to answer any questions you might have. But when it came to the third floor. Let’s just say that If I want to sign up to a contest, I could throw a rock and hit 65 people holding iPads asking if you’ve heard about the promotion and if you wanted to sign up and get a free fucking poster. 

One of the worst manufactures for this was Lexus. I shit you not, I got asked three times in five minutes if I wanted to sign up for, I don’t know what. I said no every time and they didn’t seem too happy about it, but guess what? I don’t care. 

That being said, let’s get into some important knows. Tickets cost $17.00 for general admission, $14.00 for seniors and students, $7.00 for kids between the ages of 6-12 and if none of that floats your boat, they have a family package at $41.00 that gives you two adult tickets and two kids tickets.

Accessibility you ask? You can either take a metro there, which is great because it stops right at the Palais des congrès (which is where the show is held), or you can drive there and park inside. Keep in mind that parking there will run you up a nice $24.00 fucking dollars. Luckily, I was there for four hours so it didn’t feel too bad.

The show also provides two (yes two) cafeterias where you can find, pizza, fries (which were great, because they were more like wedges and not like dingy little fries, anyways back to it), salads, wraps and other stuff including coffee. The coffee? Yeah, not too bad either. 

In conclusion, I would recommend the show to anyone who is either visiting Montreal, is looking for something to do during the week as a pass time, or for anyone looking for a new car. I wouldn’t wait until the show comes around every year to then decide whether I’m looking for a car or not, but if you are looking, then you should without question go to the auto show. 

I would like to thank all of the manufactures and the people from the head offices for taking the time to talk to me and let me ask the questions I had. And, I hope we can work together sometime in the near future. Also, thank you to whoever went to the auto show and read this as I hope you can in some way, or another relate to some of the things I said.