It started early in the morning. The alarm clock screaming, the clumsy tremble out of bed, the half-asleep terminator pose shower, the snot rockets, the excessive petting of the loudmouth animals and the all too well known struggle to find a pant leg without tripping over my own unkempt toenails.

Although the day started with the same figurative intravenous of caffeine as any other usual morning would, this is no normal day of work. No, today is special; today is media day at the Canadian International Auto Show.

While media day is not foreign to me, the experience itself is not any less special or exciting. There is a certain joy to attending an otherwise excellent auto show without screaming, unattended children jumping on seats, holding your breath to escape various humanly odors (…guilty) and having a personal bubble the size of a tapioca pearl.

It comes with certain perks, all of which I am extremely grateful for. The staff is exceptionally friendly and approachable, there is enough room to capture a vehicle of interest at any obscure angle you’d like, but perhaps most importantly, Pfaff feeds you free antipasto and alcohol. Thanks Pfaff!

Rather than repeating the typical agenda of focusing all my attention on the vehicles present, a lot of my time was spent talking with the individuals that populated the various floors of the Metro Toronto Convention Center in hopes to gain new perspectives of what CIAS means to others.

The event itself hosted various personalities, all of which were attending for different reasons. Speaking informally with the staff, there was a surprisingly positive response to their participation in media day, many of which looked forward to a goof with a camera sparking up a conversation and shooting the breeze. I liked this.

Representatives of the OEM’s themselves weren’t shy at scanning name badges to see where someone was from and if that person has any type of public influence. Understandably so, most of the OEM’s scurried away when they saw that I’m a nobody with negligible media presence. It sucks, but I get it.

Bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers and other content creaters made up a large percentage of the bodies present during media day which was awesome to see. Even more positive were those who were there for similar reasons as myself, rather than starting the conversation with how many views they get per month or the number of followers they have.

What ever happened to attending an event for the sole purpose of embracing the event itself, rather than the narcissistic goal of self-promotion and gaining followers? Maybe I’m a hypocrite, this blog does exist after all. Much like the stuffy representatives from the OEM’s, I found that there was a lack of heart and passion in these individuals which was a bit of a bummer to witness.

Seeing these two fine gentlemen enjoying the event reminded me of my first time attending media day, in which one of my best friends obtained tickets and took me along for the experience. I missed this.

Regardless of others intents, the experience was nothing short of amazing and that’s not just due to the media day perks. Every year I attend the Canadian International Auto Show, I always get a stark reminder why I always come back.

It’s the cars, the progression, the variety and the true passion of the event. The niche rooms always offer a relief from the world of increasingly vanilla new cars (I use that term loosely) and provide an exciting reminder of cars past, the modification and hot rod culture and the art of the automobile, a little taste of everything for everyone.

And yes, the different personalities are often entertaining to witness as well.

I will admit that some years are better than others, but at the end of the day CIAS is like pizza. Even bad pizza is still pizza, and pizza is always good. This years event was particularly enjoyable due to the presence of new concepts, OEM race cars and even some new production models. Sorry, hyper-critical internet, the new Supra is an astounding leap forward which hits almost all of the right buttons in my book.

For those interested, I would highly suggest checking the show out this year.

I would love to steal a spot at CIAS for the GT6 in the future, however maybe I should actually work on the damn thing before getting ahead of myself.

Sean