First Impressions: NYIAS 2023

We look forward to it every year. It's like the opening of major league baseball only for car junkies, or car "crazies". I love the freedom to walk around thousands of square feet of showroom space and wander around like a kid in a candy shop and be wowed by this year's automotive ingenuity. And, what puts the icing on the cake is the people you meet along the way who are just as insane about cars as you and are totally willing to talk about it at length! (More on that later).

But the New York auto show (NYIAS) is usually a place to indulge the car crazy cravings of all things auto. From economy transportation to top-of-the-line super performer supercars. It's all here, well, it used to be. This year's show offered a noticeable reduction in OEM, especially the luxury German brands. We found ourselves traversing the show floor but only on 1 floor and not 2-3 as in years past. While it did make it more convenient to play tic-tac-toe on a single floor, going from 1 press conference to the next, I did miss the plethora of variety and excitement.

With that said, there were still highlights to point out. Jeep really splashed the crowd with excitement with its newly refreshed Wrangler design. It includes a 12.3-inch touch screen standard on all Wranglers, a new facia refresh with the iconic 7-slot grill tighter together, power seats for the first time ever, and new safety like collision avoidance. The Rubicon edition comes with an 8k lb Warn winch, a true crowd-pleaser, and a towing capacity of up to 5k lb. Overall, the new Wrangler looks attractive, especially considering it could easily be "wrangled:" by the Ford Bronco!

Another notable mention is Genesis. While you can debate the brand's reliability and parent company Hyundai,'s multiple recalls, they really showed up in force with the GV 80 Coupe concept. The brand's UN-electric sporty luxury SUV cross over with forthcoming specs and price range. Genesis brass says it's definitely going into production and may be priced roughly in the mid 50's-70K similar to its siblings currently available. It was shown in a bright orange color named Magma to show down its German competitors, who were noticeably absent. Genesis was loud and clear in its intention to blow its horn at the German establishment. (It was also highly appreciated that they had one of the best coffee bars in the whole show!)