There is an auto show going on in Detroit right now, which is all well and good, unless you’re a thousand miles away from it. If you happen to be around a 1000 miles east of Detroit, somewhere in the New England area, get down to the Boston Convention Center in Southie, as the locals call it, for the New England International Auto Show. No, you won’t see the 2014’s that were just unveiled at that other show but you will see many cars that you may not have seen on the road yet, all in one place. Some manufacturers even allow you to even take some models for a spin, take that Detroit!

The show is open to public and goes through January 20th. I highly suggest going during the Patriots game, as the place will be dead empty. I went yesterday and here is what I saw:

Toyota’s bread & butter Highlander gets redone for 2014. The new car is a lot more stylish outside and the interior has a lot of thoughtful and well designed features. While there is nothing revolutionary about the new Highlander, improvements in quality, such as materials and textures, are very apparent, much like on all other new Toyotas. Interesting part is that the Highlander is built in Indiana and exported to eleven countries – ‘Murika!

Because all the new Mustangs and F-150s are in Detroit, Ford brought their existing line-up to Boston. That’s not a bad thing, unless you don’t like the Raptor. There were Transit vans and new Transit Connects, along with some other, once forbidden, European-ish models. And the Fusion still looks good.

Mazda is very proud of their new Mazda3, and they are happily showing it off there. The car has a ton of features not found in this class; is sporty to drive, and damn good looking. It’s available with two engines, and soon the bigger 2.5L will be available with a manual transmission, too. Also… the 3 and 6 are the only two cars on the market that are available with freakin’ capacitors which collect the parasitic losses from the alternator and store that energy for use as needed by the electrical system. Freakin’ brilliant!

There were also two Miatas on the floor, including the special Club Edition. 

Cadillac brought the new Escalade ESV to the show. It was actually the second one ever made, a fact which I found to be interesting. The whole Caddy line-up is pretty new and really worth checking out as Caddy has really stepped up their game.

While the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Ford Transit are rear-wheel-drive, the new RAM ProMaster is front-wheel-drive, which allows lower loading floor. I noticed some unsecured roof lights wires inside the cargo area of the ProMaster; I am not sure of this was a pre-production vehicle, but having just got an issue in the Grand Cherokee roof liner wires, someone should take a look at it.

All of these vans are so Euro that you’ll want to run out of there, look for a Vandura on craigslist, and light up a Marlboro. Interestingly, both vans had plastic wheel covers – remember when vans had steel wheel covers that would either be impossible to remove or would fall off by themselves?

Here are some other pictures. I was experimenting with my new 17-50mm f/2.8 lens – opinions welcome.