Zerotohundred Exclusive: We Visit The Indonesia International Motor Show 2008

We’ve been doing quite a bit of running around Asia this year, from Japan for the Tokyo Auto Salon to Thailand for the Bangkok Motor Show, Singapore for the Formula Drift, and just last week, Jakarta for the Indonesia International Motorshow (IIMS). It’s fun, a lot of fun, but the work involved to be the one of the first media in the world to feature post-event coverage is no easy feat, the flights, the hotels, the traffic jams and the lack of internet connection can bring a leading automotive website to a halt, but not us.

It was all worth it though, the IIMS is one the most anticipated automotive events this side of the world and we saw why. It featured 160 cars out of which 11 were concepts, well there are quite a number of local events that have gathered that many cars and even more, but none of those events have an influence over locals as much as the IIMS has on ‘Jakartians’. Mercedes used it as a platform to launch the new SL, Honda launched the new Jazz, Proton launched the Persona and so did other manufacturers like Mazda, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Suzuki.

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The event also promoted greener motoring, dubbed “Advanced Motoring, High Quality Living”, the organisers of the IIMS, GAIKINDO (Gabungan Industri Kenderaan Bermotor Indonesia) went out of its way to promote alternative sources of energy. They even put together a writing competition for journalists highlighting on “The application of alternative energy towards the enhancement of quality living” as its theme. What better way to educate the public about alternative energy when you have some of the country’s leading automotive journalists competing to come up with the best piece of writing on alternative energy.

Other such events include a competition for the one car that was the most environmentally friendly and could provide a solution to the current environmental mayhem and a ‘Automotive Design and Styling’ competition that focused on the most Agropolitan Vehicle. Very thoughtful if you ask me and the fact that Honda had ‘tree people’ creeping around their hall just hit the message home that we are at the brink of an environmental disaster.

The IIMS also had a very friendly and social feel to it, yes it was an event that promoted motoring, so the organisers, went out and planted 1,500 trees around Indonesia since the end of last year till as early as last month. It also wasn’t an event only for the rich and worthy, it was for everybody. One thousand students were invited to attend the show and be pampered with all sorts of goodies from the organisers and manufacturers along with various other homes and schools.

Besides that, the IIMS was everything we expected it to be, the babes, we’ll X-rate that for now, the cars included the 2007 Formula 1 Championship winning Ferrari, a super huge Hino truck that looked like it was going to transform into Optimus Prime at any minute and a Toyota concept that featured carbon fiber rims, the crowd, all 206,000 of them were very much awe struck, the ICE competition was of course, deafening, the showcase of exotic dancers and other entertainers was a nice touch,and the rest of the mini events just seemed to make a mockery out of what KLIMS has turned out to be, or rather hasn’t turned out to be.

So, while we spent an entire week in Jakarta, it wasn’t all about the IIMS, watch out for our feature on Permaisuri, the largest and most trusted rim dealer in Jakarta, we even catch up with local car clubs to see what type of mischief car fans in Indonesia get up to and we check out a locally tuned Nissan Skyline R34 GTR, and of course, The Babes Of IIMS.