In spite of the guaranteed Midwestern cold, auto brands at the Chicago Auto Show, which starts next week, love the urban outdoors. The show has more elaborate ride-and-drive programs
than any other of the other big U.S. auto confabs.
Toyota Motor Sales’ Lexus, Scion and Toyota divisional brands are no exception, with indoor and outdoor test-drive
experiences, including one that mirrors the creative from a TV spot, and a concert series.
The Camry Experience is a 27,000-square-foot indoor driving course that, according to
Toyota, recreates a TV spot from the new “Bold New Camry” advertising campaign. where a guy launches on an impromptu urban autocross obstacle course as he chases a food truck to bring his
wife, who is pregnant, what she suddenly craves. That would be an Asian ice cream and shaved-ice dessert (called halo halo in the Philippines) from Fluff Ice, a popular L.A. Asian fusion food truck.
The test ride at the Chicago show follows a mockup of that hazard-strewn course, but with a pro driver in the passenger's seat. And at the end? Participants get some of the dessert featured in the ad, compliments of Fluff Ice.
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In the real fluff ice (or snow) outside, Toyota is bringing back its Drive Center program,
using a local street course to showcase the RAV 4, Highlander, 4Runner and Sienna. Toyota division's small-car sibling brand will do a Scion Live Drive, which allows people to drive the FR-S sports
car, the xB compact ute, and the tC coupe. And Lexus is back to continue to do what it has been doing for a year: reshaping the conversation around Lexus as a performance “driver's
car.”
The focus of the Lexus setup, via auto-show-centric event company George P. Johnson, is on the GS F sedan, introduced at the North American International Auto Show
in Detroit. Besides some some 20 vehicles, the brand will host an R&B concert under “Lexus Verses and Flow," a multi-year R&B and spoken word broadcast program on TV One designed to reach African American consumers, and hosted by Laz Alonso.
The Chicago Lexus program
includes performers like Bad Boy Entertainment artist Carl Thomas and vocalist Angie Stone.