MunMaak City to Coast Rally 2010, Press Conference

Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Hummer, Lotus and Maserati were the key protagonists as the City to Coast rally 2010 rally was announced at a press conference on the vast deck in the shadow of the towering the Central World mall in downtown Bangkok last night. A stage, music, lights, booths and a beauty pageant were all part of the evening extravaganza. Organised by MunMaak this event, reserved for high performance/luxury cars, will take the crews on a not-overly-strenuous mission from the start ramp at Central World to the costal resort of Pattaya via a lunchtime stop in Kao Yai. The City to Coast rally 2010 will take place on January 23. However that is for the future; so on Saturday evening during what was billed on the flyer as "Saturday Night MunMaak Fever: City to Coast Rally Press Conference" the cluster of head turning cars started trickling into the rolling paved frontage of the mall sandwiched abruptly between two long rows of fountains, from teatime. Automotive highlights of the evening included an early public appearance in Thailand for the new Porsche Panamera, which slipped its bulking, family-design-language-cue-stuffed shape into its slot, while a rare sighting, at least here, is the stunning Maserati GranTurismo coupé. Other novelties included a Ford GT and a metallic-grey Ferrari 430 Scuderia. Porsche was the most numerically numbered amongst the two-dozen cars on show, most of which had taken part in previous MunMaak drives while other sports cars to stand out under the flickering floodlights included a lusrious-white Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, a striped-up Lotus Elise and its bigger sister, the Esprit, a car that was instantly immortalised when it was casually driven out of the water by James Bond three decades ago, a brace of black, pimped-up BMWs, a Ferrari 360 Modena with wheel rims picked out in white to match its glossy body colour, and the brooding black-and-yellow menace of a big-grille-snouted Nissan GT-R. These events, that bring high performance car owners together for glitzy outings in a country where a sea of mundane cars choke up the roads daily, is the brainchild of the affable Belgian Thai-domiciled 'Dave' who was doing a pretty good job of auditioning as a Bono stand in on the night. He introduced the programme, which basically seems to involve a lot of serious partying with some driving squeezed in. The programme next January will start the previous evening at Central World where the participating crews are set to check into the hotel that straddles the complex with a party set to raise the mood and take them into the small hours. The next day will see the crews leaving the mall complex after an early breakfast on a route that will usher these dynamic beats eastwards, no doubt with plenty of raucous exhaust notes, before swinging sharply south and heading to the finish line at Pattaya where another big party is scheduled. This detailing was followed by a beauty contest, "Pretties" as they as known in Thailand, though the rigid conformity of the contestant's appearances and mannerisms meant that none particularly stood out. The band though struck up a pretty decent note with plenty of enthusiasm put in by the performers who thumped out rock-style music which was a welcome change from Bangkok's obsession with dreary 'boy band' clones. The venue, Central World, slap bang in the middle of town, attracted plenty of attention from the many passersby to-ing and fro-ing from the plethora of big shiny malls clustered in this zone, the retail heart of the city. The lights bussed in by MunMaak for the evening added to the dazzling array of coloured lights that pick out the acres of glass front to this mall each evening and bathed the exotic cars on show, thrusting their distinctive, and expensive, shapes out of the darkness. All-in-all a welcome evening's entertainment with plenty of style and with refreshment and food also laid on. So on that note it's a good time to mention the rally's main sponsor Graham and that more information about the event can be found at the MunMaak official website website at http://www.munmaak.com