Crazy Woman With Carseats (& large blond doll) Invades Serious Automotive Event!

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Last week I had a date with some guy that I met on the internet. It was pretty awesome as far as first dates go. We met at Bear Mountain State Park, took a few nice rides together and got all sweaty in the backseat of a vehicle!  Then we had lunch, hung out in a $400,000 Rolls-Royce and had some fun with my BubbleBum. Seriously, how can you top that?

Okay, since we’re both married I guess I should elaborate before someone winds up served with divorce papers. The guy is new CPS Tech “Nopanegain” (aka Brett) and we met online at car-seat.org. Since we’re both New Yorkers, we struck up a little conversation and found out that we share many of the same interests.  Brett has been a serious automotive journalist for more years than I’ve been alive (haha – just kidding, Brett!) and he’s got a lot of connections. He gets invited to cool automotive events that I don’t even realize exist.  Since this particular event (where they allow the select group of invited journalists to drive all the vehicles present) was going on in my neck of the woods, he invited me to join him.  I was lured by the eloquence of this one particular line in his invitation:  “If you are a car person, you’ll basically crap your pants.”  ROFL!  I’m sold, dude!!

Here’s a peek at how we spent our grueling day at the International Motor Press “Spring Brake”. I hope all our readers will appreciate the sacrifices that we made and the hardships that we endured to bring you this very important information. Unlike the rest of the attendees, we were more interested in exploring the backseat than we were in zipping around on the park’s back roads. I know that sounds so lame but that’s how true CPS geeks roll!

2012 Jaguar XK Coupe in Crystal Blue: Beautiful luxury vehicle. Not sure why they bothered to make it a 4-seater, though. I guess the backseat is really meant for your briefcase/handbag/miniature purebred in a puppy tote. My head hit the roof back there! But we were determined to find a functional cps solution for that seating position. BubbleBum and Huggable Images to the rescue!  

            

 

2012 Fiat 500 Arbarth: Considerably less luxurious but cool nonetheless. Rear seat only accommodates two but is surprisingly roomy for a vehicle so compact. Rear-facing seats will be a very big challenge. We installed a Chicco KeyFit30 and rear-facing Britax Roundabout 55 but that left no room for anyone taller than 5′ in the front seat. I’m 5’4″ and my knees were crammed painfully into the door of the glovebox with the RA55 installed behind me. On the flip side, due to the contour of the back of the front seats – I had enough leg room to sit comfortably in back so forward-facing carseats and kids in boosters may not be a problem.  

          

 

2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Series II saloon: Hands-down the most awesome vehicle I’ve ever sat in. I’m totally sold. Now I just need to come up with about $420, 000 plus taxes, title and fees. The optional $4k sheepskin floor mats are not optional at all. Those are a necessity – trust me. I have no desire to actually drive the vehicle myself. I just want to sit in the back seat, drink Champagne in excess and eat Grey Poupon straight from the jar. As for kids and carseats – even though the backseat is wide enough to easily fit any combination of CRs, I wouldn’t dream of allowing children or carseats in this vehicle. Not even a Foonf (sorry, Clek). Hey, that’s what the Au Pair’s Mercedes E63 AMG Wagon is for!  Hence the lack of carseat pictures in the Rolls-Royce. Even *I* would not defame and disrespect this vehicle in that way.

              

 

2012 Bentley Supersports Convertible: Another outrageous luxury convertible that costs more than many average American homes. I would have loved to try some real installs in this vehicle but we only had a few minutes with it. Just enough time to grab the BubbleBum and the 6 year old Huggable Images doll again! The looks we got walking around with these things were priceless!  

      

 

It was a fun and fantastic day and I’m greatly indebted to my new friend Brett for the experience!  I do have more to share but it’s boring stuff that might actually be useful to our readers so that’s going to wait for another day. Stay tuned!

 

8 Comments

  1. Kecia May 22, 2012
  2. Heather (murphydog77) May 22, 2012
  3. Jennie May 22, 2012
  4. Brett May 21, 2012
  5. Maggie May 21, 2012
  6. Kecia May 21, 2012
  7. Jennifer May 21, 2012
  8. Jools May 21, 2012