October 2010 President’s Letter

Dear Friends,

At our regular October meeting, NEMPA members heard from Jim Colon, a 30-year Toyota veteran who is now the company’s VP for product communications. Wade Hoyt, Toyota’s long-serving East Coast spokesman, was there as well. To no one’s surprise, the main topic of the evening was the recall crisis that Toyota faced this year. You can read Bill Griffith’s summary of Jim’s presentation here.

Mazda recently came by as well. Vehicle Line Manager Chris Hill and Sr. Public Affairs rep Tamara Mlynarczyk hosted a special evening at the Larz Andersen Museum, in Brookline, to introduce the all-new Mazda2 subcompact. Super-economical B-class cars are suddenly hot (“Opulence is out, sensible is in”) and Mazda is proud of its new baby. Tim Plouff reports on the dinner, and this impressive 2300-lb, 100hp automobile, on our web site here.

(We’d like to add that product debuts at Larz Andersen are a great way to introduce new cars to New England motojournalists. Please contact John Lawlor for information.)

And who can forget IMPA test days this year? Our contingent of eight NEMPA members (again we forgot the matching blue blazers) managed to leave before the hotel blew up. And despite the day of heavy rain we came away with not only valuable impressions of many new cars but also a number of additions to our test fleet. Thank you to all who support this event.

The next item on our calendar is the November meeting, on the 9th, followed by the annual NEMPA holiday get-together at the Boston Globe on the evening of November 30th. This ties in with the Boston auto show-which, BTW, is looking for more carmakers to participate in Media Day. All of us at NEMPA hope to see you there.

Best regards,

Ezra Dyer – President
Keith Griffin – Vice-President

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