Bangkok (Thailand) - The 29th annual Bangkok International Motor Show opened up to the press yesterday with a bang. Major car companies like Ford, Toyota and BMW pulled out all the stops and wowed the army of reporters, photographers and cameramen with new environmentally-friendly concept cars and shows worthy of the best shows in Las Vegas. We are here in Bangkok to bring you the very best in sights and sounds from the show in this first of several articles.

The Bangkok International Motor Show is the second largest auto show in Asia behind the Tokyo Auto Show. Last year, more than 1.6 million people visited the Bangkok show and attendance should easily top that figure this year. "The Environmental Auto Globalization" is the theme of this year and almost every company is showing off a hybrid or all-electric cars. Many of these are just concept vehicles, but some will be commercially produced in a few years.

Auto shows in Asia are done very differently than the United States. Here, each company spends top dollar on booths, booth babes and other entertainment. For press day, we were treated to symphony music, operatic vocals and splendid dancing. Of course, the car companies also spared no expense in bringing out the best booth babes in Thailand.

Asian car shows are all about one-upmanship and every single company will have several gorgeous booth babes, booth models or race queens as some people call them. In fact, it would be unthinkable for a company to not have any attractive women at their booths. And in Thailand, unlike the USA, the girls actually seem to enjoy their job (we realize they may be thinking "damn these photographers" behind those smiles).

The Bangkok International Motor Show runs from March 28th to April 6th and attendance is only 80 baht or approximately $2.80. We'll be here for the next four days and will be bringing you the best pictures, video and articles. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

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Source : Tom's Hardware US