I miss the good old Manila International Auto Show. I’ve been a spectator of this annual event for as long as I can remember and while this year’s installment is one of the biggest having two venues – World Trade Center and Mall of Asia’s SMX, there are some automobile brands that are noticeably absent.
Let’s face it, Chinese brands have invaded MIAS, the biggest car show in the Philippines. I think 21 out of 29 brands in this year’s Manila International Auto Show are Chinese and most of them are new to the Philippine market or never heard. The cars are awesome, no doubt, but there are three things I wish for MIAS 2025. One is to bring back the well-known brands which have been absent in the past few editions of MIAS, two is to showcase more muscle cars like what they did back in the day. And finally, to centralize the event to just one location instead of two.
While this year’s MIAS is in fact huge, having the event spread out between two locations makes it a challenge for spectators in terms of logistics and parking. So I hope that they would centralize the event into one location next year.
But still, despite all that, there are some pretty cool cars I’ve seen. Here’s a photo dump of them.
MG G7
MG MIFA 9
MG Cyberster
Foton Tunland V9
Foton Tunland V7
Omoda
HongQi E-HS9
JAC T9
Peugeot 5008 SUV
MG IM LS7 all electric vehicle
Chevrolet Suburban
Chevrolet Camaro Classic
New Chevrolet Camaro
It’s not too often that you’ll see a classic Chevy Camaro and a new generation model beside each other so it was pretty cool to see them in the auto show side by side.
Overall, there were plenty of brands during the auto show that were all interesting in their own right. One brand that I really liked is MG. They are still relatively new but I’m impressed how long they have come since the time when they were first introduced in the Philippines in 2018. They have come such a long way since and as a matter of fact their MG Cyberster sports car with scissor style doors was the highlight and scene stealer of the entire show.
