Valencia Auto Center is Back Baby!

Inasmuch as I have the capacity to enjoy advertisements, I was actually pleased to see an expensive and full Valencia Auto Center wrap around The Signal on Saturday.

So what you ask?

SO WHAT! It’s good news, that’s what. Because it looks to me like the Valencia Auto Center, that once-powerful interest group that represents about 25 dealers on/near Creekside, must be enjoying increased sales if they’re able to pay for full wraps in The Signal.

And that’s good news for City Hall because their tax coffers have been in a death spiral (okay maybe that’s exaggeration) for a few years now as stingy SCVers selfishly held onto their money and refused to buy new Escalades.

Car sales are important to Santa Clarita. Afterall, new car sales helped fuel the SCV’s boom during the early naughty aughties, not to mention all the support businesses (think car washes, maintenance places and bling outfitters) that bloomed as well.

It appears to me in Newhall that the VAC is borrowing Newhall land’s technique: rebrand an existing product (dilapidated Creekside in the case of the dealers and 40 year old Valencia in the case of Newhall Land) as something new and exciting. Ergo Awesometown and Valencia Auto Center, “Southern California’s Largest Auto Center”

Awesometown Auto Dealers Inc!

It won’t be long now until we start getting daily updates on the Valencia Acura dogs (Scooter and Spark Plug?) once again, and that means, my friends, that Fat City USA can’t be far behind!

But it’s not just full-Signal wraps that have quickened my heart lately. I’m also noting a return of that once-ubiquitious, only-in-the-SCV mascot vehicle: the raised stomper truck with boat/motorcycle stickers on the back. Check out this brand new behemoth spotted near my house:

The New Chevrolet : A lot like the old Chevrolet

This double-cabbed duallie is not only raised a few feet off the ground, it sports chrome spikes on the front and back wheels and a muffler the width of my thigh. Built to intimidate Democrats and Prius drivers but inspire Tea Partiers, this massive truck tackles the mean, meandering streets of Santa Clarita with ease, providing its driver an instant bad-ass credibility boost.

I haven’t seen a stomper truck this large since early 2008 (and yes I posted about it then) before gas prices hit $4 a gallon, Wall Street collapsed, the Gulf of Mexico actually contained water and not just oil, and a black man became our president.

The return of the stomper truck to the SCV automotive scene  and Valencia Auto Center’s bold new advertising campaign can only mean one thing: Santa Clarita’s love affair with the automobile is back and stronger than ever and pretty soon we can all go back to kvetching about how powerful the auto dealers are instead of talking about Bob Kellar’s sanity, crazy City Council candidates and Frank Ferry’s outbursts.

I for one welcome a return to this familiar territory.