Photo by Maureen McDonald from Auto Channel review
Photo of Kia outside Baitul Mukarram Masjid at Carpenter and Conant.
Typically, when we've been pitched the idea of buying a new car, it's been in a television commercial showing the vehicle careening across a majestic landscape on a smooth ribbon of road, the only car for miles.
With the advent of online reviews, however, cars can be presented to us in ways that are intensely "localized" — as we say in the journalism business.
Take a recent review of the 2017 Kia Sportage at the Auto Channel website: Written by local freelancer Maureen McDonald, it's an evaluation of how the nifty 3,800-pound SUV navigates the streets of Hamtramck, that cultural pastiche landlocked within Detroit.
This neat bit of writing recounts a day trip to the city-within-a-city, where the Kia is evaluated for the way it rides over potholes, automatically parallel parks with emergency stopping for random pedestrians, and can store 60 cubic feet of hummus with the back seats down.
Sights along the way include Srodek's Market, Conant Caniff Market (aka the Rock 'n' Roll Party Store, aka the Loud and Tall), Al Haramaine Market, Krakus Restaurant, the Hamtramck Zen Center, and New Palace Bakery.
