NEW YORK -

What was your first car?

Ask this question of someone and chances are, he or she will crack a smile.

Granted, whether that smile is one of nostalgia for a classic ride or humor at one’s humble beginnings — or some combination of the two — may largely depend on the car.

(Mine was well over a decade old at the time, had an arm-cranked sunroof and featured a cassette player during the height of the CD’s popularity. It was beige-ish. I loved it.)

Whatever the car may be, more than likely, the former owner is likely to express some kind of position of emotional connection to that car.

For Cox Automotive president Sandy Schwartz, that first car was a Sunbeam Alpine. He spoke of that car with fondness during a presentation at the NADA/J.D. Power Automotive Forum in New York on Tuesday, and said his wife had a similar reaction of excitement when purchasing a car recently.

“Everybody has something about cars that they love,” Schwartz said. “They don’t always love the process of getting that car, but when they get that car, there’s just so much about it that they love and they care about.”

That underscores what Schwartz and others emphasized throughout the day on Tuesday; that there’s a genuine human emotion in our reaction to a car and that car-buying is a people business built on relationships.

More and more of the process is becoming automated, but the human interaction is still an integral part, as industry leaders expressed during the forum.   

Tom Doll, Subaru of America’s president and chief operating officer, recognized the fear some may have of the auto business simply becoming a “fancier” version of grocery store online check-out lines.

And granted, there already is some of that automated processes going on in the business, much of it helping create greater efficiencies and making the process easier for consumers.  

“But we have to know when enough is far enough. NADA tells us that people need people. They tell us that customers are happiest when they feel that they’ve been given the time of a real person in the transaction,” Doll said during a presentation at the event.

“J.D. Power tells us that the thing customers want more than ever is a detailed explanation of the work performed,” he added. “Can a computer do that? Possibly. Would it be as satisfying? Not at all.”

And here’s the thing: even with something like the expanding automotive presence of social media, a tool that some argue dulls the face-to-face, interpersonal communication in society at large, the key themes are still all about people connecting with people and relationship-building.

That is important to remember given this statistic shared by Michelle Morris, group director for automotive and financial services at Facebook, during her presentation: people check Facebook an average of 14 times a day and log onto the site 15 hours a month.

“In this crazy mobile world, social allows you to connect to your customers wherever they are, because real people are logged into their devices,” Morris said. “But it’s the frequency of how those people are using the platform that helps build the brand message; it helps to sell the vehicles and build those brands.”

She later added: “Social sells cars, but it also helps you express your brand and it creates meaningful relationships for your customers for life.”

Many who will be buying that first car.