DETROIT – This is my 20th North American International Auto Show so I guess you might say that experience provides some perspective.
Out of the gate I’ll tell you while the template remains the same, this year’s auto bears little resemblance to those first shows I attended back in the 90s. If you want the inside baseball perspective on those old shows there is one person missing from the mix today whose presence was dramatically felt back in the bad old days. His name is Jason Vines. He was or actually is, since he’s still alive and shows up in town from time to time, a loud, rowdy, take-no-prisoners P.R. guru who worked at Chrysler, Ford, Nissan and even General Motors during the bankruptcy. He was the one who single handedly tried to blow up Cobo Center with the craziest unveilings he could dream à la up the WWE. To him the concussion grenade is as much an auto show necessity as a police SWAT tool. He had Jeeps drive through glass, PT Cruisers frog-hopping lily pads, vans dropping from the lighting grid; he orchestrated Dieter Zetsche doing what felt like a ballroom dance while demonstrating the Stow-and-Go seating innovation. He will go down in automotive industry history for dreaming up the Chrysler cattle drive down East Jefferson in Detroit. Who knew steers were that randy walking down a big city street?
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Jason’s influence led most every other auto company to come up with crazier ideas to showcase their new reveals. Jason has left the building and so have the wild reveals. Just pulling a sheet off a new SUV or driving a car onto a stage to thumping disco beat is the norm these days. Frankly, I miss the adventure but understand when the industry is selling 17 million vehicles in a year, as it did the past two years, the dog and pony shows aren’t necessary to convince everyone you have a great car or truck to sell -- they already know.
This year’s press days sped by in a day and a half when they used to hold news conferences Sunday into Wednesday. There are many fewer reveals and many fewer vehicles. We are spending much more time talking about technology that is now so overwhelming it is taking the wheel out of our hands. In my view it’s taking away the joy of driving, which is at the heart of why we even have a show! This change I am coping with, though, and learning to deal with considering I’ve driven in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco and understand the need to find some other way to deal with congestion. But this leads to more work and less joy of looking at well-designed Detroit metal along with the other impressive entries sent by the global, mass market automakers. They have some good looking stuff here, too -- it’s just not great this year!
Now, one of the most frequent questions I get this time of year is "how is the auto show?" I have a canned answer. Because I put in 100 hour weeks at Cobo during the auto show I say “auto shows are to be endured, more than enjoyed." This, of course, is a joke. It is an honor and a privilege to be here and watch this most important American industry put on its best face. There are few opportunities anywhere to see this much creativity and skill all in one place. We get a front-row seat to the brightly lit world of what the best minds can do to utilize the technology that makes the automobile the largest and most utilitarian computer in the world.
The North American International Auto Show is without question the best of what makes Detroit Motown and because more than 5,000 journalists a year come in to brave the January Detroit cold the rest of the world gets to see the shiny new metal and the shinier new ideas we all get to enjoy here in Cobo. All of that said, I will answer the frequent question for this year’s show and call it underwhelming. It is so because there is no signature vehicle that knocks your socks off. Last year it was the Ford GT, a once-in-a-generation vehicle, for certain, that looks every bit the star on the stand this year, as it did last year.
This year’s auto show buzz was about the Chrysler Pacifica Minivan. Really? The Pacifica is a nice new vehicle and a "from-the-ground-up” makeover Chrysler needed to make for its oldest architecture to bring it into the modern era. Now I’ll let the cat out of the bag. I own two Chrysler Town and Country minivans. I LOVE them, they are the most useful vehicles I have ever owned and the two that I have now are in addition to the previous four we have been driving since my family moved to Detroit. My wife wanted to know everything about the new one because she might want one in the days ahead. But come on people, we can't do better than that for auto show excitement?! Yet, THAT right there explains why this show is so important in so many different ways.
After 20 years of watching auto reveals, I have a need to be entertained. That’s a snobby way of saying I need more to capture my attention in Cobo than another well positioned car, truck or SUV. The press days are for guys like me. The entire REAL purpose for this show is to sell cars. Thus, the organization putting on the show is the Metro Detroit Auto Dealer’s Association. They are spending less time worrying about the likes of me and more on my wife’s interest in the Pacifica which far exceeds any thought that the Ford GT is even something she will ever see on the road in her lifetime. I can safely say that’s something she could not care less about.
So, while underwhelming to me, I say come to the show anyway! Drink champagne between fenders Friday night at the Charity Preview! If you didn’t get a ticket, come down for public days. The stands are as beautiful as they have ever been. There may not be as much product on the floor as other years but there is enough. You can spend a couple hours or a whole day drinking in all the auto industry has to offer, and chances are you will walk away satisfied and with a good idea what your next vehicle will be.
In the end, you will enjoy this show for whatever reason brings you downtown.