Bob Lutz, former General Motors executive, has joined a mass of people who think the auto show is starting to become redundant, irrelevant and predictable. Specifically, Lutz used his column at Road & Track to describe the disappointment that was this year’s 2017 North American International Auto Show, or the 2017 Detroit Auto Show.
Lutz called the show flat “flat” and “mediocre” and criticized many of the debuts for their predictability in the crossover space. Those debuts included two, new and important crossovers from GM, the 2018 Chevrolet Traverse and 2018 GMC Terrain. The overarching theme, as told by Lutz, was a forgotten enthusiast at North America’s premier show, save for the surprise Kia Stinger GT.
At the same time, Detroit tried to counter the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by dedicating the downstairs to autonomous technology and car connectivity. Lutz posed the all-important question following this move.
It might be another deplorable sign that we are at a point of convergence: Are these cars with onboard computing power, or are they computers with four wheels and an engine thrown in?
The show certainly rang duller than years past. After Ford blew media out of the water with the Ford GT, Mustang GT350 and Raptor all in one sitting, Buick revealed the Avenir and Avista back to back and other automakers flexed their creativity in concepts, 2017 came off a tad underwhelming.
Hopefully next year the Corvette team will have something in store for us. And by that, we mean a mid-engine, C8 Corvette.
Comments
I’m totally with Lutz on his assessment. I’ve attended the Detroit Auto Show for 11 of the past 13 years, driving 4+ hours to get there. After this year, I’m reconsidering making the trek again next year. I don’t care for suvs/crossovers, which is unfortunately where the market is headed at the moment, so I really couldn’t have cared less about GM’s two debuts: the Terrain and Traverse, and the previously unveiled Equinox that was also on display. GM did have the Escala on display, but no new concepts and absolutely nothing new to show at Buick despite the fact that they are preparing the Avenir line, as well as the Regal and Enclave (both of which are going to debut in New York?). Ford, which usually brings its A game with several production and/or concept vehicles had only a mildly facelifted F-150, and even released photos and info on the 2018 Mustang while the show was going on, but didn’t even bother to have one at the show. No debuts from FCA either. Also, every year more and more and more automakers are sitting this one out, no Mini, Tesla, Bentley, Ferrari, Jaguar, Land Rover or Porsche at the show anymore. Lastly, a few automakers had revised show stands this year, that seemed very uninspired (Nissan).
Seems current product has such an influence on the so called evolutionary design process that what we we see at auto shows are dull stale designs. I will bet if you show a consumer the same brand products for the last five years he or she couldn’t tell what model year they were looking at.
The Detroit show has declined as have most other smaller shows. Only NY and LA hold much big news with some at Chicago.
Cleveland this year really had nothing worth going to see.
The truth is these shows are expensive and much of the marketing has gone to the web. Companies are working hard to control cost and shows are the one real event.
They all have cut back on show cars as they are a major expense and often leave those on the web complaining that they did not go production when they were never intended or designed to do so.
Show cars used to be dream cars of the future that were not production and seldom went production.
We then in the Lutz era at Chrysler and GM took cars to shows and made them production with mixed ergonomics.
Today they are just focusing mostly on present cars and future product that is production.
The bottom line it is money as today’s shows have no entertainment, few give away and no prototypes. Large displays are replaced with smaller more basic ones.
I hope it is not true but the large big show may be regulated to only a couple cities anymore.
To be an exhibitor at Detroit Auto Show is very expensive! It could costs, depending on your space size; anywhere from $5,000 to well over $50,000 for the one and half week event! Other then Mercedes; who has that much to spend? They rather do a Super Bowl 5 – 30 second spot for $10 million each and call it a day! There are over 100 car shows just in the North America and worldwide it over 1,000 each year! Just add those up and you see that car show are not a good marketing for car makers. Better to give away cars to A List Celebrities and play them $1 million to drive around Hollywood for 6 months!
The author forgot about the most important vehicle in the history of the Detroit Auto Show in the last 100 years – The new Ford Expedition!