By Chris Haak

Press days are long since over, the stories have been filed, and members of the public have seen the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.  So just what did we see at this year’s show?  With the benefit of a week since press days ended to ponder the best concept vehicles and production-car reveals, I decided to give my opinion of what we saw at the show and what the impact of those vehicles will be going forward.  Some were good, some were not so good.

Generally, the mood at the Detroit show was more optimistic than it’s been in years.  There was far less gloom-and-doom pervading the atmosphere, and the show’s organizers were taken by surprise with the number of press conferences requested for the show’s first day.  The result was a schedule that was booked solid for about 12 hours, from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., without even a meal break scheduled for a chance for journalists to catch their collective breaths.  Though I don’t have official attendance figures, there seemed to be far more people in attendance – both from the manufacturers and from the media – during this year’s show than there had been during 2009 and 2010.  Altogether, good problems for the industry to have, but the packed schedule and extra crowds made it challenging to navigate the show.  With that being said, I don’t think I’d trade attendance at the Detroit show for any other auto show in the US.

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