Reinvented 2022 Detroit auto show is a hit with the people who matter: You

Is this year’s auto show a good one?

That may seem like a silly question if you’ve seen the crowds taking pictures of themselves with the giant duck in front of Huntington Place, families standing in line to ride in an off-roader or electric pickup, children squealing with delight at the life-size dinosaurs or grown-ups looking like kids as they gaze at honest-to-God flying cars.

It is a silly question.

It’s a silly question if you saw thousands of people downtown last Friday night for the Charity Preview, lingering in formal clothes over dinners at sidewalk tables before the first "auto prom" since January 2019, strolling back later for après show drinks, because it’s not January; the streets aren’t ankle deep in slush.

It’s the start of the most beautiful, visitor-friendly season in the Great Lakes region. Enjoy it. The last day is Sunday at Huntington Place and surroundings.

The 2022 North American International Auto Show is different. Different from auto shows before COVID-19, before supply chain nightmares meant many dealers literally have no new cars to show or sell, before some automakers decided they’d rather reveal new vehicles to a few dozen journalists in a locked room than in front of the whole world in a livestream from Hart Plaza like Ford did with the fancy new 2024 Mustang.

Thrill rides and monster trucks

It was a great spectacle.

Tens of thousands of people flowed through Huntington Place all weekend. In a break with tradition, organizers aren’t providing daily attendance figures, but there’s no doubt they’re down compared with previous shows.

Taking advantage of the fine weather, the fall show offered outdoor test drives, food trucks on Jefferson Avenue, with free live music and an electric monster truck crushing jalopies at Hart Plaza.

Last Sunday afternoon, when the show competed with the Lions’ dramatic win in their first home game and a picture-perfect day, the wait for a ride over a simulated off-road course in a Ford Bronco was more than an hour.

Between the Charity Preview on Friday night and the show’s first public day Saturday, more than 5,000 people took the rides in a Ford Bronco or F-150 Lightning.

On Saturday alone, Ram and Jeep gave more than 5,000 rides over their simulated off-road course.

The only people who didn’t appear to have a great time were journalists who forgot we were working. It wasn’t for our entertainment. They focused not on the new vehicles and entertainment at the show, but what wasn't there, primarily free cappuccino for the press and speeches by the CEOs of German luxury brands.

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The president couldn’t tear himself away

There’s nothing more tiresome than a journalist complaining his interview with the assistant marketing manager for the Jeep Grand Cherokee was disrupted because the president of the United States enjoyed the show so much he overstayed his schedule, kicking tires and making a major speech about the future of the American economy.

Who does Joe Biden think he is, anyway?

Do the whiners have any idea how many auto shows would open a vein to have the president spend hours hopping in and out of vehicles, extolling their technology, praising local manufacturers, and generally cutting a “Yes, Michigan” commercial?

Hint: All of ‘em.

I miss the free lattes and chocolate espresso beans Acura doled out between news conferences at previous auto shows as much as anybody. But I don’t think the show is for me. It’s for families that go to Huntington Place for entertainment and the shoppers who need a new vehicle and want to see their three candidates in one place.

Never confuse a journalist — even me — complaining about an inconvenience to our workday with whether you are getting the information you need.

It was great eye candy back when BMW and Mercedes competed to see who could spend more millions on a stand fit for the cover of Architectural Digest. The German brands contributed to the show’s sizzle, but if you came to compare the Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid to the electric Chevrolet Equinox, multistory displays just blocked your view.

Perhaps you’ve noticed: Some folks aren’t happy unless they’re complaining, and others think nothing new is as good as what came before. Their first response is “Things were better when I was a kid.”

No. You were a kid when you were a kid. You were small, things were big.

Art museums and acrobats

If you wonder why some journalists’ are obsessed with some automakers’ reduced presence, at least part of the reason is that those companies spent lavishly to suck up to us.

There were dinners with BMW in the stunning Diego Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of Art. Mercedes once hired Cirque du Soleil to perform a high-wire act in the David Whitney Building’s four-story atrium.

I enjoy being catered to as much as the next guy, but those literally over-the-top events didn’t make a whit of difference to the show-going public. The extravagance contributed handsomely to the regional economy. Skilled trades workers spent weeks building stages and stands, but most of the time and money was spent on things the public never got to enjoy.

This auto show is different: more focus on the brands and vehicles most people buy, less preening by one elite for another.

The 2023 NAIAS will be different, too. I hope a few more automakers decide to reveal new vehicles there, because that’s a better use of my time than flying across the country to see some guy in a suit pull the drop cloth off a foam model of the GT version of the what-was-that-again. Also because competing for attention with other vehicles makes automakers raise their game, bringing top engineers and executives who can explain every feature, not third-stringers trying to tap dance their way through a Q&A about design and technology.

But now I’m just another journalist whining.

What matters to the rest of the world — the people getting their only chance to walk back and forth among the two to three vehicles they may buy or lease, will be: Are the new models here? Can I get a test drive? Can I experience the cool feature I saw in commercials?

If the 2023 Detroit auto show answers “Yes" to those questions, it’ll be a good show too.

Maybe a great one, if they can top a giant duck and herd of dinosaurs.

Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2022 Detroit auto show is a hit with families, vehicle shoppers