Outside of visits as a media person, I cannot confirm when I last attended an auto show (not to be confused with a car show, as in a bunch of guys showing off whatever in a parking lot, which you’re also free to discuss), but I would guess it was in the late 1980s when my Dad was in the peak of his new-car-every-two years habit. He usually just got the latest Toyota Celica, but he’d pack up the fam each year and we’d check out all the latest wares nonetheless.
Though not valueless as a buying-decision-helper, the event was hardly essential and mostly just a good time. It did, however, go a long way in building excitement for getting a new car if not solidifying the call on which one to get, and maybe Dad visited a few dealerships he may not have otherwise bothered with before getting that latest Celica. And so, you could say the car show worked.
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A lot has changed since then, what with the electronic tube system communication system and our pocket supercomputers/televisions/attention-absorberizers that have become fixtures in our lives. The auto show scene has contracted greatly, and the era of major manufacturers saving their big new releases for auto-show debuts is long past. The auto show may be defunct as the best, if not sole, means of getting the word out about the newest models, but who among us doesn’t like to look at cars?
And so, the Autopian Asks: What Was The Last Auto Show You Attended?
UPDATE: The Bishop tracked down “The Fiero Triplets” on video, nice:
Top graphic image: The New YorkAuto Show
The 1998 or 1999 Detroit Auto Show. It was whichever year the New Beetle debuted, I still have the three-arc hat that VW was handing out. Probably January ’99.
Back then, the show was HUGE, and it was pretty cool to do it. Super packed though. A friend of mine was living in Cleveland, I drove out there in my ’92 Peugeot 505 SW8 from Maine, then he and a couple of his friends and I drove over to Detroit for the show.
January in Detroit sucks. Then again, anytime in Detroit sucks.
Went to the Pittsburgh Auto Show in 2024. The Robotics team at Carnegie-Mellon U had some interesting prototypes and the local electric utility had a test track where you could test drive various EVs.
Otherwise a snoozefest of local dealers and vendors exhibiting their wares.
The 2025 show just closed but, I skipped this year.
2025 NAIAS – it was ok, but not that great. I used to go to this every year and last few years it’s been like reading C&D, you know it’s on it’s way out, but you just aren’t ready to quit it, yet. I even attended that abomination they had at the M1 Concourse in Pontiac. I am looking for another source for early in the year car stuff.. AutoRama was really cool, may try SEMA, maybe New York?
2024 LA Auto Show and it really will be my last one for quite a while. I’ve been going to that show pretty much every year since 2001 but it’s such a sad shadow of its former self that it’s not worth it anymore.
Up to about 2012 or so you were pretty much guaranteed to see every manufacturer there was with a display – including exotics – , a bunch of concepts (actual wild concept cars, not just next years not-quite-production-ready model), owner lounges at a few brands, and a huge aftermarket area full of automotive-related vendors. Most brands even had some sort of cool little giveaway or activity, even if it was just a nice reusable shopping bag and lanyard. Every booth had loads of props, big displays, and just looked really impressive.
This last year was essentially just a pop-up small town auto mall. You had only the most common US and Asian brands, (I’m pretty sure VW was the only European brand that showed up) the displays were practically just their cars parked in the hall, the closest thing to a concept was the upcoming Honda Prelude, and the aftermarket exhibitors hall more closely resembled what you’d see at a county fair with way too many non-automotive vendors filling the spaces.
It used to take a full day to see everything too. I’d go on a weekday to minimize crowds, get there by ~9-10am when they opened and stay until 7pm when they closed and I’d usually have skipped a few manufacturers I wasn’t too interested in to get it all done. This last year I got there at the 11am opening and left by about 2:30 when I ran out of things worth seeing.
SEMA, but I opted out last year at the last minute.
I’ve only been to vintage auto shows and I can’t remember the last one. Probably a British meet in Palo Alto 20 years ago.
Pretty sure it was the 2011 NAIAS when the (Ex) wife and I were looking for a family hauler. I REALLY wanted the Fiat 500 to be the answer, it wasn’t.
Detroit-area Autopians met up at the Detroit Auto Show this year. The show was not bad / not amazing but being there with club members made it more fun!
We all enjoyed the EV ride-alongs, especially the FWD Buick crossover that was making its tires scream all across Cobo Hall, and the special exhibit downstairs was really cool
I happened to be in New York last year during the 2024 New York show. As a child of the 80s I think I had unrealistic expectations. Its was fine, cool cars, lots of trucks, EVs, lux cars. they had an EV driving course downstairs, Jeep was doing some wacky carnival crazy driving outside the venue, local car clubs with some pretty sweet rides, but very few people there. I mean empty. I was checking out the GR Corolla and their were more Toyota folks around me than attendees. I am glad I went, but It felt like when you walk into a restaurant, and its slow and you get this feeling like its going to shut down any day now.
I had to go check my records…
Wowzers! The Nov 2019 L.A. Auto Show. Has it really been that long?
I guess I’ve not really been one for big crowds since then, for some odd reason.
IAA in 2017. My wife was nice enough to let me plan our wedding date around the show 😀
Torchfest over in Chapel Hill with my Double Yellow Beetle. Best day out in a long time
Melbourne Australia, two weeks ago. It was mostly Chinese EVs, a couple id never even heard of before. Including a couple still in LHD and with infotainment in Chinese. Shows which way our market might be heading.
My last visit was 2017 IAA in Frankfurt, second to the final ever show in Frankfurt. I noticed the quality and enthusiasm going down greatly every two years from my first visit in 2005. More and more manufacturers had left Frankfurt. The unhinged leftist climate activists showing up at IAA and causing havoc made the visit unpleasant.
Some exhibitors became very selective lately about who to let in their exhibition and sit in the vehicles. At 2009 IAA, Jaguar refused to allow anyone not invited by the company to enter and sit in the new XJ (X351). Some reused the same exhibition set over and over several times, killing our enthusiasm. Mercedes-Benz was my favourite exhibitor at IAA Frankfurt because it always change the settings every two years, making it more interesting.
When Munich started hosting IAA in 2021, the biggest complaint was spreading the exhibitions all over the city, forcing the visitors to travel from one site to other. Not to mention the mandatory proof of Covid-19 vaccination or negative Covid-19 test result (I refused both). Come 2023, I didn’t bother visiting the IAA Munich due to the intense focus on climate protection, killing our joy.
Probably January, 2011. The Detroit Auto Show. Or as Jason H has informed me it’s correctly called the “North American International Auto Show.” I was there for business and had four hours to kill on a weekend. And I was staying nearby. BYD (Build Your Dreams sounded so goofy and so Asian.) was making their first appearance. I think. My primary memory of the show itself was that there was a lurid yellow-green AMG Mercedes SLK. And the BYD was intriguing, but because this was a decade before the Chinese seemed like a formidable threat, it was more of a curiosity.
Prior to that, I took my son and a friend of his to the Seattle Auto Show in oh, 2004. Eight years before he got his driver’s license. I have a picture of him sitting in a (I guess) C4 Corvette. He had a big smile on his face, but that show made me sad. We went on the last day, and people (over the four days of the show where nothing new was announced) had made off with pretty much every stick-shift knob and other easily removed items from the cockpit.
Thankfully, that experience didn’t entice him into buying a Corvette. At least not yet. He and his wife have a Ford Escape and a Mazda CX-5. Both sensible cars for a growing family. He’s seen the pictures, but I doubt he’ll ever buy a Corvette.
The most exotic thing I owned during his formative years was an ’88 Saab 9000 Turbo. And he thought it was ugly. (I thought it was, and still is, one of the coolest looking cars I’ve ever seen.) But I still love him.
I popped in to my local yearly one…last year? both? It’s changed dates and locations over the last few years, it had already changed locations before COVID then never quite got its footing again and had to juggle other events at spaces as things came back. It’s back again later this month and I’ll probably go, it’s a cheap outing.
It’s mostly local, in that it’s just big enough that Ford, Toyota, GM, FCA always had some level of sponsorship from above with some kind of ride and drive, but not that big so most other brands are there because a dealer buys in to attending.
I went to LA in…2002? but haven’t been to a big one since. Would still like to before they’re completely gone, but feel like I’ll be going in knowing it isn’t the same as the shows I would read about in the car rags or online in my youth, that era is gone.
When I was in high school and college I went to the Detroit Auto show AKA “North American International Auto Show” ever year. That would be in the 90’s. They used to have all kinds of wild show cars, race cars, and crazy manufacturer displays. I graduated from college, moved away from Michigan and haven’t been to a car show since.
This last January I was in Detroit for work and it happened to be the week of the Detroit Auto Show. I took a look and it was mostly dealers showing boring new models – the same thing you can see at your local motor mile. I went to the Henry Ford Museum instead.
I’ve been to the Chicago Auto Show every year since 2008, except for 2021 and 2022 (avoiding COVID). It helps that I live only a 90-minute drive away, so I just take the day off from work and spend all day at the show. Even though not as many manufacturers and cars are there as before, the show is still worthwhile for me. Where else can I sit in dozens of cars under one roof without a bunch of salesmen bothering me? It’s a convenient way to experience cars. Add the photography opportunities to that, and it’s a great day.
January 2020, Erie, PA. I think every major car company was there, except for Lexus, Tesla, Genesis, and Infiniti, since they don’t have dealers in Erie. Not a bad little car show. I remember there were a lot of classics there as well.
Depends on your definition. Major auto show, I went to Detroit two years ago, it was harliously low quality and sad. A shell of what the show had been in the decade past when my friends and I made our annual 4.5 hour trek to Detroit to make a weekend of the event.
Last year I attended the little local Erie auto show, put on by the local dealers. It was pretty good, it allowed us to check out every SUV on the floor when helping friends with one kid, a baby on the way and the need to tow a small camper. Their JK Wrangler Rubicon just wasn’t up to the task. They ended up going with the Grand Cherokee L, mostly due to towing capacity vs price.
Detroit, 2014. Fell in love with a blue Porsche 911 Targa.
2006, I think. I used to go to the Houston and DFW auto shows every year between like 1997 and 2006. After 2006 I started to go to more work conferences and my introverted heart struggled to conjure enough spirit to venture down to the George R. Brown Convention Center and mingle with more massive crowds. Before and after those times I haven’t lived anywhere that hosts an auto show, and I’m not willing to commit to a road trip to see the disappointment of what auto shows have become first-hand.
About a decade before you I went to the Houston show at the Astrodome every year, probably ’88 through ’96. It was a blast. Now, like you, we live way too far away from any major show to attend. I do miss it.
Few months ago, I went to the Chicago show for the first time. It’s the first auto show I’ve been to since before Covid. I think my last one before that was 2013 in Detroit. My first one was in 2003 at Cobo. Went every year from 2008-13
I tend to go to the Toronto Auto Show annually… so, last February. It’s changed a lot over the last 20 years. Early on it helped in buying decisions because there were actual product planners at the show. In a more recent example, a friend of mine got a nice tip to buy an accord coupe with the V6 right away because the next model year wouldn’t have the V6 anymore…something that didn’t even come out online until a few months after the show.
Now, it’s largely driven by local sales orgs, and the only automakers that show up are the ones that think they can get sales from the show.
Your friend made a wise choice. It’s a wonderful engine. I have one in a ’17 sedan. 35-40 mpg on the freeway and wonderfully responsive (but a bit thirsty) around town. And it will probably outlive me.
Those still have timing belts no?
Yes, but with 100K mile change intervals. (My Jetta TDI’s was initially 60K and then extended to 100K after my second belt replacement.) I’m budgeting $1500 to do the belt, water pump and anything else looks necessary while they’re in there. I won’t hit 100K, but I believe there’s also an eight-year recommendation. So, because I bought late, it will be sometime next year that I get it done.
It’s not really a car show, but twice GM held a big driving comparison event in the parking lot of a big sports arena somewhere in Los Angeles. You could drive anything from a Cavalier to a Corvette. It was when the Oldsmobile Aurora was new. I think they had a few cars from the competition there as well. (I don’t think they would do that now!)
We had a Hummer H2, and a couple of times, GM hosted an off road driving event with catered lunch, some lifestyle booths, accessories on display, and a big off-road course with mud pits, logs, steep climbs and descents, etc. Drivers were encouraged to get their cars dirty. Occasionally someone needed to be winched out. These events were a lot of fun.
We had those in KC as well, it was called the “GM auto show in motion” and it was free and you even got lunch and a tee shirt. It all ended around 2008. I remember ripping around in a G6 GT with a 6 speed manual and then a Grand Prix GXP, super fun.
I think it was 04 when that came to my area, because the GTO was recently out but I have a distinct memory of the Mk4 VW GLI also being among the competing brands being there. I was still a couple years away from a license and I think you had to be a legal adult to drive anyway so I was riding with my dad.
Years later Ford did a similar sort event at a much smaller scale with an Ecoboost theme, when the turbo 4s were arriving. You could drive an ST Fiesta and Focus, but you could also drive “regular” Fords against a couple competitors to see how they compared – like the new Escape and a CR-V back to back.
I also went to a Chrysler event at Arrowhead stadium once and you could drag race a PT Cruiser GT Turbo or go around a track (as a passneger) in a Crossfire SRT6 at like top speed. Fun stuff and it was all free.
You had a name badge. If you tore it around the track too much, they punched a hole in your badge. Three strikes and you couldn’t drive any more. For sure my husband earned at least one strike.
I had a first gen CTS-v, maybe a 2004, but I think we attended the Auto Show in Motion way before we bought it. I would have liked driving the G6 or anything fast with a manual 6 speed. I honestly don’t remember many of the cars. I had an aging 3 series convertible with a stick but needed a family car, and I was underwhelmed with the choices until we drove the Cadillac.)