Auto Show Blues - 2026 Edition, Part Two

Well, I looked at the floor map for the 2026 New York International Auto Show.  

Chevrolet and Ford have the bulk of floor space.  All of their "regular' family vehicles, like the 2026 Blazer below, are SUVs.

Cadillac won't be there, but BMW will . . . but its floor space, which once dominated an entire end of the main level of the Jacob Javits Convention center, is very small.  But not as small as the Mercedes-Benz exhibit. And the display area for Lincoln's all-SUV lineup is even smaller than that.

Right.  I'm not going to the New York auto show this year.

Or any other year, from now on.

The reason is obvious.  If you are into sedans and hatchbacks, you're out of luck.  The few auto brands that still offer real cars in These States are mostly confined to very little floor space, and while many of the Asian brands still have a healthy presence and a more diverse lineup, they offer little to get excited about.  Nothing new from Toyota or Hyundai.  Given the absence of some brands, like Mazda, the "international" auto show in the city feels more like a local show in a suburban arena.  Last year, when I went to the New York show,  I was in and out in about three hours. 

Also, there's no direct mass transit into New York City from where I live anymore except for commuter-only weekday buses - I've talked about that here.  It's just not cost-effective for me to travel to the city for a show where the admission is now twenty-two bucks a head.  The cars on display are not only more expensive, so are the tickets to get in and see them. 

The best car shows for me these days are the classic shows that show the sort of cars the automakers used to offer here before the sport-utility and pickup tsunami crashed onto our shores.  That most certainly includes Volkswagen.  And given that there are more VW shows in the Northeast these days, some of which are as likely to have old Rabbits and Dashers (Mark 1 Golfs and Mark 1 Passats) as Beetles, that's a better deal.  

You may not be able to get in any of these cars, but you can still look inside them, and the admission fee to these shows is cheaper.

Auto Show Blues - 2026 Edition

I haven't made a final decision, but I might not go to the New York auto show in a couple of weeks.

It should be easy for me to firmly decide not to go.  After all, Chevrolet and Ford have only one non-SUV passenger vehicle each - the Corvette and the Mustang, respectively.  Lincoln has nothing but SUVs.  So does Buick, and that brand won't even be there.  Honda - which still sells real cars, including an all-new Prelude that retuned that nameplate to the Honda lineup after a quarter-century absence - wont be there, either, and neither will be Mazda.  Sure, Volkswagen will be there - but I can see the latest VW models at my dealer when I take my own VW for service every June. 

So what's making hesitate before ruling out another auto show trip altogether?  BMW and Cadillac - two of my favorite luxury brands - are returning to the New York auto show for the first time in nearly a decade.  BMW always has great cars on display, having refused to give up on sedans and even coupes, and Cadillac, in addition to having traditional sports sedans, has introduced two new EVs with old-school land-yacht flair combined with sporty fastback styling.  So I'm intrigued.

I'm also suspicious.  I remember the Mercedes-Benz and Audi displays from last year.  Each brand had only two or three cars each behind velvet ropes.  Naturally, the cars were locked so you couldn't get in them.    I have a sneaky feeling that the BMW and Cadillac displays will be similarly token exhibits.   I won't know for certain until I see the 2026 New York auto shows floor plan, which hasn't been released yet.

Then again, even it BMW and Cadillac do have real displays that are worth the trip, would the rest of the show be worth it?  Having to skip the Ford display owing to lack of an interesting car to look at (sad to say, the current Mustang doesn't thrill me).  More exhibits aimed at amusement, like the indoor EV test-drive track, that makes the show more like a limpid world's fair?  Besides, after seeing Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany, I don't know why I would go to an American auto shoe to see even Volkswagen. 

I've always looked forward to the Easter season with the knowledge that the New York auto show was opening ever since the show's organizers moved it to the Jacob Javits Center and started scheduling it for Easter Week beginning in 1987.  But whether or not I go this year, I'm aware that it won't be the same as the shows of yore.  The nature of the product has changed, and they are changes I do not like. 

Auto Show Boos

This video of a walk-through of the entire 2022 New York International Auto Show made me realize how wise I am to have decided not to attend the show in person this year.  This may be the most pathetic "international" auto show ever held.

The lovely woman above is Maggie Clark, a one-time auto show product presenter and a YouTube channel host who specializes in presenting automotive news and exhibitions.  On YouTube, she goes by the name of "Motor City Maggie."  She's an engaging host, and she's certainly likeable, but not even she can breathe life into what a dreary, dismal show this year's New York show is.

One reason the show sucks is due to automotive brands who have mostly ditched sedans and hatchbacks in favor of sport utility vehicles; I can count all of the luxury sedans offered by Ford's Lincoln division on zero fingers.  But the biggest problem is that many of the best-known automotive brands in America are absent; most of the German luxury brands are absent, as are my favorite American luxury brand, Cadillac, and my favorite Asian luxury brand, Acura.  Honda isn't there either.  True, Volkswagen is at the show, and I thought that the new ID. Buzz electric minivan would be the biggest reason to go to the VW display.  In fact, it's the only reason.  The rest of the cars at VW's display, nestled in a tight corner of the Jacob Javits Convention Center, are all SUVs except for one Golf R - no Golf GTI, no Jetta, no Arteon, and no Passat, which is now in its last year.  This is the worst VW display at an auto show that I've ever seen.  

But it's better than the Stellantis display across the hall,  in which Alfa Romeo and Fiat share space with the Chrysler Group (Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep), that appears to be smaller than the VW space.

As for the indoor EV tracks, well, that's all good and fine, but as most of the EVs available in this country are crossovers, I can't be bothered.  My only regret about the show is that I can't see the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette in person.

The video above lasts only forty-five minutes, yet Ms. Clark manages to cover everything.  True, she did it on a press day without visitors, but there's so much open space in between the vehicles - and there are so many SUVs -  that, if I did go to the show, I could probably see everything I want to in half an hour.   

Yeah, I know the pandemic is part of the reason for the show's lameness, but with the unappealing (to me) product and the growing lack of excitement, the annual auto show was already in decline before COVID hit.   Even if the pandemic is over tomorrow, I don't expect the 2023 New York auto show to be any better.  I've been on YouTube watching old videos of international auto shows from the 1980s and 1990s . . . and remembering how fun they used to be.  

Auto No-Show

Here's one more thing you can blame the vaccine-resistant for - or thank them for, if you happen to be a Luddite when it comes to automobiles. The rapid spread of the delta corona has forced the cancellation of the 2021 New York International Auto Show, which was scheduled for later this month.

Declining COVID cases had raised hopes that the show's organizers - who had planned to feature indoor tracks for test drives of electric vehicles - that the pandemic would enter a lull this summer if not be completely over altogether, but the failure of vaccination rates to reach a substantial percentage of the U.S., coupled with the rapid spread of this new variant, led the folks responsible for this auto shindig to conclude that they could not guarantee the safety of showgoers even with the strictest COVID protocols.  This is the second attempt at delaying the annual New York auto show until summer - it's been held during Easter Week since it moved from the old New York Coliseum to the Javits Center in 1987 - that ran smack dab into a wall of reality.

The show's organizers have announced that the 2022 New York International Auto Show (a misnomer, since there are many brands not represented, either because they're not sold in the U.S. or they're owned by Elon Musk) will resume its Easter Week schedule, hence it will open on Good Friday, April 15.  That's exactly eight months from today.  Eight months . . . so will Delta have come and gone by then after there's no one in America left for it to infect?  Will there be an even more dangerous variant? Will enough people in These States be vaccinated by then?  Or will optimism for a post-COVID, post-pandemic America by April 2022 be, as so many previous rosy scenarios for the future of COVID have been, grossly unwarranted? 

Who cares?  The 2021 show was only going to have a bunch of ugly SUVs anyway, and even the Mark 8 Volkswagen Golf GTI and R (I'm still fighting for the base Golf 8 to be sold in the New World) don't come out until November, so they likely wouldn't have been on display at the show.  I had already decided not to go because I didn't think it was worth it.  I doubt that the 2022 show will be that much different from what the 2021 show would have been like.  Then again, if it's relatively safe by April, I might still go, if only to take videos of the presentations for my YouTube channel.  (It's all about content, baby!) And to get out of the house.  I haven't been in New York since May 2019.       

Once again, though, it's depressing how a virus stopped this auto show and several others around the world.  The oil crises of the 1970s couldn't stop auto shows.  Saddam Hussein couldn't stop auto shows when he invaded oil-rich Kuwait.  Osama bin Laden couldn't stop auto shows when he gave the go-ahead for 9/11 (but he did stop the 2001 Latin Grammys).  Only one person was able to do what this virus has done.

And, ironically, not only did he love to go to auto shows, he helped get Volkswagen up and running.

Auto Show Blues, Part Four

Forget the 2020 New York International Auto Show.

After postponing it from Easter Week to the week before Labor Day due to COVID-19, the organizers of the auto show have decided to just plain cancel it altogether, saying that they could not guarantee people's safety by holding the show in the middle of the pandemic despite the fact that New York and neighboring New Jersey have the virus under control.  Because who knows what it will be like at the end of August. Also, many people at the show would be from Michigan, a state that's still trying to slow the spread of the virus.  It's amazing that, apart from Hitler, nothing could stop the New York Auto Show before.  The Persian Gulf War didn't stop it.  The aftermath of 9/11 didn't stop it.  But a microscopic spiked ball of pathogen matter did.

Even without the pandemic, the 2020 New York Auto Show was still going to be a bummer.  Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen's Audi luxury brand both pulled out of the show even before the virus made the jump from China to the Western world, and BMW, having skipped the 2019 New York Auto Show, was planning to eschew the 2020 show as well.  True, Volkswagen was committed to the show, and it even planned to debut the ID.4 electric crossover in New York this year, but with Volkswagen Americanizing its lineup to cater to the ongoing monster wagon craze, I am certain that VW's display would have sucked, especially given the lack of attention given to anyone still interested in the Golf and given the fact that an all-new GTI (the base model appears to be on the chopping block for American VW dealers, a decision I'm still protesting against on my Mark 8 Golf blog) won't come out until September 2021.   

And because of the monster wagon craze, that's pretty much all you'd see at the displays from most of the domestic brands, except for pickup trucks.  The Asian brands still have hatchbacks and sedans - real cars.  And even though some of the vehicles that come out of Detroit are cars in the strictest sense of the word, let's face it.  After everything I've just said, is it really worth going to an auto show if all you're interested in is the new mid-engine Corvette?

The 2021 New York Auto Show is still on for Easter Week of next year, the same time it's always been since it moved in 1987 to the Jacob Javits Convention Center (which was turned into a COVID field hospital this past April, when the auto show would have taken place), but if going there means keeping six feet apart from people and wearing a face covering and not seeing the big German marques, I want nothing to do with it.  The pullout by Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW are an indication that the auto show isn't what it used to be, as more auto manufacturers find new, more technologically savvy ways to market their products, and big exhibitions don't matter so much, so why bother with any of that?  The pandemic accelerated an already ongoing trend against the traditional auto show, which means I'd better not look forward to going to an auto show in Geneva or Munich - both of which were on my bucket list - after the pandemic is over.  But then, so what?  The old days and old ways of international auto shows are gone.

Auto Show Blues, Part Two

I don't really want to stop the show, but I thought you might like to know . . . that the Geneva International Motor Show, cancelled due to coronavirus fears, was supposed to start today.  And even though German automakers introduced the eagerly awaited new generations of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the Audi A3 Sportback, and the Volkswagen Golf GTI (below) in online forums, I'm sure that it wasn't the same as introductions of the cars in Geneva would have been.  I can only say I'm sure, because I've never been to the Geneva auto show, though I would like to attend it eventually.  Maybe next year . . . or better yet, Frankfurt in September 2021.  I have been led to believe that European auto shows are much cooler than the ones here in the New World.

Yeah, about that . . ..  I, of course, live in the greater New York area, and the New York International Auto Show is the biggest car show in the American Northeast.  And until this week, New York State had no cases to report.  Since then, eleven cases have been reported there.  Suddenly, the New York show looks dicey.

Bloomberg News reports that show organizers are planning to disinfect commonly touched surfaces over and over and over and over throughout the show's duration, with paramedics on site to respond to any emergency cases.  Right now, I'm not that easily assured.  Whether or not I attend - the show takes place during Easter Week, opening to the public on Good Friday, April 10 - depends on how bad the coronavirus is in New York by then and how thorough the disinfectant task force is.  I usually go in the latter days of the show, so I'll get an idea of how effective they are in the first few days of the show.  Whether or not the Detroit show, being held in June for the first time this year, can ward off the coronavirus scare remains to be seen.  

Coronavirus or not, this era may be twilight time for auto shows.  They're expensive to set up, more people are checking out cars online, and even the most exciting shows in Europe seem to be resembling giant dealership showrooms more than a festive exhibition.  The auto industry itself is being diminished by a slowing global economy, expensive tech features as standard equipment, and fewer young people feeling the need to buy a car.  And foreign shows seem to be adopting bad American promotional tactics, such as sexily dressed women on the display platforms, even as American shows are getting away from all that.  Also, I find it increasingly hard to get excited by domestic brands as they push more SUVs (excuse me, monster wagons) even as the German brands, which I usually concentrate on at auto shows, seem to be pulling away from auto shows in the U.S. - BMW skipped the 2019 New York auto show for reasons having nothing to do with an infectious disease.  The firm simply didn't think it was worth it.   Audi will still be at New York in 2020.  Too bad the newly introduced A3 Sportback, below, won't be there (we're only getting the as-yet unintroduced A3 notchback sedan).

Despite all that, I still hope to make it to New York for this year.  There will be several new-car introductions there, not all of which will be monster wagons, and I love photographing the cars for my Flickr page and also video-recording presentations for my YouTube account.  And besides, it doesn't feel like Easter without the auto show to go to.  Its not Geneva or Paris, but it's still fun.  And I hope to attend the Frankfurt show in 2021 or 2023.  If it's the last thing I do.

I just hope that, given the coronavirus scare, attending the 2020 New York show isn't the last thing I do.