Commentary

Big Apple Welcomes Auto Show

It all happens in New York next week. No, not the ascendancy of the lieutenant governor, although that is, in fact, happening next week. I mean the New York International Auto Show, where automakers from Kia to Bentley will dangle eye candy for every range of the market -- blue collar, white collar, VIP, emperor, or even Emperor VIP (we advise paying cash).

The New York auto show is the caboose at the end of a string of international auto shows beginning in 2007, and including Tokyo, Frankfurt, L.A., Chicago and Detroit, among others. How does New York stack up? For one thing -- and perhaps ironically since it's not a car town -- New York's auto show brings around 1.2 million people, more than any other American show.

Jeremy Barnes, who is director of product and corporate PR for Mazda North American operations, says the show is critical because of the media market and because visitors to the Jacob Javitz Convention Center aren't aligned with a brand.

"About 60% of people who come to the show are in the market to buy a car in the next six months," he says. "From a media perspective New York is metropolitan, and from a sales perspective you could argue that it is more important than other shows." That's because a preponderance of visitors to Detroit's Cobo Hall for the North American International Auto Show are involved with one of the Detroit automakers.

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"Many who buy cars in the Detroit area have employment ties to Detroit auto brands," says Barnes. But, he says, the timing is odd for New York, being the last of the major international auto shows. "You have made your big splash at Detroit or Geneva, and you may have run out of funds."

Says Todd Turner, president of Car Concepts, Los Angeles, "I don't know if there's a single product unveiling that makes the show. It's often more about the mood of the industry. And right now, it's depressed in general, so I expect the show to have that feeling as well."

Having just returned from the Geneva International show, Turner said the feeling there was unusually blasé. "We were asking ourselves whether anything really important had happened at the show. I think that everyone was a little surprised. The other aspect is that every car company is on notice now, so the vehicles they are bringing out at shows are very marketable; in some ways that makes for a kind of boring show."

Editor's note: Despite predictions that the show might be subdued, Karl will be there, pen in hand, to spice things up.

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