The unveiling of the 2015 Corvette Z06 has been hailed as one of the auto show's high points.
Despite some of the coldest weather on record, the 2014 North American International Auto Show delivered its best turnout in over a decade as it wrapped up over the weekend.
Even with snow blowing fiercely and temperatures plummeting, more than 102,000 visitors made it down to Detroit’s Cobo Center on Sunday to give the 25th anniversary of the event a strong finish. In all, organizers report 803,451 paid visitors passed through the convention center during its nearly two-week run.
That doesn’t include the 5,169 journalists who came in for the NAIAS media preview on January 13th and 14th. That included reporters from 60 countries and 39 states, according to the Detroit Auto Dealers Association, or DADA, the retailer group that sponsors the annual show.
GM CEO Mary Barra with her Ford counterpart Alan Mulally during the black tie preview at the North American International Auto Show.
Hundreds more senior industry officials were on hand for the previews during which more than 50 new cars, trucks, crossovers and concept vehicles were introduced for the first time. Among the major previews were the “aluminum-intensive” Ford F-150, the 625-horsepower Corvette Z06, Toyota’s FT-1 sports car concept and an assortment of performance products from BMW, including the new M3 and M4 models.
(Click Here to check out TheDetroitBureau.com’s complete coverage of the 2014 North American International Auto Show.)
The show drew a strong turnout of 13,826 for the annual Charity Preview – “prom night” to automotive insiders – who paid a collective $4.8 million to attend the event which featured a star turn by performance Sheryl Crow.
Add another 34,000 paid visitors working for those automakers and their suppliers and the total ticketed attendance was the strongest since 2003, when 838,066 visitors came to Cobo.
Industry officials measure the impact of the NAIAS in a variety of ways. At a corporate level, makers like Ford, Toyota, GM and BMW initially are watching for the amount of coverage they generate, whether on the air, in print or online, and initial reports suggest that the rollout of so many new products has yielded one of the best year’s from this metric the industry has long seen.
(The weather may be cold but U.S. auto sales are running hot this month. Click Here for the story.)
On a local level, the DADA estimates the total economic impact of the 2014 Detroit Auto Show will have come to around $365 million, a figure that covers everything from tickets to local hotel, parking, catering and restaurant revenues generated by the event.
“This was a special show, and everyone knew it,” auto show chairman and local car dealer Shuman said in a media release. “The industry is healthy, the products and technology are spectacular, and confidence is high. It would be difficult to find a more exciting or more important two weeks than what we just experienced in the auto industry here on Detroit’s world stage.
(Show-goers found plenty of cool, high-tech features at the 2014 NAIAS. Click Here to check out some of the best.)
Longer-term, sponsors and manufacturers will be watching to see what sort of new car sales might be generated from the show. While it’s hard to pin down a specific number, industry analysts have traditionally drawn a direct link between regional car sales and auto show attendance, while the broader media coverage helps spur sales outside the Detroit region.
Significantly, forecasts for January suggest that U.S. new vehicle sales should be up as much as 1% or more from the first month of 2013 despite the series of record cold snaps that have gripped the country.