Auto show loses lustre as Detroit struggles for cash

SOUTHFIELD/ MICHIGAN: General Motors scrapped the fashion show attended by Hollywood celebrities, and Chrysler is leaving the longhorn cattle on the range, not the streets of Detroit.

Gloom hangs over preparations for the 21st annual North American International Auto Show in January as GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor struggle to survive, industry sales plunge and eight overseas carmakers cancel or limit their role in the main US forum for promoting new models.

���This year is going to be the most sombre show of the series,��� said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. ���It���s not going to have the glitz and glamour and festivities that have been there in previous years.���

Nissan Motor, Japan���s third-largest automaker, stunned organisers this week by saying it would skip the show to save cash. Honda Motor, No 2 in Japan, said Tuesday it would forgo ���traditional��� press conferences for its vehicles.

���Nissan was a tremendous shock,��� said Doug Fox, owner of Ann Arbor Automotive in Ann Arbor and co-chairman of the 2009 show. US executives of Tokyo-based Nissan said: ���The decision came from Japan and was purely economic,��� Fox said.

Industrywide US sales fell 15% this year through October as the credit crunch cut loan access and the recession pushed
consumer confidence to a record low. New-vehicle demand may fall next year to the worst since 1991.

That���s aggravating the GM, Ford and Chrysler losses that sent the automakers to Congress in search of $25 billion in federal loans to stave off a collapse. While Congress will take up an aid package next week, a rescue plan may still be pending during the show���s press-preview days on January 13-15.

Gone is ���GM Style,��� the Detroit-based company���s event from the past two years with new vehicles and entertainers on display.

Also absent in 2009 will be the livestock paraded through downtown to showcase a new pickup, as Chrysler did this year. Free beer will flow for just one night, not three, for reporters at the Firehouse, a Chrysler-sponsored watering hole near the Cobo Hall convention centre.

Besides Nissan, this year���s no-shows are Mitsubishi Motors, Suzuki Motor, Ferrari SpA, Land Rover and Bayerische Motoren Werke���s Rolls-Royce. Porsche pulled out of Detroit in 2007. GM pushed ahead with new products while shedding parties like the fashion show. It added more new-model debuts after cancelling press events at last week���s Los Angeles Auto Show, said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman. ���It���s our home show and we want to make a good showing,��� he said.