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America’s oldest auto show has a history of innovative concepts, unexpected incidents
Like its city, nothing slows down the New York auto show, opening next week for the 113th year in a row. The doors stayed open when other shows closed during two world wars; New Yorkers still wanted to escape for a while from the realities of gas rationing and limited production. They opened wider for the optimism of the 1950s, when bubble-topped concept cars and huge-finned Cadillacs needed a massive floor space to be displayed.
And in the ’60s, visitors flocked to the show to see the intriguing cars of Europe and then Japan, squeezed from the prestigious show at Detroit that was ruled by Ford, GM and Chrysler, but welcomed at the city of Ellis Island immigration.
The Austin Mini was first shown to North Americans at the New York auto show in 1960. So was James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 from the 1964 movie Goldfinger. The Jaguar E-Type debuted on this side of the Atlantic in the Big Apple.
At one Jaguar event, the British company even brought a real jaguar cat to the show to woo attendees with its sleek beauty and strength, but the animal got loose and tried to attack one of the female models. There was panic and mayhem until it was caught.
In the1970s and ’80s, when gas prices began to hike and speed limits began to drop, the auto show shared space with underpowered Mustang production cars and overblown Mustang aftermarket muscle machines. New Yorkers would never accept being told what they should be driving.
Carroll Shelby showed off his very first Cobra in New York in 1962. He
very much wanted to return 50 years later to stand with his company’s latest creation — a 960 hp Shelby Super Snake Mustang — but he was too unwell to attend and died the following month.
For the last 15 years, the New York show has attracted more than a million visitors each year. That’s a lot of people packed onto one floor over 10 days — three times as many visitors as the Toronto auto show, which has two-thirds the floor space. There’s usually a heavy police presence ready to step in and prevent notoriously belligerent New Yorkers from causing trouble. In the late ’90s, local members of the Crips and Bloods gangs got into a stabbing brawl at the BMW booth, arguing over who should have posing rights around the centrepiece Z3.
As said, the New York auto show is special. It’s not the most important auto show — that would be Detroit or Los Angeles, or any of a handful of shows in Europe and Asia that are filled with model debuts and breaking news. But it’s the oldest auto show in North America and many of the 1,000 cars on display have a draw all their own.
Last year, in the vast and noisy carpeted hall of the Javits Center on West 34th St., we saw debuts of everything from the SRT Viper to the Mercedes-Benz GL450 to the Terrafugia Flying Car (and where is it now?)
This year, the show will host our first official glimpses-in-the-metal of the 2014 Cadillac CTS mid-size sedan, Mercedes-Benz CLA small coupe, 2015 Range Rover Sport SUV, Infiniti QX60 Hybrid crossover, allnew 2014 Toyota Highlander, refreshed Hyundai Equus sedan and refreshed 2014 Chevy Camaro, among others.
New York benefits from its timing on the calendar for the reveal of new vehicles, since it’s the first major U.S. show since Chicago in early February and Detroit less than a month before that. After this month, there’ll be a long wait before the next European show at either Frankfurt or Paris in the fall. Those two shows alternate between Germany and France each year.
The New York show is held every year around Easter weekend when spring is in the air and people’s fancy turns to buying cars. According to figures supplied by the show, 80 per cent of attendees in 2012 said their visit helped them decide their next vehicle. Being Americans, 30 per cent of those said they prefer SUVs.
Its influence cannot be overstated: organizers estimate that it brings a quarter of a billion dollars of business to New York every spring. This year should be no different.
Need an auto show fix before the spring driving season starts? New York’s your last chance, and it never disappoints.
Just watch out around the Jaguars and BMWs. wheels@thestar.ca