2009 North American International Auto Show Video

2009 North American International Auto Show Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:04

>> Detroit? Why are you going to Detroit? I can't tell you how many times I got that one. Seems that everybody who doesn't live here thinks they've turned the lights out on this show, if not this city. Not quite the case. ^M00:00:17 [ Music ] ^M00:00:24 We saw plenty of news making cars. Hot new rides like the BMW Z4, that company's first retractable roadster, the new Prius and Insight ready to do hybrid battle at a high level, Ford totally reinventing the Taurus, hoping they could catch lightening in a bottle one more time. ^M00:00:43 [ Music ] ^M00:00:46 And of course the edgy concepts, the Cadillac Converge, Chrysler's 200C, the Audi Sportback. ^M00:00:53 [ Music ] Now, yes, there was a little more elbowroom this challenging year than in the past, but it still took these guys 25 minutes to make me a slice of pizza. And it was hectic enough on the floor to make one forget to pick up their BlackBerry. ^M00:01:11 [ Music ] ^M00:01:21 And as much as there was more space around the show, it just made way for some new names, like Brilliance and BYD, the first Chinese carmakers ever on the main show floor. There were times when I was asking myself, "Detroit? Detroit? God." Damn it, it's cold. Whew. ^M00:01:38 [ Breathing sound ] ^M00:01:44 But aside from being cold, the air around the show was electric about electric, hybrids, pure electric cars, GM's major new battery plant, and Ford's electrification strategy that will cover their entire line. All this and more proved that those who wrote off the big Detroit show this year might have spoken too soon. ^M00:02:04 [ Music ] ^M00:02:07 All in all, you could kind of rank this as one of the better Detroit shows. A little less heat, a little more light. ^M00:02:14 [ Music ]