Nissan Pulls Out of Detroit Auto Show

You’ve got to feel for the organizers of the once proud North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit and the many car enthusiasts who live there. It’s a city that got its nickname, Motown, from its leadership in the car industry, a city whose Pistons and Red Wings feature automotive themes on their jerseys. The nation’s largest automakers call Detroit and its surrounding suburbs home, but those automakers, like the city itself, are facing the worst year in recent history.

The show, staged in Cobo hall and arena on the banks of the Michigan River, GM’s spectacular Renaissance Center towering overhead and one of Canada’s car towns, Windsor, across the waters, appears to be undergoing a slow and painful death. Needing a bailout package of its own, ironically it’s the automakers that have relied on the show for years that have chosen 2009 as the year they’re bailing out on Detroit.

The latest in a long line of evacuees, Nissan has chosen to pull out of the NAIAS as well as Chicago’s auto show that follows a month later in February, having spent their budget on Los Angeles, where the new 370Z, Cube and Infiniti G37 Convertible were officially unveiled for the first time. With nothing to show in Detroit or Chicago, the automaker may be done until next year’s LA show, unless they choose to launch something at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The Detroit show lost Ferrari, Land Rover and Rolls-Royce last week, and Suzuki just before that. Last year Porsche chose not to take part because it sells so few cars in the Detroit area, which is presumed to be the reason, along with overall budgetary restraints, why the other carmakers are opting out this year.

Nissan is the first to pull out of Chicago, however, which must be a concern for the show’s organizers. Chicago, while better off on the whole than Detroit, is suffering through the economic crisis like so many other US cities and communities around the world. Whether or not more automakers will choose to opt out of the Windy City will remain to be seen, although a major player has set the stage so others may follow.

Nissan was supposed to have introduced a commercial van concept in Detroit dubbed NV2500, but this will most likely show up in New York or be launched at an event more suitable to commercial vehicles. Commercial buyers pay more attention to trade journals than auto shows anyway, and therefore it will likely get a great deal of coverage no matter where it eventually shows up.

Come January, it will likely be a very quiet Detroit show.