Welcome to Times Square, Detroit-style.<\/p>\n
Cobo Center this January has been transformed into a mind-blowing wonderland of jumbo LED screens, floor-to-ceiling videos and consumer goods stores. This being Motown, of course, all the stores contain cars. Here, you can find everything from pint-sized Smart ForTwo cars to ginormous Ford F-150 pickups. Heck, like Times Square, there\u2019s even a Disney presence with a life-sized replica of Lightning McQueen, the star of \u201cCars 3.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for all the glitz, this year\u2019s new reveals are for the bread-and-butter shopper.<\/p>\n
The auto market is going through a major shift from sedans to trucks and every manufacturer is remaking its portfolio to accommodate the trend. In doing so, they need to balance the conflicting visions of a federal government that wants smaller, fuel-sipping cars and consumers who want more utility. Midsize utes and sedans are the core moneymakers that allow automakers to make fun toys like Camaros and M2s \u2014 so they got to get them right.<\/p>\n
Chevy brand customers want more room so the all-new three-row Traverse SUV grows bigger, even as its chassis sheds weight for better fuel economy. Its more upscale sister brand, GMC, on the other hand, is downsizing its Terrain crossover to be more nimble in the compact SUV segment. Compact SUVs are fast replacing the midsize sedan as the dominant family vehicle.<\/p>\n
Even the BMW stand is looking like ute-ville. The German maker graced Detroit with the global reveal of its 5-series sedan, but it\u2019s the BMW X2 coupe concept crossover \u2013 which will be the sixth SUV in the performance brand\u2019s lineup \u2014 that steals the show. Finally, a sexy SUV from Bimmer.<\/p>\n
Grab your grocery bag and let\u2019s go shopping. These are my show highlights:<\/p>\n
Bread-and-butter giants<\/strong><\/p>\n The best-selling car (Toyota Camry) and truck (Ford F-150) both debuted new looks at this year\u2019s show. The Camry is the more dramatic.<\/p>\n The sedan is still the top dog in sedan sales (388,618 sold in 2016) but sales were down 10 percent. As families flee to SUVs like Toyota\u2019s RAV4, customer priorities for sedans shift to style, performance and fuel economy. The new Camry offers all three. Determined to show the world that it\u2019s shedding its vanilla image for more Chunky Monkey Double Chocolate Oreo swirl (well, at least chocolate), Toyota threw the kitchen sink at the new Camry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to Times Square, Detroit-style. Cobo Center this January has been transformed into a mind-blowing wonderland of jumbo LED screens, floor-to-ceiling videos and consumer goods stores. This being Motown, of course, all the stores contain cars. Here, you can find everything from pint-sized Smart ForTwo cars to ginormous Ford F-150 pickups. Heck, like Times Square, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19949,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19948\/revisions\/19949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}