You can’t go, but we did - and here’s what we learned

The North American International Auto Show, i.e., NAIAS, opens in Detroit, Michigan’s Cobo Hall on this coming Saturday, January 19th. If you’re in the neighborhood, it’s worth a visit. If you’re not – no big deal. Most of the exhibits will be coming to another auto show near you later this year, starting with the Chicago Auto Show next month.

You see, what makes NAIAS one of the three most important auto shows, along with Tokyo and Frankfort, isn’t the cars on display.

It’s not even the 700,000 people expected to attend.

It’s what happens before the show opens to the public.

A week before the public can pay to get in, NAIAS is front page news around the world. Every form of media has something to report, has some vignette that says they’re part of the club, they were at NAIAS for the press preview days.

That’s when you want to be there. That’s when there’s action.

But, you can’t get in.

We, however, can. And did.

(Truthfully, it’s not all that exclusive. They even let in the dude from MotorWeak.)

Yes, TopSpeed.com had not one, but two, dedicated car people sacrificing hours of sleep in order to interview every available executive, talk cars and the car business, and watch all the wonders prepared by the various car makers for the amusement and delight of the assembled press.

This is the real Detroit Auto Show. This is when automakers, foreign and domestic, put on their best faces for the press and VIPs. This is when they impress journalists that often know almost nothing about the topic, but come from print media in which car companies advertise. This is also when the car companies – particularly those based in and around Detroit – get to send a message. The assembled journalists are a captive audience, forced to report whatever there is to report. And the car companies decide what that will be.

So, you get pretty much the same thing on every front page. It runs pretty much like this: This year’s auto show, you’re told, was “green.” Chrysler is showing electric cars. GM is big into ethanol. Ford? Who cares? If the new F-150 doesn’t make it, they won’t be around long enough to launch the Verve.

Well, actually, there was a lot more than that.

Over the course of three days, TopSpeed.com sat down and talked with the people that matter at General Motors, from the Chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner, and Vice-Chairman of Product Development Robert Lutz, on down. They were informative, sometimes a bit blustery, but all obviously intelligent and quick. You don’t get to the top by being vapid.

So, we’ll tell you all about that, from a perspective you won’t get in a magazine.

But, we also got to talk to the people that weren’t holding the keys to the most exclusive executive washrooms, to the guys and gal that run divisions, that manage the futures of those divisions, and who are trying to figure out who wants to buy their cars, how to get those who don’t currently have that want to become buyers, and how to establish to you – the customer – an identity that says positive things.

They didn’t always say the same things that the bosses said.

We’ll get into the details a bit later, as I can only type so fast.

But this much I can tell you.

As long as Chevy trucks have V-8’s, the Vette has one, too. There will always be a V-8 Corvette.

Next - the inside story on the CTS Coupe Concept and why it is THE car at the show.