We here at Jalopnik have witnessed and lamented the decline of the traditional auto show over recent years. Auto shows were once the place for automakers to unveil their wildest concept cars, announce new versions of best-selling models, entice the public with test drive opportunities, and more. Television’s original automotive magazine MotorWeek covered these events for decades and is compiling its retro auto show coverage in a 48-hour Retro Review marathon that starts Saturday morning. The marathon will shuffle randomly through 88 of MotorWeek’s various auto show specials that aired between 1988 and 2006, so cancel all your weekend plans accordingly.
Modern auto shows may still seem like big productions to the uninitiated, but folks who remember the auto shows of yore understand how far these once-mighty events have fallen. Cities across the globe from Los Angeles to New York to Frankfurt to Tokyo to Shanghai, hosted giant auto shows that would draw hundreds of thousands of visitors all wanting to sample the latest and greatest from the world’s carmakers. Tastes have since-shifted away from these arguably cheugy convention center attractions. Social media, live-streaming, and the proliferation of the digital world and 24-hour news cycle have changed tastes away from annual events and focused them instead on immediate updates and single-company drops. Steve Jobs trained the world to fall in love with broadcast product unveils, and Tesla more recently brought that to the automotive space with its product launch events. Folks nowadays don’t want to leave the house and visit some stinky convention center when they could just tune into a livestream and watch from their couch. Auto show popularity and quality has since waned.
Car companies used to go all-out at auto shows; Jeep would reliably bring a giant portable off-road course to show off the capabilities of its vehicles, and other companies would host staged drives and agility exhibitions, too. If you miss the good ol’ days, then tune into the MotorWeek Auto Show Retro Marathon broadcast live on the MotorWeek YouTube channel starting tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. Eastern, 5 a.m. Pacific time.