Are Auto Shows Dead? AND Are Show Cars Merely A Tease?

You know, I ran across this story from CAR and this story struck me as peculiar. This gentleman seems to be frustrated by show cars.

But, from the recent auto shows that I have been to -- Detroit, Chicago, New York -- show cars are becoming non-existant. I mean, in New York I cannot even really remember a car that was a concept besides the Scion Five Axis. It is dismal times in the automotive world, people.

Granted, when there are show cars I do concur with this gentleman's points.

So this means I have two questions for you:

1) is the auto show dead?

2) are you frustrated about show cars like this chap?

CAR Magazine reports:

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical. Certainly they weren’t the cars you were going to buy next year but, maybe, some time in the near future, you would. Those were optimistic times.

Since then there have always been show cars but, in recent years, their numbers seem to have increased, and I have to say that, generally, they make me a bit angry. I feel I’m being manipulated in a situation where, inevitably, I’ll be disappointed.

The three types of show car