Detroit Auto Show visitor: I'll take the Chevy for $35K
Ford, Ferrari, classic car dealers also see buyer traction in 2025
Ken Mokray, 71, a retired chief investment officer from Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., revealed that sitting in a 2025 Chevy Trailblazer at Huntington Place during the Detroit Auto Show closed the deal for his wife.
They had talked for a year about replacing their old Audi. His wife Cindy Mokray, 70, a retired bookkeeper whose father worked as a chemical engineer at Chrysler, pulled the pin and spent $35,320 on the Marina Blue Metallic SUV.
“Cindy sat in it and fell in love,” Ken Mokray said. “She liked it because it sits up high. And she wanted to buy American.”
The Chevy began sharing a driveway with their Mercedes GLA 250 SUV on Saturday, Jan. 18, a week after visiting the show. Dressing up to attend the charity preview downtown was a bucket list item. And it all came together for them.
I wondered if others, like Ken and Cindy Mokray, shopped after the show.
So I checked around to get a snapshot of the situation.
It seems Chevrolet wasn’t the only brand to see consumer impact.
This is a little taste at what others had to say.
Ford, Ferrari and muscle shoppers, too
Todd Szott, president of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association, said he had a customer from the Detroit Auto Show pick up a Ford Explorer from his dealership in Holly, Mich., while another customer who attended the downtown event planned to circle back about buying an Explorer, too.
The show displayed more than 30 brands, including exotic sports cars.
Tom Shugars, brand ambassador for Cauley Ferrari of Detroit in West Bloomfield, Mich., invited a prospect to the ticketed exotic car gallery event held at Huntington Place just before the Detroit Auto Show opened to the public.
“I brought him closer,” Shugars told me. In this case, the buyer is finishing up a new home but he really enjoyed seeing the vehicles outside a dealership and in a social setting.
“This client likes the 296 GTS,” Shugars said. “It costs about $575,000.”
A Ferrari ranges from $300,000 to $800,000 new, and used starts at $150,000, he said.
For the Detroit Auto Show, the Ferrari dealer displayed seven cars including a 296 GTB ($630,000), an SF90 Spider ($730,000), a Roma Spider ($360,000), and a Purosangue ($600,000). The SF90 Spider is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, a high-efficiency propulsion system powered by battery and gasoline technology.
“It can take up to two years for a buyer to decide to make a purchase,” Shugars said.
While the auto show is known for its new car displays, classics played a role this year.
Greg Payne, general manager of Vanguard Motor Sales in Plymouth, Mich., put on a classic and muscle car display for the first time at the Detroit Auto Show.
He said the team closed deals and absolutely generated leads but declined to provide detail about which cars or trucks inspired consumer activity.
Attendance: Looking back, ahead
Organizers have not released hard numbers for attendance yet.
They did confirm to me: The 2025 Detroit Auto Show was tracking 60% ahead of the 2023 Detroit Auto Show held in September. (No show was held in 2024.)
The response this year was “extraordinary,” executive director Sam Klemet said.
“We had big crowds, an incredible response to our four experiential tracks and a great energy on the return to January from Detroiters and visitors. The positive response to the show by consumers is a testament to the car enthusiasts we have in Detroit.”
Previous shows have attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees who spend big money in the City of Detroit. In 2022, the economic impact with restaurant, hotel and shopping activity was about $100 million, according to David Sowerby, managing director at Ancora.
The Detroit Auto Show has been a tradition since 1907 despite disruption by war and pandemic.
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I have always bought American cars until 2022. I didn't want a truck or an SUV. I couldn't find a domestic used car with less than 70,000 miles because, well, the domestic automakers mostly make trucks. I had a line on one but I had to make an appointment to test drive it. Another couple had come from 2 1/2 hours away to test drive it before me. I knew they weren't coming that far without buying it and I was right. I ended up buying a low-mileage 2014 Honda Civic with two-thirds domestic content from a hard-working small dealership and am pretty happy with it. In fact, it's one of the best cars I've ever had. And there's more room inside than the newer Buick SUV I drove. I'm told I can get 200,000 miles out of this car if I take care of it.
If that makes me a dinosaur still driving a car, so be it. Did the best I could to stay domestic.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn't leave the domestic automakers, they left me.
Nothing satisfies the need to buy American better than a Korean built trailblazer.