The Detroit Auto Show is going through (another) transformation.
Even as we move forward into 2021, the effects of COVID-19 continue to linger on into the new year. After the ongoing pandemic quashed efforts to reinvent the Detroit Auto Show as an indoor-outdoor event staged downtown, organizers announced Monday the show would be canceled in that form.
“Today we announced we will not hold the 2021 auto show as planned,” read the official statement. There will be an event this year though, as they also announced an alternative event called “Motor Bella”. The show will be a “bridge to the future” for the auto show, according to the Detroit Auto Dealers Association.
The new show will run on a truncated schedule from the original Detroit Auto Show. Motor Bella will take place between September 21 and 26, and will not take place at the TCF Center. Instead, it’s relocated to the M1 Concourse, a small venue outside Pontiac, Michigan — at the Detroit outskirts. “The pandemic has caused changes in our society and world in ways not previous imagined, and we all should be looking for new and highly creative ways of doing business,” executive director Rod Alberts said on announcing the shift. “[The new show] will provide new mobility experiences and increasingly innovative approaches to tapping into the industry and its products.”
The new event, unlike the old North American International Auto Show, is entirely outdoors. The new M1 Concourse venue includes a 1.5-mile track on the grounds, which does offer a change from previous years.
