Please don't ask her if she comes with the car

The public days of the Detroit auto show extravaganza (formally named the North American International Auto Show) are well underway. More than a million people are expected to pour through the doors of Detroit’s Cobo Hall and ogle and touch the cars and trucks that are still the lifeblood of the city and the state.

Last week’s crush of press preview days are over, the executives have gone back into hibernation in their corner offices, and countless cases of California sparkling wine have been poured into plastic cups and consumed by the tuxedoed masses at the Charity Preview on Friday.

I love the auto show. Yes, the outdoor temperature is frigid and the indoor temperature is saunalike. Yes, by the time you see the whole show, your feet ache and you desperately need a drink, for which you have to brave the afore-mentioned freezing weather and walk several blocks. Yes, you are paying a lot at the Charity Preview for cheap wine and no food. Yes, the spouse is very likely grumpy about the tuxedo and the lack of food.

But it’s our CES, our SXSW. It’s where you can see all the cars you might personally be involved in designing, engineering, building, advertising or promoting, along with all the other cars you would otherwise not get to see without a salesman shadowing you. You can examine the interiors and the wheels and see what the competition is up to. You can think about your next vehicle purchase. At the Charity Preview, you can compile your own worst-dressed list.

This is the first time in a decade I haven’t cruised the press preview days and run into old journalist friends and old flacks. I missed it. Some of my favorite memories from auto shows past are watching Jason Vines do his standup PR shtick, talking to Bob Lutz when he was selling the Cunningham car and not surrounded by an entourage, and enjoying several of Hyundai’s Detroit Rocks parties, where the hacks and flacks of the Exhaust Tones show what they do when they’re not writing about cars.

Anyway, it’s fun. If you live in metro Detroit and still have a job, take a day off and go.

Recent posts and columns about NAIAS I enjoyed reading:

• WSJ Joe White’s review (full disclosure: he’s my spouse) Can You Imagine Driving These? Also, vote on six concept cars: build it or bag it?
• Jalopnik: An auto show model lets you know what she really thinks. She also has her own blog, Do You Come with the Car?, quite entertaining.
• Mitch Albom, the hardest-working man in Detroit with an ego to match, writes that the auto show demonstrates the pluckiness and grit that is Detroit.
• Detroit Fashion Pages’ Worst Dressed List from the Charity Preview. This could have been a much longer list, in my opinion.
• More of my NAIAS photos on Flickr