Every year in early February we gear up to return to McCormick Place for the first big show of the year, the Chicago Auto Show. Put on by CATA, the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, it’s the largest auto show in America. And yet, this year’s show has half the footprint it did last year, taking up only one of the cavernous show floors rather than its typical 2 and change. Notably missing are the Stellantis brands, which include brands we’ve perused previously at the show like Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep and Ram. According to ABC7 Chicago, the automaking conglomerate cited a need to “focus on preserving business fundamentals to mitigate the impact of a challenging US automotive market,” and is “working to optimize its marketing strategy as it relates to auto shows.”
This means the very popular and slightly unsettling Camp Jeep offroading track is not making an appearance, nor are there Chargers or Rams. (Oh my!)
Before you get too disappointed though, Ford’s capitalized on this moment and the Chicago Auto Show and brought a hell of a show to McCormick Place this year, with their own offroading experience featuring Broncos and Raptors that not only puts you full tilt until you’re sure you’ll fall right out of the doorless sport-ute, but did show off the impressive features of these rock crawling, gravity defying vehicles. The Bronco Raptor even features a hydraulic wheel drop that’s first in industry and allows for some pretty wicked rock crawling feats.
Design wise, we’re seeing a lot of electric vehicles, and a lot of sleek, low bodies. As for color trends, there’s enough orange and blue to satisfy even Michael Bay, with everything from racecar oranges to baby blues. One of the most intriguing paint jobs on the floor though belonged to Ford’s Mustang Dark Horse, which was a sort of gunmetal infused with a rose gold iridescent glitter that recalled some of the more intriguing glitter coats of days past.
Lucid debuted at the show with a sleek and sexy 2024 Air. It packs a punch a Prius can’t even touch with available dual electric motors in the Sapphire trim that bump it up to an insane 1234 horsepower. Electric range is also pretty impressive at between 280 to 516 miles depending on trim.
Tesla was also on the floor with the most notable and still incredibly alien-seeming Cybertruck available to poke around in. This steel geometrical beast has some pretty cool features, though the inside was surprisingly spartan given the price tag and other EVs in the field’s luxurious and often LED-laden interiors.
Other than that, the Army and Chicago PD put on their annual show of neat utilitarian vehicles including a Hummer Ambulance, and the Supercar Gallery shows you the most sleek, luxurious and outright ridiculous vehicles money can buy.
So – is it still worth the trip? We had a fun time on our adventures at the auto show but found ourselves really missing Stellantis’ presence and finishing our day in half the time we had before. We’re glad to see Ford bringing the “entertainment” and merch to the floor we’d lost with Jeep and their 4x4 spectacular, but it still isn’t quite the same. If you’re not really into cars or will have to pay for a bunch of kids admission, it might not be worth it to you for an hour or so’s entertainment, but for this author who’s grown up reading Car and Driver since she was also subscribing to Highlights, it’s always worth it to get a first look at prototypes, concepts and supercars.
