North American International Auto Show
annual auto show in Detroit, Michigan, USA
The Detroit Auto Show, formerly known as the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), is an annual auto show held in Detroit, Michigan. Hosted at Huntington Place (formerly Cobo Center) since 1965, it is among the largest auto shows in North America, and is widely regarded as one of the automotive industry's most important events.
The show is organized by the Detroit Auto Dealers Association (DADA), and has been held annually in January for much of its recent history. It is usually open to the general public for 1–2 weeks, preceded by previews for industry employees and media, and a black-tie "charity preview" fundraiser for local children's charities.
History
In 1899, William E. Metzger helped organize the Detroit Auto Show, only the second of its kind, after the 1898 Paris Auto Show. An auto show was held in Detroit in 1907 at Beller's Beer Garden at Riverside Park and since then annually except 1941–1953. During the show's first decades of existence it portrayed only a regional focus. In 1957 international carmakers exhibited for the first time.
In 1987, the DADA proposed that the show become international. The members of the DADA went to places such as Europe and Japan in the attempt to convince those unveiling their new brands or vehicles in those countries to bring those unveilings to the North American Auto Show.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1052785. Authority coordinates are 42.326, -83.047. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1899, 1898 and 1907.
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This entry incorporates text from “North American International Auto Show” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.