With the financial crisis in full swing and bankruptcy rumors continuing to dog the big three, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit was already expected to have a rather somber tone this year. Now reports indicate that Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and Land Rover won't be attending the show at all.

This is just the latest setback for the NAIAS as it has continued to lose major automotive brands in the past few years. Last year Porsche decided against attending due to their low sales volume in Michigan and more recently Suzuki was planning to be a no-show this year. If the show keeps losing high-interest brands such as Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and Land Rover it could jeopardize the legitimacy of being a truly international show.

The show has faced stiff competition from auto shows in Chicago, LA, and New York as of late and plans to upgrade Cobo Hall have been stalled due to funding issues and the uncertainty that surrounded former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. It remains to be seen if the brands skipped out on the show due to lack of new product or as a way to save cash in this time of economic uncertainty. Their presence will surely be missed.

In a surprise move, Nissan has announced that it will not be attending the 2009 Detroit Auto Show or the 2009 Chicago Auto Show. Nissan says both decisions were made due to the current economic conditions. Granted, Nissan wasn’t planning on unveiling anything new at the show, so the company’s exhibit would have effectively been LA show redux anyway.

Nissan is just one of the many carmakers pull out of this year’s Detroit show, with Porsche, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce and Ferrari all planning to skip January’s NAIAS.

“We felt this was probably right now, not the best way to invest marketing money,” spokesman Alan Buddendeck told the Detroit News.

According to Buddendeck, the decision to pull out of Detroit and Chicago was solely based on available dollars and cents and not the merit of venues themselves. Buddendeck added that Nissan, along with its luxury Infiniti division (which won’t be at the Detroit and Chicago shows, either), got its 2009 product message across at last week’s Los Angeles Auto Show.

Buddendeck failed to mention exactly how much Nissan will save by skipping the shows, but did tell Automotive News that auto shows aren’t a “small line item on your marketing budget.”

At that Los Angeles show Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said that the key to surviving the current economic downturn would be to avoid or significantly reduce burning cash. By skipping the Detroit and Chicago shows, Nissan will definitely keep a few extra bucks in the bank.

Last week, a representative for the Detroit show said the departures clear the way for Chinese automakers to get space on the main floor. They had been relegated to the hallway outside the main floor and in the basement.

The Detroit Auto Show can’t be happy that several big name automakers have pulled out next January’s show, but, as the saying goes, there is always a silver lining. Due to the vacancies on the main floor, two Chinese automakers will be presenting in Cobo’s main hall for the first time.

China’s BYD Auto Co. and Brilliance Jinbei Automotive Co. will be setting up shop for the first time in Cobo’s main hall come January. Chinese automakers have been attending the Detroit show for years, but have only presented in Cobo’s lower – and often overlooked — Michigan Hall.

“They’ve been waiting, all the exhibitors in Michigan Hall, so it’s a wonderful opportunity for them,” Joe Serra, show co-chairman, told Automotive News.

BYD and Brilliance have been allotted 11,000 square feet on the main show floor.

So far Nissan, Infiniti, Land Rover, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Porsche have pulled out of the Detroit show, with several other automakers rumored to be mulling the trip to the Motor City.

honda cancels detroit auto show press conference

unlike some other automakers, honda is not pulling out of the detroit auto show completely. But it is making a major change to this year’s plans. The japanese automaker has cancelled its press conference scheduled for the show. That means there will be no glitzy product reveals, but rather a simple booth with the cars on display.

“we’re not going to be doing ‘traditional’ product unveilings in detroit,” spokesman kurt antonius told bloomberg, citing tough financial times. But he said the company is still planning to use the event to showcase the production version of its 2010 insight hybrid.

This might sound like bad news, but it could certainly be worse. Earlier this week, nissan announced it would not be attending the show at all. Similar announcements also came from porsche, mitsubishi, suzuki, land rover, rolls-royce and ferrari, all of whom cancelled plans for press conferences and exhibits.

Virtually all automakers are expected to reduce spending at this year’s show, making many of the product launches at last year’s event seem unthinkably elaborate. Take chrysler, for example, which paid 15 professional cattle handlers to march 120 texas longhorns through downtown detroit as part of its 2009 dodge ram introduction. Don’t expect to see anything like that this year.

While we’re not expecting a major pullback by all automakers, more announcements could come in the next few weeks, sources say, with perhaps a few more withdrawals.

General Motors Corp. scrapped the fashion show attended by Hollywood celebrities, and Chrysler LLC is leaving the longhorn cattle on the range, not the streets of Detroit.

Gloom hangs over preparations for the 21st annual North American International Auto Show in January as GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. struggle to survive, industry sales plunge and eight overseas carmakers cancel or limit their role in the main U.S. forum for promoting new models.

“This year is going to be the most somber show of the series,” said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “It’s not going to have the glitz and glamour and festivities that have been there in previous years.”

Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, stunned organizers this week by saying it would skip the show to save cash. Honda Motor Co., No. 2 in Japan, said yesterday it would forgo “traditional” press conferences for its vehicles.

“Nissan was a tremendous shock,” said Doug Fox, owner of Ann Arbor Automotive in Ann Arbor and co-chairman of the 2009 show. U.S. executives of Tokyo-based Nissan “said the decision came from Japan and was purely economic,” Fox said......