Volvo, Nissan, Peugeot and more are giving the Frankfurt Motor Show a miss

Major car makers including Volvo, Nissan, Peugeot and more are not attending the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show. Is the end of the big Motor Show nigh?

The success of major car shows has waxed and waned over the years, with the UK long having given up on staging a show like those we see in Geneva, Paris and Frankfurt.

But as more and more car news is delivered online, there is no real impetus to battle the throngs at a car show to see the latest and greatest metal car makers can summon, and that’s starting to influence car makers’ thinking.

With the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show looming next month, it’s interesting to see that a number of big car makers are swerving the show altogether, with Volvo, Nissan, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Infinti and Mitsubishi all a no show. Together, they represent 20 per cent of Europe’s car sales.

That, according to Automotive News, is not just about car buyers looking online for their latest car reveals, but because Car Shows are just so expensive for car makers, with no strong correlation between spend and sales.

It seems Frankfurt is tougher for many car makers because the German makers spend so heavily to make a splash, whereas Geneva – in car-maker-free Switzerland – has a cap on spending so no one car maker can dominate.

Instead of traditional car shows, car makers are turning to their own road shows or gatherings where the focus is just on them, or turning out for events like the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where the spend is much less, the online impact greater and the interaction more personal.

Lord March, Goodwood organiser, said:

The manufacturers are very keen to find different ways of showing their products and we’ve been part of that change.

It’s all about the content – manufacturers are pushing out well over 1 million hours of downloaded video. There’s lot of noise around what you’re doing.

Is this the beginning of the end for the Frankfurt Motor Show?