Despite American President Barack Obama’s apparent praise of the Ford Shelby GT500 yesterday at the Washington, D.C., auto show, some members of the auto industry are criticizing the way the chief executive ignored the foreign automakers that were also in attendance.
The strife stemmed from a request by the White House to have vehicles from some automakers set aside specifically for President Obama to sit in and evaluate, but the president was only shown cars produced by domestic manufacturers, according to The Detroit News.
The President spent about 20 minutes making the rounds at the show, which is not a major new car introduction event but still serves as an important regional event for consumers and politicians alike. Eighteen new cars from Chrysler, Ford and General Motors were lined up for a Presidential review. The Detroit paper says that the chief executive sat in a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, a Chevrolet Malibu Eco, a Chevrolet Silverado, a Dodge Dart, a Ford C-Max Energi, a Ford Fusion Energi, a Ford Shelby GT500, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Ram 1500.
But a “bunch” of cars built by import brands, including a number assembled in the Untied States, had also been lined up specifically for presidential review. It’s not known if the President intentionally ignored the cars or if his allotted time didn’t allow him to check out the additional vehicles.
A trade group representing some the import brands was more than a bit irked by the apparent cold shoulder from the Obama administration.
“We are terribly disappointed that the president did not spend time with our manufacturers who have created jobs, employ more than 80,000 people in the United States, invested more than $43 billion and last year built more than 3 million cars here,” said Mike Stanton, president and CEO of the trade association which represents Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and other foreign automakers.
It’s unclear if the President was directly involved in selecting the cars that were shown to him, although he made it clear ahead of the show that he would be using his visit to tout progress made by Detroit’s Big Three.
Conversely, Obama spent time in all of the American makes’ vehicles, even reflecting on them by saying that the cars that he sat in were “proof Detroit is back.”
