Silly is good

In 2009, only a few months before it filed for bankruptcy protection, Chrysler held a press conference at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. In previous years, the company had brought out celebrity chefs to promote minivans, rock stars to talk about muscle cars, and even herded cattle through downtown Detroit to promote a new line of Ram pickups.

That 2009 display was only slightly better than throwing a bunch of outdated product brochures on a card table. Once called one of the Big Three automakers, Chrysler showed off CAD renderings of the dashboard of a car it never ended up producing. No rock stars, no livestock, not even a car to look at – just a video screen showing what might happen if the company survived the biggest downturn in the auto industry in generations.

This year was different, and not just for Chrysler (now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). The 2015 show wasn’t about looking at the vehicles that would help companies survive and possibly return to profitability. This year was all about silliness and excess, and that’s a great thing.

Ram’s biggest announcement wasn’t a truck that hundreds of thousands of buyers will select, helping support jobs across the nation. It was a crazy rock climber called the Rebel that will appeal to a tiny segment of buyers. But it was cool and fun.

Ford set new records for silliness with three product launches that will appeal only to specific, very high-end buyers. The Raptor pickup is a direct competitor to the Ram Rebel. The Shelby GT 350R Mustang is a car that got rid of any component that doesn’t help it go faster around the track – deleting luxuries such as air conditioning and passenger seats. And the GT, well it’s a two-seat supercar that looks really cool and will reportedly cost as much as $400,000.

These are great signs for the auto industry. Silly exercises in excess show that manufacturers have gotten the basics right in other areas of their businesses, and they can put a little more focus on fun and excitement. Silly performance cars are the dessert after a very long and painful meal.

General Motors returned to profitability and launched competitive passenger cars with the Chevy Cruze and Malibu, so for dessert, we get the Corvette Z06. Honda sales are back to pre-recession levels, so we get the Acura NSX.

Excess at the auto shows isn’t always a sign of a healthy industry. There was plenty of glitz and glam from 2001 through 2008, despite violent swings in consumer demand and automaker profitability. The difference this time is the excesses feel earned. No one’s skipping dinner and binging on ice cream.

The big investments in make-or-break vehicles from a few years ago – important mainstream models such as the Toyota Camry, Hyundai Sonata, and Chrysler 200 – brought producers to a point where profitability can be assumed, absent another economic crash.

So let’s enjoy dessert. If you’ve been at the table for the past decade, you’ve earned it.