Dispatches From The Chicago Auto Show #2

Journalists hungry for news instead noshed on munchies as the afternoon slipped away without much in the way of earth-shattering product news.

T

he 2012 Chicago Auto Show has been quieter than last month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and the afternoon session of the main media reflected that.

Journalists hungry for news instead noshed on munchies as the afternoon slipped away without much in the way of earth-shattering product news.

Production of the Toyota Highlander will move to Indiana from Japan.

That doesn't mean nothing happened. Nissan, which already showed off its refreshed 370Z sports car the night before, unveiled a new, smaller version of its NV200 cargo van, called, appropriately enough, the NV200 Compact Cargo Van. Chrysler followed with a look at some Mopar products.

And that's about it for the after-lunch excitement. BP talked about the future of fuel, and MotorWeek gave out some awards. Mostly, journalists scattered about, photographing cars and chatting up PR reps and product planners. Pretty much standard operationg procedure for an auto show.

We did spend a few minutes chatting with SRT CEO Ralph Gilles, which we'll detail in an upcoming story, and as per usual after a chat with Ralph, we found ourselves feeling a bit better about the state of performance automobiles, although we were unable to extract any details about future SRT product, try as we might (we're openly hoping for an SRT version of the forthcoming 2013 Dodge Dart).

Perhaps the days biggest news spilled over lunch as Toyota Motor North America President and COO Yoshimi Inaba announced that production of the Toyota Highlander would move to Princeton, Indiana, from Japan, creating 400 jobs. Toyota will invest $400 million and will be able to produce up to 50,000 more Highlanders.

Tomorrow is the auto show's "social media day." We'll bring you whatever news may break–and if nothing happens, we'll tweet it anyway.

[Source: Business Week]