January 11, 2009 8:21PM

Detroit Lives! For now….

By Liz Claman

Hi gang,

It’s Sunday night and the Fox Business crew including Jeff Flock and me just finished up our live special from the Detroit Auto Show.  Today is the first of three media days for the show, which, by the way, started waaaay bck in 1907 in a Detroit BEER GARDEN. (hello?)

How far they’ve come.  Today it’s 1 million square feet of show space at the Cobo Center in the heart of downtown Detroit. After extensive de-icing at the airport, my producer Katherine Fiorile and I finally took off and arrived on the earliest possible flight this morning from NYC.  We hit the ground running. Our broadcast location was right from Ford’s platform…. a particularly hot location considering Ford’s F-150 was just named North American Truck of the Year. 

6000 journalists are here, and if one more person mentioned that it was a much  more ’subdued’ and “anxious” auto show this year, I was going to throw my Cobo Center Sun Chips and Turkey burger at them.  YES, there’s way less glitter (and WHERE is the Jeep Waterfall????) but everyone’s hanging on the story of whether the American Auto Industry will survive.

Survive? Trust me, they’re churning out all kinds of shiny concept cars and vehicles already on showroom floors.  Here’s what’s getting the buzz:

–GM’s concept Cadillac that runs on the Chevy Volt battery-powered engine

–Ford’s Fusion

–Hyundai’s Genesis, which just won “North American Car of the Year”

–Tesla’s Roadster Sport which is both faster AND more expensive ($120k+!!) than the Tesla Roadster

Fox Business spoke live with Hyundai’s North American CEO about the award, along with the CEO’s of BOTH General Motors and Ford today, giving you the FIRST broadcast interviews of any business network.  But I have to show you Rick Wagoner of GM’s interview (see clip below) because really, everyone’s favorite car today was that GM Cadillac Volt.  You’ll see it here.

Gang, I’ll be back live tomorrow from Detroit, where the theme here is “We’re STILL here, Alive and Kicking!”

–Liz