Best Cars of the 2019 Chicago Auto Show

CHICAGO — The massive 2019 Chicago Auto Show wows the competing North American shows with its ginormous exhibition space and public-days attendance (probably) topping 1 million. New-car introductions were as likely to be mid-life refreshes as all-new models. All that changes next year when the Detroit show follows, and not precedes, Chicago.

There were significant introductions, led by the turbocharged 2020 Subaru Legacy sedan with a 12-inch center stack touch screen, the Land Rover Evoque, Ram pickups with a multi-open tailgate, and the performance version of the VW Jetta. Here’s our take on the best cars of the 111th Chicago Auto Show.

The 2020 Subaru Legacy sedan gets a 260-hp turbocharged engine, the same as in the Ascent SUV, with a 6.1-second time to 60 mph. An 11.6-inch portrait display, as on Tesla and the Ram 1500, lights up the center stack. The non-turbo engine is still available. The EyeSight driver safety suite includes lane-centering.

The 2020 Nissan Rogue Sport subcompact SUV gets more safety features plus styling tweaks to set it apart from the similarly named Nissan Rogue. The Nissan Safety Shield 360 is now standard on all trims. It includes blind spot detection and lane keep assist. Adaptive cruise control is optional and needed for ProPilot Assist semi-autonomous driving.

Cadillac XT6 does battle this spring with BMW X5, Lincoln Aviator. It's 199 inches long with seating for 7 or 8, bigger than the X4 and XT, smaller than the Escalade. Lots of safety gear and driver assists come standard (not adaptive cruise). CUE infotainment has been reworked. It uses same V6 engine and design of the GMC Acadia.

Acura toasted the 30th year of the Acura NSX, introduced at the 1989 Chicago show. On-stage were Acura-Honda PR assistant VP Sage Marie, NSX design director Jon Ikeda, and ex-Car and Driver editor Csaba Csere. The original NSX was a groundbreaker with an all-aluminum body, midship engine, and everyday drivability.

History's best-selling two-seat convertible, with more than 1 million sold, the Mazda MX-5 Miata marked the 30th anniversary of its launch at the 1989 Chicago auto show. At the 2019 show, Mazda introduced the 3,000-unit Anniversary Edition Miata in racing orange with Recaro seats, special Rays wheels, and orange brake calipers (Brembo up front).

The 2020 Kia Sportage small SUV is one of many Chicago debuts that are a refresh (the first since 2017), and not a whole new model. An 8-inch center stack LCD is now standard and includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Optional safety gear includes adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, and drowsy driver alert.

Now that the VW Jetta sedan is on the same MQB platform as the VW Golf hatch, the Jetta GLI sedan gets the GTI's go-fast, cruise smooth-and-safe parts: the 228-hp turbo four, a manual or 7-speed double clutch transmission, red brake calipers, and a blackened grille. Blind spot monitoring and LED headlamps are standard.

This time around, the Harley-Davidson Ford F-150 pickup isn't an all-Ford product, but a licensed build by Tuscany Motor of Indiana. It has lots of Harley-marked seats, trim, panels, and so forth. They're sold through Ford dealers. The best thing for one-upsmanship buyers is you can spend as much as $98,000 on a Ford pickup now. In your court, Silverado and Ram.

The Ram 1500 gets a multi-way tailgate. 60-40 barn doors open out (here) without banging into a trailer, or rejoin and fold down. A step pulls out to allow easy climbing aboard. GMC MultiPro tailgate has more features; Ram's covers the basics. It's $995, plus $295 for the below-bumper step.

Land Rover built a hill-climb course inside McCormick to show off the new Range Rover Evoque (top of photo) and its other vehicles. The 2020 Evoque generates 296 hp, boosted by the torqque of a 48-volt hybrid electric motor.

After two media days Thursday and Friday, the Chicago Auto Show opens to the public Saturday, Feb. 9 through Sunday, Feb. 18 at McCormick Place in the North and South Halls separated only by a wide hallway/concourse — no upstairs and downstairs as at New York, or endless connector concourse as at Los Angeles. Those two McCormick halls have 1 million feet of exhibition space and — in your face, Detroit-New York-LA — it has another 1.7 million in reserve if needed.

The Detroit show (North American International Auto Show) lost virtually all European automakers except Volkswagen. Many of them came back for the Chicago show. Not all, though, and that’s what the Detroit News crowed about in the lead to its story this week, Chicago Auto Show Picks Up Where Detroit Left Off:

Mercedes and BMW are stiffing the Chicago Auto Show this year, just as they did with the Detroit show. Beginning Thursday, the Windy City will open to single-digit temperatures and 20 mph gusts off frigid Lake Michigan. There will be few show-stopping reveals from any of the major automakers.

And show organizers are just fine with that. While the Detroit auto show is undergoing a major overhaul from January to June 2020 to re-energize automakers and rebrand itself as a summer show, Chicago is content with its lot in life as a winter showcase.

The absence from Chicago of Europe’s two mightiest luxury brands was a puzzler. In Detroit, staying away made business sense since Michigan is the state with the fewest foreign-flag cars purchased. Illinois buyers may be less concerned about where on Planet Earth the headquarters flag flies and/or more knowledgeable that virtually every automaker has plants in the US, that America’s largest auto exporter is BMW, not Ford or GM, and that a bunch of “American cars” are made in Mexico and Canada.

Still, the bypass-Chicago decision gives pause to auto show organizers: If omitting Chicago doesn’t come from an innate dislike of deep-dish pizza, does this mean automakers are finding car shows an inefficient way to reach buyers? The Chicagoland BMW or Mercedes dealers could rent the floor space on their own. But they’re happier when the car company arranges the space, sets it up, and then turns the space over to dealers for the public days.

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