Obama says he’ll attend Detroit auto show later this month

President Obama will make a stop in Detroit to check out all of the vehicles at the North American International Auto Show. “Because I believe that every American should be proud of what our most iconic industry has done”.

In his final State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama is expected to hold up Detroit’s comeback – US auto sales reached record levels in 2015 – as one of the greatest accomplishments of his presidency, USA TODAY said.

His visit is planned for Wednesday, Jan. 20.

Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest opened up the daily briefing with members of the media with a lengthy recitation of the auto industry’s turnaround. In the address Obama, who is in his previous year in office, crowed about economic growth and progress during his presidency, including “more than 14 million new jobs” as well as slashing the federal deficit and a major expansion of health care coverage. Cool. So is President Obama.

The Obama administration agreed to prop up the automakers – provided they were steered through bankruptcy to restructure their operations – even though it was not popular nationwide.

The last president to visit the auto show was Bill Clinton in 1999. The time for what is widely considered the nation’s most prestigious auto show is upon us once more as the 2016 NAIAS warms up its engine and gets ready to hit the accelerator. What are the concept cars auto show goers are likely to see this year? That’s up about 6% from 2014 and just edged out the previous record of 17.4 million set in 2000.

Chrysler plans to unveil the long-awaited update to the company’s bread-and-butter Town and Country minivan.

With annual sales expected to come in around 40,000 vehicles, the Envision is not going to be a huge part of GM’s portfolio. President Obama will be at least the third president to attend the Detroit auto show. There will be plenty of luxury-car news, from the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class and SLC-Class to the all-new-for-2017 S90 flagship sedan from Volvo.