Auto Show Disrupted When Concept Car Catches Fire

The manufacturer is now investigating the incident

Auto show
The 20th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition at Canton Fair Complex on December 30, 2022.
Zou Wei/VCG via Getty Images

Travel to a car show and you’re likely to see plenty of concept cars on display. That’s eminently understandable — they provide a way for automakers to demonstrate new technology and approaches to design, and can sometimes foreshadow production models that are in the pipeline. Checking out a concept car and buying a version of it a year or two later might well be the best-case scenario here.

Now imagine the opposite of that and you’ll have an idea of what took place recently at the Guangzhou International Motor Show. As Autoblog reports, IAT Automobile found themselves in a nightmarish situation when a concept vehicle that they’d brought to the event caught fire. Journalist Lei Xing posted several images and one video of the car to Twitter, showing what it looked like before the fire began and giving a sense of the mood at the auto show as the fire grew larger.

In the aftermath of the incident, IAT provided a statement to Pandaily in which they provided some additional information on the fire.

“During the construction of our booth at the auto show, the working area accidentally caught fire for unknown reasons,” the company said in the statement. “The open flame has now been extinguished and no one was injured. We are actively investigating the cause of the accident, and a formal statement will be given when the cause is found out.”

It’s good to hear that no one was hurt in the blaze and that the situation was contained quickly. Hopefully, IAT’s next auto show experience will be a step up from this one.

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