Bigger, faster & more expensive: Three trends from the Detroit auto show

The Detroit auto show's press preview days have wound down, but now comes the hard part: Sorting out what was real, and what was just gloss for the thousands of reporters who came to see the latest new vehicles. Sure, who can stop looking at cars like the Ford Mustang 350GTR track toy, or even the Hyundai Santa Cruz pickup — but when we paused to put things in context, we saw three distinct trends coursing through the show.

Based on this Detroit show, your next new vehicle will be bigger than the last, and more likely an SUV or even a pickup. Performance will matter, even if you're not buying a sports car, and average sale prices will contine to rise to new records – or at least, that's what the automakers expect. It's easy to say low oil prices have driven most of these, but most of the new models revealed over the past couple of days were conceived and engineered years ago. Watch our highlights above, and check out the rest of our coverage here.