This year’s Commercial Vehicle Show at the Birmingham NEC is likely to be a shadow of its former self, with almost every commerical vehicle manufacturer having withdrawn or declined to exhibit.

According to Fleet News, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Citroen, Isuzu and Vauxhall have all confirmed that they will not be exhibiting, as have lorry manufacturers Iveco Truck, Volvo, DAF and Scania.

There are a few companies still to confirm – by my reckoning the biggest of these in van terms are Ford and then LDV.

The CV Show’s organisers are keen to stress that they still have more than 300 exhibitors signed up and the show will be what it always has been – a transport engineering show.

With (almost) no vehicles.

To contrast this to last year’s show, take a look at my write-ups from then.