Sedan Ramblings - Reviews, comparisons and all things sedans

2002 North American Auto Show (23/01/02)
by Traian Popescu

One nice thing about the Detroit auto show (the North American International Auto Show, or NAIAS, if you really care) is that you don't have to be a big car buff to enjoy it. I wouldn't really know, but that seems to be the general opinion I get from others. You could go there to look at the nice production cars and get an idea of what to buy, but that would be kind of a waste. What you really want to see is the million-dollar one-off concepts, the "my insurance premium alone would look like the national debt if I bought one of those" supercars and the pretty light shows and overhead spectacles. In that respect, maybe NAIAS was a bit lame this year with much fewer new concepts, but it remains nonetheless a worthwhile visit.

Might as well get those supercars out of the way now. Probably the most interesting was Ford's GT40, based on the GT40 race car from the 60s, which cleaned Ferrari's clock four times at LeMans between 1966 and 1969. It's a bit bigger than that car, and it is a concept, but it looks very good and it does have 500 horsepower, which is always nice. There was also the Lamborghini Murcielago (God only knows how that's pronounced - well ok, it's "mercy-eh-lah-go"). Considering it has 12 cylinders, 6.2 litres of displacement and costs $300K (that's US, mind you), it doesn't seem Lamborghini was trying very hard to only get 572 horsepower out of it. And lastly the Cadillac Cien, one of the prettiest concepts Cadillac has made in some time, with 750 horsepower, which is also nice. The name, Cien, is Spanish for "100," appropriate for the marque, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2002 (isn't that subtle?).

Down at the BMW stand (where would the world be without BMW?), there wasn't anything really new. Still, there really isn't anything more fun than sitting in a 400hp BMW M5, while rowing through the gears and making engine noises (except maybe actually driving one, I suppose). There was also the big new luxury sedan, the 760Li, with the iDrive system. Just to refresh your memory, that's the system that takes care of 700 of the car's functions and is operated with a single knob. BMW was nice enough to provide a few test computers that you could operate outside the car, but I was never able to get out of the climate control menu (that fact that it was in German didn't help either).

The big Lexus buzz was the SC430: the 2-door coupe with the folding hardtop, the satellite-controlled voice-operated navigation system (which speaks to you while you're driving and even has the nerve to tell you when you're taking a wrong turn) and the on-board computer that remembers your close ones' birthdays and anniversaries. Personally, I'm never going to let my car become smarter than me.

The nicest trend at this year's NAIAS was of small, affordable, fun, sporty cars. Production (or soon to be in production) cars like the Acura RSX, Ford Focus SVT, Subaru Impreza WRX and Nissan 350Z and prototypes such as the Dodge Razor (a hideous little thing that would supposedly have 250 horsepower for under $15,000 if it were produced) point the way to where more automobiles should be headed.

So what about all those things for the really non-car buffs? Well, Chrysler had a nice show with flying acrobats and later flying cars, which were really just balloons, but that became a really good thing when they floated right over my head. There were also nice games, like the Mini slot machine or the VW 4Motion game, where I managed to win a little prize. Lastly, no one can say they don't feel good in the back of a big, beautiful Mercedes S-Class, with its 3 miles of legroom and soft, creamy leathers.

And for those of you who care (and I know you do), the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII will be coming to North America in the spring of 2003 in a "modified trim." If we're lucky, that hopefully means it will still have over 120hp or so.

To get to the autoshow (from Canada), the easiest way to avoid the parking rush is to take the bus from Windsor over to Cobo Hall in Detroit ($2.60 for a one way trip). The entrance fee is about $12 US. If you want to get some grub as well, plan on spending about $8 US for a pretzel, an ice cream and a bottle of water. See you there next year!

© Traian Popescu , World's Fastest Sedans (http://www.fantasycars.com/sedans/), 2002.

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