THE DETROIT AUTO SHOW

Well, another year has dawned, and if it is January 2012 there must be an auto show in Detroit, and I am here to cover it for your and give you the whole scoop, the lowdown, and nothing but the truth.

First, I would like to say a word about Detroit.  When auto writers come to Detroit, they tend to make some comments about the city, and they usually don't know what they are talking about, but I do - because I grew up in Detroit.  I lived in Detroit through its halcyon years in the 50's and 60's, when it was really the "car capital" of the world, and a vibrant, spectacular city that featured tremendous culture, arts, music, and it really was a wonderful place to live.  Regardless of the renaissance that some of the Detroit carmakers may be experiencing now, it really has nothing to do with the city of Detroit.  While some progress has been made in reclamation and restoration of the city, it still remains a vast wasteland and a total tragedy, compared to the vibrant city that I remember growing up, and which included a large, healthy middle class, many of whom worked in some connectedness, if not directly, to the auto industry, and that era of America is gone forever, tragically and unfortunately.  Now, on to the show.

As I did with Frankfort last fall, I am going to go through the show based on what I consider to be the most important or significant cars you need to know about.

Ford Fusion/Mondeo:  Here we have Ford's latest attempt at a world car, blending their strategy of combining European and American models into one primary model, slightly altered for various markets, and I think this is a good idea because Ford of Europe has always had some interesting design dynamics, and recently Ford has been on a big roll upwards, as they didn't take bail out money and made it back on their own.  The Mondeo is a good-looking car in general.  It incorporates a lot of the current popular design themes, which include especially a large front grille, which on the Fusion is executed well, if a bit generically, and the general glass house of the car is also executed well, and much better than on other recent Ford models.  There are some harmonious and delicate aspects to the car, especially in terms of the way the glass house hides the bulk of the body, the slightly rising waistline, the rear trunk panel.  These are all well done and show a real focus on design delicacy, which was never something Ford did well, if at all.  The interior is a little more generic, but still nice looking, and overall the car is a good-looking entry into the midsized field.  You have to realize that the midsize segment is so large, and, includes Camry, Fusion, Sonata, Malibu, and several other players, and this is a huge segment of the market, so this is a very important car for Ford.  I would say that Ford has done a good, credible job overall in bringing a forward-looking and modern car to the market.  Clearly, the Hyundai Sonata has been the major influence in this segment over the last couple of years, with its dramatic styling, and this has encouraged Ford to take the direction it has done.  This should be a good car, especially because Ford does well with its various hybrid and Eco-Boost models, and especially if Ford continues to develop the My Touch infotainment panel as this model comes on the market.

Dodge Dart:  The Dodge Dart is an interesting car, and also a reflection of an interesting company.  This car is basically a re-bodied Alfa Romeo Guilietta.  It is a little bit wider, a little bit longer, a little bit more appropriate for American tastes.  It is a nice first effort.  I think the interior is particularly nice, with the large touch screen and leather seating, which looked to be of high quality, and a nice instrument panel; overall, a nice design ethic on the inside.  I wish they had done as much on the outside.  The car is essentially bland, derivative, a good-looking car, but nothing particularly stands out about it, and herein we have the big problem.  Chrysler does not know how to differentiate its models yet at this point, and their design is in a chaotic state.  They are going to have a different front end on this car for China, which is more European.  They are going to have a different model of this car, which is an Alfa, for Europe.  Chrysler is not gelling in terms of design.  They just don't have it together for these particular models yet.  That is not to say that they won't in the future, but the most glaring example of this is the front-end grill on this Dodge.  It is ridiculous in that it doesn't really show any strong corporate identity either for Chrysler, or for Fiat brand at a larger level.  What Fiat needs to do with Chrysler is to begin to really get its design ethic for the various divisions, including Chrysler, Dodge, Alfa Romeo and Fiat, together.  These four sub-brands are so ill-focused designwise that it is hugely problematic.  In fact, the only one of these sub-brands that has a coherent design focus is Alfa but they are mired in a long-term slump caused by the lack of new and exciting models to be sold worldwide throughout the group.  Now, this will be the focus of another separate blog of mine, and look forward to a full review of the Chrysler-Fiat situation.

Cadillac ATS:  The Cadillac ATS is probably Cadillac's best effort overall, although we haven't really seen fully the XTS Premium Sedan which is about to be released this year, but the ATS works at a lot of levels.  It has good, high-quality engineering.  It is about the size of the BMW 3 series.  It shows a slightly evolving "art and science" design theme from Cadillac in specifically the following areas.  The roof line has a little more roundedness to it than in other recent Caddy designs.  The overall body shows a little more fluidity than the ultimately sharp-edged crease design of the models in recent years, and this shows design evolution, which I am glad to see.  The grill is kind of an unfortunate hybrid.  It looks like Cadillac was toying with the idea of going to a full-frame, Audi-style grille, and in the end decided to have the body panel in front of the grille bisect it,  and therefore it looks  underdeveloped and not as bold and striking as it could have been.  I think Cadillac to go with the full-frame grille by eliminating the body section in the middle, yet reducing the overall size of the full-frame grille so it is not as large and omnipresent (and some say obnoxious) as the Audi face, and make it more tightly integrated and more resembling a Maserati face.  This would have been a very good look for Cadillac, but they chose to not go the full distance this time.  Perhaps they will with one of their next models.  Other than that, the car looks good.  It is going to have the new CUE infotainment system, which looks to be a world-class system, and Cadillac is finally offering a tan leather interior for their cars, which is so long overdue.  We will just have to wait and see how the car drives, but it looks to be a very thorough and competent effort.  Cadillac is really beginning to develop a place for itself in the market, based on its recent designs, and one can only hope that the ATS and XTS move this forward.

Lexus LF-LC:  This is Lexus' first attempt at a "concept car" in some time, and it is a smash.  For those of you who read my blog, you know that I am not a big fan of Lexus in any way whatsoever, and I think in general their cars represent the epitome of blandness, the finest in automotive soul-lessness that has ever been seen on this planet.  Lexus cars have no soul, they have no spark, they have no edge.  They are the epitome of bland driving machines, and that is why they are regularly and righteously slammed in this blog.  Now, the LF-LC is somewhat different.  It is a concept car for a potential coupe and it has some really nice design features in it.  The grill, which is smaller in the upper sections and then expands to a large vertical mesh below, is really well executed.  It takes the concept of today's larger, more oversized grilles into a really beautiful area.  They just did a tremendous job with the front end and knocked it out of the park.  This shows what can be done with a large grille format, but used in a slightly unusual way.  The C-pillar and roof elements are also spectacular in this car.  The C-pillar itself has A Lamborghini Espada flavor  to it, in the way that it turns upward, and it meets the roofline in a very delicate treatment, which is airy and beautiful, and really compelling.  Along with the glass roof, and the fact that the roof pillars themselves dial back into the glass roof toward the rear, this gives the car a tremendous lightness of look, which is very unusual and suggests a refined design ethic that one wouldn't really believe Lexus was capable of.  The swept-back angle of the windscreen, in combination with this roofline and the grill, as well as the projector headlamps, produces a look that is nothing short of stunning, arrogant and extremely bold.  I didn't think it was possible from the Lexus designers to create a car that had this much pop.  This car rivals an FF or a 599 for visual audacity, and that's a huge compliment.  Inside, things are a little more  sane, but not much.  The design ethic inside is equally bold and inspired, with giant wood panels in each door panel, and a super-large screen in the center of the console, and kind of a race design feel to the general cockpit, the steering wheel, the seats in leather and suede panels.  Overall, it is a really spectacular effort, and if Lexus had any corporate strength of commitment, they would build the car immediately as is.  And the fact that they probably won't, and the fact that these design elements will get watered down into something that looks a lot less inspiring is truly tragic, and suggests the kind of corporate timidity that we see throughout the industry.  But as a concept, it certainly was the star of the show.

Bentley CGT:  The Bentley Continental GT has never been one of my favorite cars, for a number of reasons.  While the basic design shape was good, I felt like the car never achieved a focus in the marketplace, especially given its audacious price.  I remember the first time that I stepped into a dealership to drive the CGT and I asked the salesman his overall impression before I got behind the wheel, he said, "Well, it's kind of like a big Audi, but faster, heavier, and way more expensive”, and of course that was true.  Now, for the first time, the Continental GT has gotten some important modifications and deserves a review for that.  It has the new corporate V8 engine, which is, of course, lighter, more frugal, more efficient, and just a better motor overall for this particular car.  It has the 8-speed box from its corporate Volkswagen parent, and it finally has a telematic system that doesn't have its roots in the 1990's.  Remember, we are talking about an over-$200,000 car here.  Of course, these things should have been on the original car, but they weren't.  In any event, the styling has also been tweaked and slightly modified in a way that I find very appealing.  The black grille works very well, and the AMG-inspired air dams below it look superb, as well as the new bulge over the rear wheels, and the new tail treatment.  All of these changes work together to give the CGT a sharp, kind of cutting-edge look that the original never had.  I haven't driven it yet, but from what I understand, given its lightness, and the still powerful capacity of the V8, along with the 8-speed, improved telematics and improved fuel economy, this could finally be the car that the CGT was supposed to be all along.

Mercedes SL:  The new Mercedes SL made its debut in Detroit, although pictures of it have been available for some time.  I will be brief in my comments because I am going to do a full post on what's going on with Mercedes design these days.  Let me say here that the SL has some interesting elements.  The grille is very nice in an old-school Mercedes way, but looking at the design overall, one has to be disappointed.  It has the current Mercedes design vernacular of too much forced edginess.  It is almost like Gordon Waggoner, the design chief of Mercedes, was not satisfied with some of the beautiful cars that Mercedes had turned out over the past ten years, including, obviously, the original CLS, the current S-Class, and  the current C-Class, and decided the cars needed more edgy, slashing, angular treatments, and he has created a whole series of cars that are truly uninspired, and the SL is the latest one.  There are a number of thematic elements in the car which just don't work that well.  The way the headlights sit in conjunction with that beautiful grill is truly unfortunate. It is pretty clear when you look at the car frontally that there is something problematic about the headlight design.  The car in profile looks okay, but again the large air intakes are problematic, in the same way that they were on the SLR, and overall the car certainly has a butch quality to it, but lacks the elegance and authenticity that, of any Mercedes, the SL should absolutely have.  This will not go down in history as one of the great SL designs.  I think the Mercedes design staff felt that the last generation of cars, including the last SL, were a little bit bland in their fluidity and organicity, and that's not an inaccurate judgment, but the problem is that in trying to revitalize some of these models they have gone to the worst kinds of solutions, the kind of slash-stripe-line-cut that have no place on a Mercedes.  Instead of reworking the whole design to be more authentic and to be more groundbreaking, they have added these appendages that make the cars look almost as bad as the Chris Bangle-era BMWs.  It is unfortunate, and, as I said, I will speak more about it in a full post.  There may be more that comes up later in the week, but I wanted to give you the best from the first day here.  Certainly, the theme of the Detroit show had to do with moderation in midsized cars, moderation in power trains, and sportiness in styling.

One other comment that needs to be made is the rise of the four-cylinder engine.  We know that because of the fuel economy standards here and in Europe, automakers have gone to putting four-cylinder engines in their cars in a mad scramble.  Look at the BMW 328i.  But certainly, in the midsize category, including Camry, Fusion, Altima, Sonata, Malibu, and others, there isn't a six-cylinder engine to be found.  That is truly a remarkable development, and we will see how this four-cylinder and four-cylinder/hybrid class of engines is responded to by the market.  Will buyers in this class accept that kind of power train, or will they ultimately demand something slightly less economical but more sophisticated. Watch this space.