[F]or years we have bitterly complained to automotive manufacturers they both use us and abuse us by not bringing the "A" show to the country's largest automotive market. If indeed they believe we set the trends (just count the number of automotive design studios in Southern California) and create the direction by training the world's best designers at our schools (Art Center College of Design and the Academy of Art University) why indeed have we for so many years been treated as secondary and undeserving of the best.

We've complained that the auto companies led primarily and with force by the "Big Three" have focused on the January dates of the Detroit Auto Show, a proprietary piece of hometown self indulgence where trendsetting is hardly ever seen.

Why preach to the choir when it is we Californians who set the pace; who let the world know what's hip and cool. Why don't they come to us and show us what they have wrought from behind the walls of their California Studios; why don't they show us what they have learned from us?