Ford Shelby GR-1 - Unveiled last August at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, and too ravishing not to go into production some day. A 6.4-liter V10 pumps 605 horsepower through a 6-speed tranny. The body design sprang full-blown from the forehead of rookie Ford designer George Saridakis (who works in the Irvine studio).
Volvo V50 SV - A dead-perfect redesign of Volvo's dumpy li'l V40 wagon - sport-tuned here within an inch of its life and given an electric blue coat of metalflake. The turbo 5-banger puts 340 horses through sticky 18-inch Pirellis.
Dodge Daytona Sport Truck - It was only a matter of time before Mopar returned to the Superbee flying wing and early-70s paint schemes. The first time a big load shifted in your bed, it would shear off the wing, but who's counting.
Honda Ridgeline concept - Dead sexy. Makes "haulin'" a triple-entendre. Boasts a 3.5-liter VTEC V-6. Good bet for production.
	Ferrari F430 - Beware low-flying aircraft. A gorgeous next-step for Ferrari's lineage, with paddle-shifters and push-button starters for all the LeMans OG's. The 4.3-liter V-8 hits 62mph in 4 seconds, tops out at 196mph. What. WHAT?!!
Ford Escape Hybrid - At last - an SUV you won't be embarrassed to own. Downside - they took all the energy they could have spent making it look good into making it get 36/31 mpg. MSRP $26,970, or $1,800 more for 4-wheel-drive.
Dodge Dakota TA tricked out by Performance West - See the Daytona. A revision of "Plum Crazy Purple" (I painted my Celica that color once, and damn, it looked sweet).
Jaguar X-Type 3.0 - With a $37,000 base price, the JagWag makes a deadly-accurate stab at wooing Saab and Volvo wagon owners who wish they were richer. Put whatever you want in the back. Grubby kids. Weimaraners. Antique jukeboxes. 50 cubic feet of appetite with the back seats dropped.
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti - This voluptuous beast was surrounded by a lot of very excited Italians with nice suits. 5.75-liter V12, 540 HP, top speed 199 mph - although the sign read 19 mph until a nervous booth dude in jeans scurried over with Letraset letters and rubbed on an extra 9.
	Vision SZR - California-grown alien technology - A supercar with all the streamlining of a manta ray. Once (if?) it's built, you can buy 572-cubic-inch V8 ($300,000) or a 6-liter, 600-hp V12. Still in development. Testing scheduled for July at Willow Springs. Each is to be hand-built with options like custom gear ratios, suspension tuning, a down-force package and 6-piston(!) brakes.
2005 Saab 9-7X - I wish I knew whether to blame the suits at GM or the wizards of Trollhattan, but this is too little, too late to the SUV game. Boring looking, bad choice of color for an auto show, and indistinguishable from a flock of better euro-vehicles. And I drive an old Saab, too. Powered by a 275-hp inline 6 with all the bulletproof cocoon safety features of a Saab.
Buick Centieme - A 2-year-old concept, but quite pretty for an SUV.
Chevy Nomad concept - Tight as a drum. Chevy should definitely get off its too-contemplative ass and build this one. Runs on a turbo'd 2.2-liter 4-cyl and 5-speed auto with finger-tap shifting.
Hummer H3 - Like we need another of these. Actually, it's no bigger than the average bloatwagon Jeep Grand Cherokee. But it's still an affront to humanity. $30K gets you the usual arrogant chromed pillbox design wrapped around220-hp, 3.5-liter DOHC 20-valve all-aluminum inline five-cylinder Vortec engine (the only engine offered).
Daimler-Chrysler ME412 - as I've said before, who the hell will have the reason - or the guts - to drive one of these gorgons? No matter. It's dead.
Jeep Rescue concept - It only weighs 5,500 pounds but hey, it's got on-board AC power. Like the WWII models, you can knock off the roof and lay the windshield flat and take the doors off, the better to hose out the interior or perhaps carry a busted Hummer back from the Rubicon Trail. Packed with a Cummins diesel, winches front and back and 37-inch run-flat tires and on-board tire pressure control.
Bentley's "concept" turned out to be the "Drophead Arnage Coupe," that is almost certainly already headed for production. Talk about milking the concept-car publicity cow.
Saleen Mustang S281 SC - Unlike some baroquely idiotic fiberglass assaults on the hapless 'Stang in past years, this one's quite snappy and reverential of the Ford Design Team's work. Runs on a supercharged 4.6-L V-8 putting 400 horsepower through 5 on the floor.
	Spyker C8 Double 12S - 4.2-liter V8, 0-60 in less than 4.5 seconds, top speed of 215 mph. The riveted bodywork on the gull-wing retro-racer (I do wish I'd taken a closeup) looks like the patchwork fuselage of a DC-3 airplane. Dig the heavy-metal cockpit.
Lamborghini Murcielago - Much as I loathe the ceaseless, brain-f*cking noise from the supercar speed shop in my neighborhood, I fell in love with this car looking in their showroom window. Chiseled beauty on a daintier scale than the bloated Diablo. The carbon-fibered chassis lugs around a 6.2-liter V-12 (48 valves!) that tops out somewhere north of 330 km/h.
Audi S4 Avant Wagon - Next-gen. A tight-looking contender in the high-priced mini-wagon market. Starts at, um, $70,000. A 4.2-liter V-8 (with 5 valves per cylinder) feeds 340 horsepower to the all-wheel Quattro drive system via a 6-speed manual or 6-speed Tiptronic tranny.
Pontiac Solstice roadster - due out in late 2006. Very, very sweet. Auto journalists were running their hands over the front fender and murmuring, "Very Scaglietti." I kid you not. No price points listed yet for the 2.4-liter 4-banger.
Lexus LF-S concept or Lexus Future Sedan - The very soul of a saloon, rendered in fluid '00s speed lines, moved by a hybrid system of V8 and electric motors. Slick, slick, slick. Build it, please
Mitsubishi STC (Sport Truck Concept) based on a 2004 Dodge Dakota platform - Further proof that the concept truck as an art form is gravitating toward the mainstream lust for streamlining. Features a nifty lift-up rear window.
BMW H2R - Even stranger-looking in person, the hydrogen-powered record-setter floats in a speedboat diorama awaiting a driver. Pilot. Admiral. Whatever. They ripped a 6-liter V-12 out of a 760i, fitted it with a fuel cell and went around setting and then breaking records for hydrogen-powered cars. Look for this technology in the next 7 series - just as soon as someone figures out a practical, safe way to put mass quantities of hydrogen on the street.
Mercedes Benz entry - At last! Flying cars! Like many of the entries, this one was short on detail - more of an art exercise for their design shop. Who among us hasn't dreamed of this while sucking exhaust fumes at 2mph on the 405?
BMW's entry, a reworked Z-4 with steroidal hydraulics and no details. Apparently BMW thought Angelenos need a lot of jazzy marketing slang rather than hardcore details, so this is little more than a drafting-table dance.
Ford's Scout 7 - a lightweight aluminum 7-seater touting a hybrid powertrain delivering 60mpg for only $12,500? BUILD IT NOW!
Honda's little art project actually looked fun - a heavily sprung, 2-seat, 4-wheeled motorcycle of some sort. No indication from the drawings whether those are driveshafts or shock pistons on the rear swingarms, but it'd be fun taking this up to Hungry Valley for some ridge-running antics.
The Hummer Hr envisions an open-cockit "techno rat rod" that can survive Hollywood Blvd. cruising, earthquakes, SigAlerts, surf runs and "carving" Mulholland curves. Nice to see them imagine something beyond another megawagon.
The Kia Kitsch "street rod" concept. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Easily one of the prettier entries, although ripping off Big Daddy Roth's grille design may or may not be sacrilege. Ballsy. Audacious. What's not to like about a u-customize-it rat rod that runs on a hydrogen fuel cell?
Lexus L500 Ultimate Hybrid - This one's the winner, as far as I'm concerned. A V-12 hybrid-engined 3-door coupe/sedan (that oddly puts two doors on the driver's side). Geek appeal: The sides are contoured LCD screens that you can program with images of your choosing. (Too bad that's illegal in more than a few sections of the California Motor Vehicle code, it's a drool-inducing design idea)
The Mazda Shinzui team somehow believes that carpool lanes will open up to this single-seat, mid-engine 4-wheel roadster because it's light and small. Still scratchin' my head - though it is cute as a carhop's button nose and would be hella easy to park.
Mini Canyon Carver. More of a Baja racer, and actually something that any L.A. custom shop could turn out in about two weeks. Cute. Rad. So what.
Mitsubishi Ultimate Evo. They had a comic book artist draft the presentation. Looks like they had one draft the car, too. A sort of open-bucket dune buggy with bullwing doors. Biff. Pow. Ker-splat.
Dodge "Superbee." Ah, Mopar. God bless you. If you're even thinking about bringing back the SuperBee brand, please make it something as nimble, fast and trick as this little open-cockpit wet dream. Specs? Nope. Just a lot of attitude.
VW "Mobile Lounge" - somewhere for the schmoozoisie to do lunch and take calls during a SigAlert. Decadent. Pointless. Very, handsome, very very Hollywood, and not the least bit useful for the rest of mortal L.A.
And of course, the Hyundai NTT, which I featured yesterday. It's slick and rad and all, but with suicide doors spanning both front and back seats, and a detachable surfboard roof, structurally preposterous. But when has that stopped anyone from building a car?

When:
January 7-16, 2005

Fridays 11 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Saturdays 9 a.m. - 10:00 p.m..

Sundays 9 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Mon. – Thu. 11 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Where:
Los Angeles Convention Center
1201 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, California 90015

Admission:
Adults $10, Seniors (65+) $7 on weekdays, Children Free (12 and under when accompanied by an adult)

Parking:
$10 at Convention Center, $25 Valet, $8 Grand Ave. structure, with free shuttle, (Open weekends only)