On with the (car) show

You could OD on the testosterone at the New York International Auto Show. At a guess, easily half of the showgoers consist of dads and their teenage sons, figuratively kicking the tires, snapping photos, collecting bags full of brochures, ogling the lovely ladies hawking the newest models and admiring the "project" cars — automakers’ often far-out designs for future vehicles that may or may not reach production.

From an industry perspective, the New York show isn’t topmost: The Germans have Frankfurt, the Europeans more generally Geneva, the Japanese of course Tokyo, and the U.S. Big Three pull out all the stops in Detroit. Even in this country, says Alex Taylor of Lakeville, who covers the industry for Fortune magazine, the New York show ranks a mere fourth in importance to the industry after Detroit, Chicago (the heartland, where General Motors still dominates) and Los Angeles, the largest import market.

But still they came to the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan during Easter week, in numbers — a claimed 1.2 million lately — that rival or even exceed the others. Many say they intend to buy a new car within a year, and it’s by all means an excellent place to make initial in-the-metal comparisons among a nearly infinite variety of machines. But even if you’re not in the market, it’s a glittering celebration of our national lust for the automobile. And for industry professionals, it’s the last big blowout until Frankfurt in September.

As I left my apartment to walk to the show, it seemed a good omen that a handsome dark blue Ferrari lurked right across the street. Most of the cars I’d hoped to see were on hand at the Javits Center, one exception being the Acura ASCC sports car concept, which was damaged at the earlier Chicago show. The long-awaited successor to the NSX, it’s a $125,000 closed coupe with all-wheel drive and a 500 hp V-10 engine; production is expected in a couple of years.

(I’m indebted for these numbers and many other details to Rich Taylor — no kin to Alex — and his wife, Jean Constantine, of Sharon, who put an enormous amount of work into the annual New York Times auto supplement, an encyclopedic survey of the current world of cars.)

Despite the Acura’s absence, there was no shortage of hot stuff. The turbocharged 530 hp Bentley Brooklands has a 6.75 liter motor and a price tag of over $300,000 — a sum for which you could buy both a Maserati Quattroporte Automatic sedan and its companion GranTurismo coupe and have a good bit of change left over. Though probably not enough to add the $98,000 Cadillac XLR-V roadster, the rich man’s Corvette, to your stable as well.

BMW has joined the (to me) regrettable trend to convertibles with folding metal tops. As the owner of a traditional ragtop 3-series convertible, I was curious to see its replacement, the 335i, which has a three-piece metal top. True, that design makes the car quieter and more secure with the top up, but at a price in extra weight and decreased luggage space.

I wanted to see how much more room the folded metal top takes up in the trunk than the soft top does. Well, the latch on the trunk of the 335i convertible on display was broken, and none of the BMW people seemed able to get it open.

On purpose, perhaps, I thought darkly.

Certainly the comparable Volvo C70, top down, holds little more than one carry-on-sized suitcase, and even then you must use a special access latch to raise the folded top enough to get your bag in and out conveniently. The BMW representative I spoke with argued that you’re not likely to put the top down when you’re traveling any distance with luggage. In my case, at least, that’s simply not true.

Other cars that caught my eye included a couple of Chevrolet concepts: The Volt, which unlike hybrids of the Toyota Prius ilk uses a small gasoline engine to run a generator that powers a 160 hp electric motor; and the more conventional Camaro convertible, in its earlier incarnations a muscle-car rival of the Ford Mustang. A real crowd pleaser was the bright yellow Dodge Demon roadster concept, which Robert Cumberford of Automobile magazine calls a worthy challenger to the venerable Mazda MX-5 Miata. The Camaro and the Demon seem good bets for production fairly soon.

Many other cars and trucks in the show interested me, but my favorite turned out to be one that you’d have some difficulty ordering. A highlight of the Volvo exhibit was a stately blue 1927 PV4 Jakob sedan, big, tall and boxy, the yellow spokes of its wheels gleaming under the bright lights. Its four-cylinder, 1.95 liter engine develops 20 horsepower. The car’s considerable presence reminded me that Volvo stuck with conservative box-like designs long after most other carmakers had abandoned them. A memorable machine, and merely 80 years old.