IN EXCESS

The music fades in low and sweet, building as swirling colored lights play against the ceiling, then suddenly there it is, all shining curves and grace, suspended above the audience. The object flies overhead, banks to the left like a ponderous insect and softly lands onstage to tumultuous applause. So Honda introduced the significantly redesigned 1992 Prelude at the Reno Convention Center, and it gave the 2,400 Honda dealers and guests in attendance goose bumps the size of lug nuts.

It should have. It was part of an annual “product reveal” show, a showmanship extravaganza that can feature everything from a chorus line to comedians. Even when recession has them laying off workers, automobile manufacturers still manage to spend $1 million to $5 million a year entertaining dealers at various locales around the world--Las Vegas is, naturally, very popular. There, the dealers are wined and dined and introduced to the fabulous innovations of the next year, and encouraged to sell, sell, sell.

“It’s like opening night and it’s all got to go perfect,” says Doug Spitznagel, president of MultiMedia Presentations, the Culver City-based company that sent the Prelude heavenward. “It’s nerve-racking in the extreme.”

Few people ever see these vehicular extravagances, but they have paid the rent for many performers, including Jay Leno, Tim Conway, Martin Mull, Barry Manilow and Natalie Cole. Wayne Newton even provided Toyota U.S.A. Chairman Yukiyasu Togo with the ultimate karaoke experience in 1990 in Las Vegas. The two sang “My Way” during a show where, among other gimmicks, Harvey Korman portrayed a Texas gambler who won a truck that magically descended from the ceiling. Evidently, flying cars are the wave of the future.