ONE IN A THOUSAND? What would you...

ONE IN A THOUSAND? What would you name a new car, if the choice was yours? The folks at Mazda’s U.S. headquarters in Irvine put a lot of thought into that for their new sedan. . . . Their choice, announced Tuesday: Millenia. It comes from millennium, for “a thousand years of happiness.” The new car goes on sale next spring as a 1995 model.

ROLLING A RED CARPET: If you’re looking for car payments into the next millennium, the 1994 Rolls-Royce makes its U.S. debut on Sept. 16 at the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Marina del Rey and Dana Point. Reason: California accounts for 40% of all U.S. Rolls-Royce sales. . . . John Honeycomb of the Newport Auto Center, the only place in the county where you can buy a new Rolls, says they’ll be going for $184,000. But then, this year you get air bags on the passenger side.

RAT ETHICS: When it comes to Rat Fink, the comic book character’s creator, Ed (Big Daddy) Roth has his standards. Roth will join a panel discussion Thursday at Laguna Art Museum. It’s now showing an exhibit about the influence of custom cars and comics on fine art. . . . Since the show opened, Roth has gotten offers from Disney Studios and Hanna-Barbera Productions, who want to make a Rat Fink TV cartoon--but he has turned them down. Anything coming out of Hollywood would be “too violent and disrespectful,” says Roth. “My M.O. is about trying to do good things and forgetting the money.”

WOMEN’S PARTY: If you want to see some of the best female athletes in the country, a bunch of them will be in Newport Beach and Irvine for a four-day sports “celebration” starting Thursday. It’s a combination of competition, seminars and a $125 formal dinner Saturday night at the Hyatt Regency Irvine--its headquarters. . . . Included will be Cheryl Miller, recently named women’s coach at USC, and Olympic star Jackie Joyner Kersee. One major topic: why women can make a living in only a handful of sports.