A car show for a city that never walks

The Greater L.A. Auto Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center, open Friday through Jan. 11, suffers from unfortunate timing, scheduled only a week before Detroit’s North American International Auto Show, one of the biggest auto expos in the world and a show for which no manufacturer can afford to divide its forces.

So Detroit will see a slew of world production car debuts, including the next-generation Corvette C6, the Ford Five Hundred sedan and more than a dozen concept cars -- crowd favorites at any auto show. Toyota will unveil its new full-size truck concept and its Scion brand will show its new tC coupe; Honda its mid-size truck concept; and Mitsubishi its Eclipse coupe replacement concept -- all in Detroit, even though each of those companies’ North American operations is based in Southern California.

Most of the concept cars in Los Angeles will look familiar to those on a steady diet of car magazines. The star of the last Detroit show, the Cadillac Sixteen -- a stunning, 1,000-horsepower super-luxury coupe -- is on display, as well as the well- traveled Chevy SS concept, which looks like a stretched version of the Mazda RX-8.

Which isn’t to say there’s no news coming out of the convention center. General Motors unveiled five vehicles at the media preview to this year’s show, including the commendable H3T Hummer pickup concept -- an indication that the brand may not be permanently linked with wretched excess.

GM also unveiled the Chevy Cobalt compact cars, replacements for the Chevy Cavalier. Available in coupe and sedan form and powered by three versions of the Ecotec engine -- 2.0-liter, 2.4-liter and 2.0-liter turbocharged -- the Cobalt line will range from utilitarian transport to 200-horsepower pocket rocketry, with big wheels, sticky tires and window-rattling stereo systems. Also on display is the latest entry from GM-owned Saab, a re-skinned Subaru WRX called the 9-2X.

And once the confetti around the Corvette C6 falls to earth in Detroit, GM may put one on display at the L.A. Auto Show late in the event. Plan accordingly, Vetteheads.

For the city that never walks, the L.A. show also offers the first close-up look at several production cars bound to be occupying the first space in valet parking at a Hollywood restaurant near you: the Bentley Continental GT, the Lamborghini Gallardo, the U.S.-legal Morgan Aero 8, the Lotus Elise and a lot more.

Below is a critic’s notebook of the show, which you can use as a map through the sprawling exhibition. Put on your walking shoes.

Lotus Elise: Finally. The car I fell in love with in Europe almost seven years ago on a windblown heath worthy of the Bronte sisters is at last coming to America. This mid-engine, two-seat, bare-knuckled sports car -- not quite the size of a Toyota MR2 -- provides a G-force-filled experience unlike anything outside the Huntsville, Ala., astronaut training camp.

It has taken until now to make the car emissions legal for California, and to do that Lotus had to swap out the Rover K engine used in the rest of the world’s markets in favor of the Toyota Celica’s 1.8-liter variable-valve screamer producing 187 horsepower and 138 pound-feet of torque. To stir the pot the Elise also uses the Celica’s six-speed manual transmission.

The Elise is one of the world’s most stripped-down street machines, though unlike the original models the U.S.-spec car will come with air conditioning, anti-lock brakes, dual front air bags and a few other niceties.

This car is about intensity -- sweaty, heart-pounding fun on the street or track. Double wishbones front and rear, Eibach springs, Bilstein shocks, AP brakes and a 10-pounds-per-horsepower weight-to-power ratio make the car a shifter kart for the morning commute. The factory claims zero-to-60-mph times in the sub-five-second range, a top speed of 150 mph and combined fuel economy of more than 30 miles per gallon.

And don’t worry, you will be noticed. The second generation of the Elise -- restyled by designer Steve Crijns to accommodate outrageous moon-shaped evacuators, scoops and vents -- looks like a Japanese anime robot, half-bat, half-locust. Coming to the United States in late spring, the Elise will go for about $40,000, and the queue is forming early for the 2,200 units expected to be imported to the States annually.

Maserati Quattroporte: It’s no secret that Maserati muffed its reintroduction into the United States. Fingers may be pointed at the lack of advertising support, the bad timing (just after 9/11) or other externalities, but to me the problem resides in the Bertone-designed Coupe and Spyder’s styling, which wasn’t bad but didn’t exactly pluck any heartstrings. The new Quattroporte sedan, however, sings. The long and lean, elegant four-door -- with most of the same mechanicals as the Coupe and Spyder -- is a splendid piece of design, undeniably Italian and tempered with classic continental understatement. The car will be available in the third quarter of 2004 for about $90,000, and I expect that this expressive and distinctive sedan will make many in L.A.’s Bimmer battalions drop their 7-Series like Enron stock.

Morgan Aero 8: Though nothing alike, the Morgan Aero 8 and Elise have a lot in common. Both are the product of proud but struggling British companies. Both have taken ages to pass certification for import into the United States. The Aero 8, with its cut-down doors and ash-wood coach frame, was troublesome to crash certify and is only now ready for importation.

Both are built on a riveted and glued aluminum chassis providing exceptional low weight: The Morgan Aero 8, with a BMW 4.4-liter engine behind its prodigious beak, weighs a mere 2,200 pounds. With the engine producing 325 horsepower, the Aero 8 has a weight-to-power ratio of about 6.7 pounds per horsepower (British car enthusiasts live for this statistic). According to the company, the Aero 8 can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in about 4.5 seconds and has a top speed of 160 mph -- a rate at which your tweed cap will surely go flying.

And both are unique. The Morgan, with its extravagantly retro styling, rolled fenders and sweeping lines, is a throwback to car design between the wars. A kind of charming antediluvianism is Morgan’s trademark. The company still builds its car bodies on English ash-wood frames. This is the last year for the Plus 8, which still is built with the sliding pillar front suspension that goes back to the days when the company made three-wheelers.

The Aero 8, designed by Charles Morgan, grandson of the founder, and race engineer Chris Lawrence, now retired, certainly has the oddest face of any sports car. Cobbled together from the best available bits and pieces, the Aero 8 uses headlamps from the Volkswagen New Beetle. When these are fitted into the fenders they look cross-eyed. And yet the British have come to love their strabismus-afflicted sports car. Morgan owners in their Aero 8s descend en masse on Le Mans for the 24-hour race every year.

Want to make a statement at the tennis club? Morgan has your car.

Porsche Carrera GT: Derived from the Le Mans-winning Porsche GT1, the Carrera GT grabs hold of the mind-blowing knob and twists it right off the stem. The $440,000 carbon/Kevlar machine is powered by a 5.7-liter V-10 producing 612 horsepower, good for zero to 125 mph in less than 10 seconds on its way to the supra-legal stratosphere of 205 mph.

Technology like this usually has a pit crew and big trailers in the paddock to go with it: full inboard pushrod suspension, ceramic brakes and clutch and state-of-the-art wind tunnel aero to keep it all sunny-side up. Radical and rational, no one could say the Carrera GT is a beautiful car in the conventional sense. It is so purely ominous, so alarmingly portentous, it makes you think really wrong thoughts. Who has the keys and can I take him?

Acura TL A-Spec: Nobody tunes a Honda/Acura better than the company itself. The A-Spec concept of the TL performance sedan is a glowering wolverine of a car, fully two inches wider than the wide-track TL, hunkered over 21-inch wheels and caparisoned with huge fender flares. The grim, seemingly armored face of the A-Spec looks as if the car should be charging with a lance coming out of its grille.

Under the hood, Acura’s stock 3.2-liter V6 has been ventilated so that output rises to 300 horsepower. Six-piston, 15-inch Brembo brakes are standing by in case the car ever makes a break from the show stand.

Inside, the TL A-Spec concept is decked out in beet-red leather, carbon/Kevlar and ultra suede trim. Among the car’s grace notes: a seamless panoramic roof from the windshield header to the rear glass. We look forward to the production cars’ receiving a similar bollocks transplant.

Aston Martin DB9: As 12-meter yachts are to tugboats so the new DB9 is to ordinary cars. Designed by Henrik Fisker -- who also designed the stunning BMW Z8 -- the AM DB9 replaces the aging DB7, based on the Jaguar XK8 chassis. The new car, to be built in Gaydon, England, on a glued and riveted aluminum monocoque and wrapped in super-formed aluminum panels, runs on a 450-horsepower V-12 engine connected to the rear wheels by a six-speed electrohydraulic gearbox like those on Ferraris and Maseratis. The lovely and lyrical DB9 squares off against another Brit -- the new Bentley Continental GT -- for the title of coolest car never to be parked on any street.

BMW 645Ci: If California were a country, it would be BMW’s fourth-largest market worldwide. Our friends from Munich are in need of a win, however, with the continuing mixed reactions to the 5-Series, the baby’s-got-back 7-Series and the monstrous iDrive interface system, guaranteed to send you into a frenzy worthy of the nearest bell tower.

To the rescue comes the exquisite 645Ci, a two-door, four-seat performance coupe based on a shortened version of the 5-Series platform. All the goodies are here: 4.4-liter V-8 with 325 horsepower channeled through a six-speed manual, a six-speed automatic or a six-speed auto-manual. Other tech-intensive features include semi-active antiroll bars, which stiffen as the car senses body roll; “bend” lighting, in which the headlamps follow the angle of steering; and BMW’s phalanx of active braking and stability technologies.

Compared with the 5-Series, whose sheet metal looks so slack and loose it seems wrapped in wet drapery, the 6-Series is taut, low and lean, with proper coupe proportions playing out from its long hood and rounded nose. The molded trunk lid, which vexes so many on the 7-Series, seems well placed here. This is a big, purposeful, personal car, expressive and serious, and seriously fast. It will do well in Los Angeles.

Ford GT: I wouldn’t be much of a car guy if I didn’t rejoice in the coming of the Ford GT -- a reanimation of the Le Mans-winning supercar GT40. It is an exceptional achievement, a testament to what a company such as Ford can do when it puts its hive brain to something. The two-seat, mid-engine, supercharged 500-horsepower race car for the street goes on sale this summer at about $140,000, give or take an audio system.

Hummer H3T: Some Californians are so disenchanted with the Hummer H2 -- GM’s wildly successful, wildly irresponsible uber-ute -- they have taken to torching them at dealerships. So it’s fair to say there are mixed emotions out there. I greet the H3T concept -- a design study based on GM’s mid-size Colorado pickup -- with deeply conflicted optimism. If Americans insist on this crypto-fascist styling, then at least a smaller Hummer promises to be a little more manageable at the gas pumps and the mall parking lots.

The H3T, which points the way for next year’s H3 production vehicle, is a nice piece, with high-tech appointments and clever features, including a hinged door to provide side access to the cargo bed. I can only hope the H3 is boorish enough to guile H2 wannabes into smaller vehicles.

Times automotive critic Dan Neil can be reached at dan.neil@latimes.com