Inside Detroit

The North American International Auto Show is held in Detroit, Michigan every January in the dead of winter. Outside temperatures plummet to near zero degrees. The vast expanse of river running alongside Cobo Center, the venue of the show, is near frozen. Inside Cobo Center, however, things are hot, hot, hot!

There were enough flashy exotic cars, sparkling new production models and glamorous concept cars to keep even the most jaded car nut drooling for days. (It took us three days to cover the whole show and attend the more interesting press cons.)

It was not all flash and no substance, however. The production cars were all tantalizingly good-looking. The exotic cars enthralled onlookers with their daring shapes and breathtaking performance potential. Even the concept cars were refreshingly devoid of the whimsicalness that plague "feel good" examples of the genre. Cars for the green environmentalists and the mobility-challenged are all well and good but, as far as Detroit was concerned, it was all drop-dead gorgeous styling, kick-ass performance and Sybaritic luxury.

On the all-too-popular truck side, Ford debuted its sharp-looking all-new F-150 while Nissan unveiled its first F-150-size truck — the 5.6-liter V8-powered Titan pickup — and its all-new Murano crossover SUV. We saw Honda’s mid-sized Pilot SUV while Mitsubishi showcased its Endeavor crossover SUV (not to be confused with the local Endeavor L200 pickup). Isuzu had the handsome Ascender SUV, which comes with either inline-6 or V8 gasoline engines, while Volvo showed off its award-winning XC90 all-wheel-drive SUV.

GM’s Chevrolet and Cadillac brands were in the thick of the truck wars with the Equinox compact SUV and SRX crossover SUV, respectively. The Equinox will do battle with the slightly smaller Ford Escape, Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV 4 while Cadillac’s V6 and V8-powered SRX will bring the fight to the mid-sized BMW X5, Mercedes M-class and the V8-powered Porsche Cayenne SUV. Even Maserati couldn’t resist joining the crossover craze by showing its odd-sounding Kubang sporty tall wagon.

On the passenger car side, I’m happy to report that the Philippines is not too far behind as far as the latest models are concerned – although we certainly have much less models available than they do. At least, most of the models we have are similar to what manufacturers currently offer in North America which, at close to 17 million units a year, is the single biggest car market in the world. Even the state-side debuts of the all-new Jaguar XJ sedan and Porsche Cayenne will be closely shadowed by those cars’ Philippine launches, not that we’ll have too many people lining up to buy one.

Ditto the exotic cars. The new and already sold-out F1-car-for-the-street Ferrari Enzo was there, as was the convertible version of the fearsome Lamborghini Murcielago and the beautiful W12-powered 500-hp Bentley Continental GT coupe.

Luxury and super-luxury cars were front-page news as well. BMW and Audi had their range-topping 760Li and A8L, respectively, as was the aforementioned Jaguar XJ – the latter two cars boasting aluminum bodies.

Super-luxury cars came by way of Mercedes-Benz’s custom-built Maybach brand. This $300-350,000 first-class-airline-cabin-on-wheels features every imaginable comfort and convenience feature known to man. Its size, at six inches longer than a Chevrolet Suburban, is enough to get the most jaded Beverly Hills parking valet snap to attention.

Competing in this rarefied atmosphere is the equally imposing Rolls-Royce Phantom. At a measly $330,000, you get a humungous limo-like sedan powered by a 6.7-liter V12 engine. Needless to say, people will be at a loss to search for a title for you should you arrive in one.

If this isn’t high-brow enough for you, then you’ll have to wait for the production version of Cadillac’s awesome Sixteen concept car, a long and sleek super-luxury liner that’s powered by a titanic 13.6-liter 16-cylinder engine developing an even 1000 horsepower and 1000 lbs-ft of torque. There is no truth to the rumor that it comes with its own ATM machine.

There were so many more production models and concept cars – many of which we don’t have any chance of seeing on these shores – that it would take an eight-page supplement to cover even just the more significant ones. (The Detroit press ran multi-page coverages everyday.) Walking out of Cobo Center on the last day of the Detroit leg of our trip, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the staggering display of global automotive excellence that I had just experienced. I’m sure the other 700,000-plus visitors of the two-week show will fully agree.