Los Angeles Auto Show

Story by Wallace Wyss
Photos by Richard Bartholomew

This is one of those eras where The Big Change is coming and I am dragging my heels, like when digital cameras came in, I stuck with film at least another 10 years. Now the Detroit auto industry is bailing out on sedans, so the big show of the year was mostly SUVs and crossovers and pickup trucks. I was hoping to find a car I could fall in love with. To no avail.

All the while I was thinking: Is this worth the $25 parking fee?

Alfas abound

Alfa Romeo made a big splash at the Los Angeles auto show by having such a profusion of models. They included the Stelvio Quadrifoglio, the Stelvio Ti Lusso, the TI Sport the Quadrifoglio Carbon, the Giulia Quadrifoglio Nero Edizione, the Giulia TI sport and the 4C Spyder Italia.

I haven’t heard that Alfas are selling that well, and haven’t passed a single dealership in Los Angeles, but here they are with a wild profusion of models.

Elsewhere, the biggest news I saw was the reintroduction of a Jeep pickup. That is interesting because Jeeps are selling like crazy anyhow and pickups are selling like crazy so this is the melding of the two. The video showed it negotiating huge rocks, the vehicle being driven without doors. I wonder if your passenger forgets to put on their seat belt, if you might lose them along the way. But apparently, it’s legal to run a car without doors. At least Jeeps do it. Maybe to the city-dwellers, this is Living on the Edge, driving doorless. I don’t want to tell them what happens when you hit a big puddle. You can choose a variety of engines in the Jeeps, I think the 4-cylinder is too small but maybe the 3.6-liter V6 would do. They are also going to offer a diesel.

The Auto Show this year actually started Monday with all sorts of electric car intros but being the last man alive who still yearns for internal combustion, I went to the general preview on Wednesday. I noticed the increasing influence of alternative power plants with two new players this year –one of them American start-up Rivian, with a pickup truck that may beat Tesla to market. The R1T is a pick-up with four electric motors, each producing 197 bhp. That means 14,000 Nm of torque and a claimed 0-60 mph time of around 3 seconds, which us gear heads remember is about 1.7 seconds faster than a 427 Cobra. Although primarily for the US market, it could be coming to Europe in 2021.

Joining the R1T was their R1S SUV. The all-electric seven-seater shares its powertrain with the pick-up and yet will be an off roader, bragging of a three-foot wading depth, underbody protection and performance.

A bit of the Byte

Inside the tent where they have press conferences there were two slick vehicles from China, called Byton brand. The name is a pun. “Byte” the key word. Byton president & co-founder is Daniel Kirchert who with co-founder & CEO Carsten Breitfeld is aiming to make it a premium brand. Kirchert is the ex-managing director of Infiniti China. Breitfeld was the former head of BMW’s i8 program.

So they are coming out of nowhere planning on a yearly output of 250,000 to 300,000 EVs Their motor maker is Bosch but no battery maker is named yet. They have a $1.1 billion facility in Nanjing, China. The Byton will also come with a level 3 (L3) self-driving system using lidar and millimeter-wave radars.

There is big money behind it from China and lots of talent from Europe helping design it (styling was done in Germany). Theoretically it could go on sale in 2019 followed by a sedan in 2021 and an MPV in 2022. I would call their opening price of $40K makes it a luxury car. What was mind blowing was their dashboard—one hunka screen with nary a switch or dial to distract.

911 Redux

I remember when Porsche tried to do away with the name 911. It didn’t work, internally with friends they would say 996 or whatever and then go right back to saying “my 911”.

So they brought out a new one at the LA Auto Show, again doing that double talk, saying the real name is 992 but then when people go to the dealer they will say “I want to see the new 911.”

It has a same basic shape as recent 911 models though it borrows a bit of the advanced styling of the forthcoming Mission E. It’s still a flat six. At last the interior has been updated more, heavy on digital these days. There were vague promises of an all-electric 911 in the future. But don’t roll your eyes, gents, Ferdinand Porsche had an electric Lohner car in production (with a motor at each wheel) something close to 100 years ago so what goes around comes around.

It’s only me on the three-host radio show that I am on that believes Tesla’s days are numbered when the German automakers encircle them and move in for the kill, and as proof I have only to point to the concept four door sedan Porsche E-car, the Taycan. With a likely starting price above 80,000 euros, which could be around $100K, it will underprice the Tesla Model S by a bunch. It is officially a 2021 model.

Audi laid down another threat to the Tesla with a very stylish prototype new four door E-Tron GT which gives you a stylish roofline and can you believe it, a horsepower rating of 582 hp.
The race in the future with chargeable E-cars is how long it will take to charge. Audi says that the 800-volt battery system can be charged up to 80 percent in just 20 minutes, quicker than Tesla’s Supercharger method, but will Tesla do more innovation in two years? I can say the Audi concept is better looking than the Tesla.

Ford also has brought back the Bullitt, named after the Mustang in the iconic Steve McQueen movie. It is tasteful and gives a not-so-cop-attracting alternative to the Shelby Mustangs.

Several of the brands I used to see at this show, such as Ferrari, Bentley, and Rolls Royce, were missing and I am trying to fathom why these luxury brands collectively snub their noses at the audience for this show, when they still sell a lot of cars in Los Angeles. I can’t help but think the owners of those cars are insulted that they have no booth to go to in order to see the newest model or talk about their present one. I guess the more focused events like the Quail event are more certain to draw their type of customer (income wise) so they figure it’s a waste of money appealing to the general public with something aimed above their income level (pearls before swine and all that…).

The successful marketing at the show was in the videos implying that if one bought the subject car, you would also be part of a fantastic new world. But Volvo thought they were real clever this year, having a display area in the main hall featuring no cars at all, just a hunk of wood; I mean what were they trying to say – “Our cars aren’t worth looking at?” I think they have some mushy-headed people in their marketing department that don’t know people go to car shows to sit in actual cars and see how they look, and how they fit.

VW by the way, paid a great tribute to their heritage by inviting owners of old Beetles to display their cars outside in a tent outside the main entrance, and I was amazed at seeing the early ‘50s Hebmuller Beetle open cars, some of them two seaters that either preceded or co-existed with the VW soft top cars. They also had a ratty Baja runner, and some water-cooled modern Beetles fixed up for racing. It’s all a swan song as they are killing off the Beetle for the second time and this year is the Final Edition (but I say never say never in the auto industry…).

VW also partially delivered on the promise to bring back their bus but they showed only a commercial version, with electric power. I think this is a smart move, get them in use everywhere by businesses, and then segue in the passenger version (wasn’t their word “microbus”)?

One reason I go to auto shows is to meet designers and marketers and movers and shakers. This year I met a Detroit reporter who has two shows on TV in Detroit about the industry. He agreed with me that a good topic for his show is designer’s renderings. Could they be considered fine art or are they just throwaway studies for future design proposals? I agreed to send him a proposal for a show.

And not forgetting that novel I have a-molderin’ in a drawer, I tracked down a Porsche-loving director at the Porsche display and promised to send him a copy. If he calls me about it, that’s worth the $25 parking fee.

Wallace Wyss is a co-host of Autotalk, a weekly radio show about cars emanating from KUCR FM Riverside.

Below, two interesting concept cars from BMW and Infinity…