Taking the lead

By DAN NEIL

Nov. 29, 2006 12 AM PT

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THE centennial Los Angeles Auto Show opens on Friday. It’s taken only 100 years to get it right.

In recent years, the show has taken place in January, at or around the same time as Detroit’s huge hometown show, which left the L.A. event with the automotive equivalent of Hollywood’s dreaded B-list: last year’s concept cars, a scattered handful of less-than-earthshaking debuts, and of course the latest Ferrari, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce aimed at L.A.’s excessive-income demographic.

But this year the show has a new home on the calendar (Dec. 1-10). What a difference a month makes. Now the opening dance of the auto show cotillion, the L.A. show will feature a record 21 world premieres, including seven media-hogging concept cars.

Among them: a Ford Mustang in sleek couture by Italian coachbuilder Giugiaro; VW’s small, Golf-based sport wagon, the bound-for-production Tiguan; a blue-sky rendering of a future Acura sedan; and the Suzuki SXbox concept, which integrates an Xbox 360 into the interior console and projects the game display onto the open hood.

If you ever needed a reason to take the bus, here’s one: commuters playing “Call of Duty.”

With the show’s new date comes a new mandate: To make the L.A. show relevant in the politics of the automobile. California is, after all, the state that sued the federal government in 2004 for the power to raise fuel-economy standards in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In September, the state brought suit against the automakers for damages caused by global warming. California is also part of a coalition of 12 states in a case before the Supreme Court arguing that the EPA’s Clean Air Act requires the agency to define carbon-dioxide as a harmful emission and therefore subject to regulation.

The L.A. show represents the automakers’ best chance to get their environmental message out to a sympathetic audience. And so BMW is debuting its Hydrogen 7, a 7-series luxury sedan that is a “dual-fuel” vehicle, capable of burning either gasoline or cryogenically stored hydrogen in its V-12 engine. Honda will unveil its third-generation FCX fuel-cell vehicle, a wind-polished sedan with cab-forward design that is a major aesthetic improvement from the stubby lunch boxes that have been on loan to the City of Los Angeles.

And we’ll see hybrids galore, including a sportier “Touring” version of the Toyota Prius, as well as a hybrid Nissan Altima and a new hybrid Ford Escape. And from General Motors, hybrid versions of the Saturn Aura, Saturn Vue and even the GMC Yukon 4x4.

Sustainability is the theme of this year’s L.A. Designs conference, an automotive design forum that brings together the industry’s futurists and problem-solvers. Now in its third year, the conference holds an annual competition among design studios, many of which are located in Southern California. Some of the proposals this year include a VW built out of programmable nanobots and a Hummer “O2” that uses algae-filled body panels to freshen the air by converting CO2 to oxygen. Don’t look for these in a showroom near you.

Auto shows are themselves curious hybrids -- one part sales event, one part news event. Hundreds of journalists, bloggers and camera crews will descend on the convention center today and Thursday, the show’s official press days. The L.A. show’s bigger megaphone has brought some of the industry’s biggest guns to town. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is widely expected to make a major -- and, considering the recent history of the EV1 electric car, startling -- announcement today about the company’s commitment to the “electrification of the automobile,” in the words of GM’s Vice Chairman Robert Lutz. Wagoner’s announcement could tease a rumored “serial-hybrid” project, an electric vehicle with a small gas or diesel engine to charge the batteries.

Meanwhile, three of the German automakers -- Mercedes-Benz, Audi and VW -- are announcing this week an arrangement to share the BlueTec diesel technology in the North American market. BlueTec is a post-combustion treatment system that will allow even large-displacement diesel vehicles to pass California’s increasingly stringent emissions standards. Diesel-powered vehicles can return mileage some 30% higher than their gas-powered equivalents.

If all the green-tech doesn’t interest you, there will, of course, be plenty of hyper-powered sex machines on view, including the new Aston Martin V-8 Vantage convertible, the Audi R8 super-coupe, the Ferrari 599 GTB, the Lamborghini Murcielago LP460 and the mother-of-all-limousines, the Maybach 62S.

Money, sunshine and guilt. That’s what the L.A. show is all about.

L.A. Auto Show, Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St.; 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m.-

8 p.m. Sundays and 11 a.m.-

10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; Friday through Dec. 10; $7-$10;

11 and younger, free with paid adult. (310) 444-1850, www.laautoshow.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

First looks

Notable introductions at the L.A. Autoshow, which runs Friday through Dec. 10:

World premieres

2008 Aston Martin Vantage V-8 convertible

2008 Audi TT Roadster

2008 Buick Enclave