Paris Auto Show looms-BMW ready to roll on Z4 convertible

Courtesey Of August Cole, CBS.MarketWatch.com Sept. 21, 2002

CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- To be in Paris in September.

And it's not for a tranquil fall afternoon reading LeMonde in the lazy sun. It's for the show: the Paris Auto Show is about to kick off.

It's going to be busy, with the auto press working more than the 37.5 hours protected under French law for many workers. And for good reason too: notables like BMW's new Z4 convertible are going to be officially unveiled.

BMW released pricing the other day and it's in the same league with the current Z3 model. A good move considering the Z4 is bigger, more aggressive looking with bold lines that will be as controversial as the new 7-series autobahn bomber. That controversy means BMW has taken a risk, a necessary direction for a company that can't garner anything but gold from the auto press. The Z3 was a good step toward a pure convertible but it lacked any authority on the road. This looks to be different, with a steering wheel reminiscent of the almost unattainable Z8, with its six-figure sticker.

For a Z4 2.5i, the base version, you're in for $33,975 and the faster 3.0i runs $40,945, BMW said on Thursday. Its a bit more than the Z3 but well under what Porsche wants for a Boxster. For those not wed to the propeller badge, the looming Nissan Z is going to divert some on the road to Munich. Cheaper, harder-edged but without a drop top, the Z is going to steal some fans. The Z4 should go on sale this fall.

Not that BMW is slipping. Sales for the year are running at a record rate in North America. Through August, almost 156,000 cars had been sold.

To Paris, allez!

If you want to catch the Paris show but are put off by the rising euro, you can beat the barricades and get a glimpse online. The public days begin on Sept. 28 and wrap up on Oct. 13. Media access starts Sept. 26. As Detroit takes top billing in North America, Paris leads the European circuit.

Unlike the U.S. shows, you're not going to find the preponderance of trucks and SUVs. There will be some, but not many. What you get instead is a look at how important Europe thinks small cars can be. When gas costs more than milk, as it does across The Pond, it's clear why.

And you'll get a heavy dose of the high end, too, with luxury cruisers for some reason back in vogue as the global economy's road to recovery looks more like a Central American highway.

For the rest of us, Volkswagen's Touareg SUV is going to debut as the distant relative of Porsche's Cayenne. Finding a good site that wraps up what's on tap is hard, but CarDesignNews.com has a nice one. Once the show gets under way, the usual suspects from the auto mags will be lurking around and filing stories online as they break.

Deal me in

Though the auto shows are the first glimpse at what's going to end up in the showroom, that's the battleground where fortunes are made and lost. The latest report from UBS Warburg analyst Saul Rubin gives a snapshot take of life on the frontlines and is a telling indicator of who's winning the war for market share in the U.S. Rubin puts out the report twice a year, and this is the second using their proprietary survey. Toyota (TM: news, chart, profile) took the top spot. Trailing were Honda and BMW.

With all the executive turmoil in Detroit, should it be surprising that Ford Motor (F: news, chart, profile) is stuck in last? Well, for all its momentum on Wall Street, General Motors is not sitting pretty, though. "GM continues to ascend, but not without hurdles and drawbacks, while Ford and DaimlerChrysler struggle," Rubin wrote.

Aside from the slam-book ranking, there's a very telling indicator about what gets people into the dealers' clutches. Of dealers, 62 percent said hot cars and trucks, or "product" as the industry likes to say, are what lures people in. Incentives were cited by only 26 percent. Some of it is dealer specific, he noted, with Honda and Chrysler's Jeep folks saying the product is key.

That's interesting because with the zero-percent offers still coming in, like GM's stunning 60-month term offer, you'd think that would have quite an effect. Free money, what more could you ask for? Well, better cars for one