Detroit Auto Show: Innovations Dominate

DETROIT January 10,2003: The AP reports that seats that move as the car accelerates. Tires with corn-based fillers. Minivans with lounges. A sportwagon that turns into a sedan with the push of a button.

At exhibitions like this year's North American International Auto Show, every carmaker tries to prove it is more innovative than all the others in terms of comfort, convenience, power or pure fun.

Even the displays at the show, which opens to the public Saturday, are designed to widen eyes, from the futuristic flat-screen at the Ford Motor Co. stand to the Lexus brochure that can be downloaded to your PDA.

Ford's information stand for its Model U concept is designed to reflect the high-tech nature of the car itself: The transparent flat screen is operated not by the click of a mouse but with the point of a finger - think the movie "Minority Report."

To find out about the car, you point at different spots on the screen, which light up as you hold your finger steady and then open up a new page. All the while, you can look through the screen at the concept itself.

"We want folks to be involved and to have to enter the display rather than stand and read," says David A. Wagner, technical specialist with Ford. "It actually gets people to reach in."

Ford calls the Model U the Model T of the 21st century. It's powered by a supercharged hydrogen internal combustion engine and hybrid electric transmission. Key features include a reconfigurable interior, tires with corn-based fillers and an engine that uses sunflower seed oil.

"Someone told me once that to get a new technology off and running it takes anywhere from 10 to 15 years," says Ford president and chief operating officer Nick Scheele. "I think that's pretty reasonable."

Mercedes-Benz's 2004 E-Class features a headlamp system that responds to the movements of the driver and points in the direction the car is moving. Flat-screen displays offer information about some of Mercedes' systems and a demo of its acceleration-sensitive driver's seat. Plop down in the demo seat and get what amounts to a mini-massage as the seat moves with the car's acceleration.

Among some of the other vehicle innovations:

Audi AG's Pikes Peak concept has three rows of seats, each covered by a separate sunroof. Each seat is remote-controlled and the seats have separate video screens.

The Dodge Kahuna concept has an interior that can transformed into a lounge, with a front passenger seat that can flip around to face the back and second-row seats that fold down to form tables.

It's a minivan that "doesn't fall into the usual soccer mom category," says Trevor Creed, Chrysler's senior vice president of design.

Honda of America Motor Co. unveiled the Studio E, designed to be a music mixing studio on wheels. The Studio E comes with a 42-inch plasma television screen and has two rear seat pods that flip down from the sides.

Ford's Freestyle FX concept can convert from a six-passenger sportwagon to either a five-passenger sedan or a five-passenger vehicle with a cargo bed. The transformation begins with the press of a button on the hand-held remote key.

"It's sort of an automotive Swiss army knife," says J Mays, Ford's vice president for design.

Automakers often try to outdo one another on design, but this year also features a number of vehicles with souped-up engines.

DaimlerChrysler AG's concept vehicle looks like a motorcycle, sounds like a muscle car and packs a 500-horsepower, V-10 engine that would give it a top speed above 300 miles an hour.

Nobody has tried to make the four-wheel, single-passenger Dodge Tomahawk go that fast yet. But Chrysler Group's president and chief executive Dieter Zetsche says the company might bring the gleaming engine on wheels into production one day for a limited run - if there's enough interest.

"We go for the new boundaries. That's what this beast really symbolizes," Zetsche says.

General Motors Corp.'s concept, the Cadillac Sixteen, is a rear-wheel-drive sedan with the industry's first 16-cylinder engine, capable of producing 1,000 horsepower.

Nearly every automaker has flat-screens at their display stands to describe their vehicles, parts and what makes them the "first" to do something. Some offer Web links to the nearest dealer.

But a few of the displays are just designed to be fun.

At Lincoln, you can sit on a buttery-soft leather seat in a pod that looks like something out of the Jetsons cartoon and sample the chest-rattling sound system certified by THX Ltd.

Over at Volkswagen, there's an injection-molded Beetle maker that uses recycled plastic beads to create a little replica of a red, blue or clear Beetle.

Volkswagen and Mini have driving games, and Chrysler Corp. offers the chance to drive a Chrysler Crossfire via the Playstation 2 game Gran Turismo 3.

At Mini, sit in a go-cart-like car and as you turn the steering wheel during the game, the car actually swings back and forth on a track.

Mini also has a virtual pinball game and a booth to photograph yourself in a Mini. Pick a place, pick a color and out pops two postcards of you in your Mini of choice. You can also e-mail it to a friend.