Yannis

The Asphalt Jungle: Star Search
Where are the dream cars of the 21st century?

Now That the big 2006 Los Angeles and Detroit car shows are over, I have to confess I'm disappointed. Almost every vehicle on display looked like an automobile. I was hoping to see, well, rockets. Perhaps a few scramjet-powered hovercraft. Maybe even a flying saucer or two. At the very least, I wanted to be jolted into giddy anticipation by a display that proclaimed The Future! with all the breathless optimism of a 1950s Disneyland attraction.

Make no mistake: L.A. and Detroit were loaded with stunning concept models--the Aston Martin Rapide, the Chrysler Firepower, the Ford Reflex, to name just three. But, really, they're all just cars. Indeed, you may well see versions of them on the road within the next few years. So where were the "dream cars"--the vehicles we'll all be driving 10, 20, even 30 years from now?

"The investment in a concept car is so high, they [almost] have to be used as the base for a production model," said Audi's chief designer, Walter Maria de'Silva, in a recent issue of BusinessWeek. So, okay, the ugly realities of today's ultratight budgets are partly to blame. But I think there's another factor at work: People are afraid. Look at the awful stuff that dominates today's headlines: war, terrorism, dwindling petroleum supplies, avian flu, another "Rocky" sequel in the works. Faced with such relentless dread, perhaps it's no wonder that for the most part automakers are placating the public with practical, comforting dreams like highly efficient hybrid and fuel-cell powertrains and infotainment systems that can read your e-mail to you while you drive.

Well, I don't want e-mail in my automobile. I want a car I can drive at 600 miles per hour, fly into outer space, rinse off in the ocean while I'm exploring the Titanic, and then fold up and carry to the office in my briefcase. Never mind if it's feasible or not. Just tell me that it's made entirely of some material that hasn't even been invented yet--say, CosmiNex--and I'll believe it's all possible.

Harley Earl understood the value of over-the-top optimism. One look at the bubble-topped, missile-shaped dream cars he designed for GM in the 1950s, and you just knew that behind its gates General Motors was hard at work cooking up the spacey wonder-chariots that would soon zoom us away into our rightful Jetsons future. It was showmanship, sure, but it also fueled a dynamism that rubbed off on the General's entire production-car lineup. Wide-eyed boys and rival automakers the world over got the message: Don't mess with GM. It's got rockets.

Nobody is shooting for the moon any more. Instead, Detroit is attempting reentry. The Challenger and Camaro musclecar concepts are nice--as is the production Mustang--but is Motown really so spooked that, like the big Hollywood studios, it's afraid to serve up anything radically new? Nor is the dearth of audacity confined to the Big Three. From the two recent shows, only VW's open-cockpit, three-wheeled GX3 seemed to say, "Hey! Never mind that I don't look like a car and could easily be crushed by a careless Hummer. Aren't I cool?" I mean, if GM had displayed one of Harley Earl's most flamboyant creations--the razor-finned Firebird III concept--in L.A. or Detroit, it would've blown the airbags off everything else on the floor. And it's a half-century old.

I'm waiting for the automaker that's bold enough to let its Harley Earls aim for the stars. Wouldn't you like to see not just the cars of tomorrow, but the cars of Tomorrowland?

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