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Need a new car? Want to know what you might be driving a few years from now? The Tampa Bay International Auto Show is the place to do the research.
By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 14, 2002
TAMPA -- This may not be what you think it is.
Of course, there will be cars on display at the Tampa Bay International Auto Show that most of us see only in the movies. Or in the players' parking lot at Raymond James Stadium. Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis.
And there will be the obligatory famous race car drivers on hand for photo ops and autographs. In this case, NASCAR drivers Sterling Marlin and Matt Kenseth. There also will be plenty of stuff to keep the kids occupied (a magician and a guy dressed up like Spider-Man), and they'll give away a Mini Cooper at the end of the show.
The standard auto show menu.
Except for the concept and preproduction cars.
If you want to see the shape of things to come in the auto industry -- and have a say in what gets built and what doesn't -- hang around the hundreds of preproduction, concept and "green" cars on display. To at least some degree, the cars we drive five or 10 years from now are determined by what's on display at shows like this.
Representatives from the auto industry will be there to listen. It's a traveling test market.
And this year, one of the biggest questions is: What will follow the station wagon, minivan and SUV in the evolution of the family vehicle?
From most indications, SUVs will get a little smaller.
"You'll see a new wave of vehicles that gets closer to a passenger car," said Jeff Bartlett, the editorial director of Motor Trend's online magazine. "It will offer the do-anything ability of an SUV and the dynamics of a car at an affordable price.
"A little more like the car they traded in."
A major factor will be fuel economy, what with continued uncertainty in the Middle East.
"That (oil prices) has been a concern since the early 1970s," Bartlett said. "But what's interesting lately is that automakers have been able to increase power but keep fuel economy the same. They did that by making the engines more fuel-efficient."
Automakers also are testing cars that run on a combination of gas and electricity.
"The hybrid systems use traditional gas and electric motors," Bartlett said, "and the idea is to use the gas while the electric motor is recharging. I drove one across the country, and it was very unique. The Toyota model I drove had an engine that was a little weak, but since then, the power has been improved.
"The thing to remember is that the manufacturers are very much aware that fuel economy may play a role in the sale."
Which explains why General Motors is testing an engine that runs on six cylinders until a certain cruising speed is reached, and then cuts to four.
"It's not reinventing the wheel," Bartlett said. "It's making it more round. It should start showing up in cars in 2004 or 2005."
And if you haven't noticed, it's getting more difficult to do your own repairs. On some newer cars and trucks, even changing your oil can be a challenge.
"Most new cars are really intended to be maintained by professionals," Bartlett said. "So much of diagnostics is done now by computer. You download the information from your car to determine the best course of service. That's tough for the do-it-yourselfers."
It also could be tough for independent repair shops, which could see an increasing number of their customers funneled to dealers. After all, most car dealers make the majority of their money not in sales, but in service.
"(Independent shops) still do a very good job and often for less than a dealer would charge," Bartlett said. "But the tools have changed quite a bit in last 10 years, and because of the high cost, it's not easy for a small repair shop to keep up."
Automakers say it takes at least three years to develop most vehicle designs, so the ability to correctly forecast the public's tastes, and factor in fuel availability, makes the process difficult.
One way to find out if a car or truck has potential is to take a prototype on the road to auto shows.
"Auto shows offer more than is obvious," Bartlett said. "There is zero pressure to buy anything, and it's the perfect environment for browsing. You can do more in one afternoon than spending a week going from dealer to dealer.
"On the other side, (automakers) want to have the right product at the right time. They can be too early or too late. It's just not easy to predict consumer demand."
But it's not impossible.
Automakers correctly saw that children who rode in station wagons in the 1960s and '70s would grow up to be adults who wanted vans, a throwback to the VW hippie vans of their youth. And later, when vans became symbolic of a family lifestyle, manufacturers saw that the public would want something that wasn't so obvious. Something that wasn't so easy to define. Something a family, or a single person, would want.
Hence, the SUV.
And then the next generation, the smaller SUVs.
A prime example is the Chrysler Pacifica, which will debut in the spring.
"It's basically a transition, a bridge vehicle," said Tom Tremont, advanced vehicle designer for Chrysler. "It'll have the handling of a car and the space of a low-roofed minivan or SUV." Priced at about $25,000, the Pacifica looks somewhat like Chrysler's earlier transition car, the PT Cruiser.
"Some people want an SUV but don't want to be that far off the ground, and they want better fuel economy," Tremont said. "That's where this idea came from."
The big question is will it sell?
"We're very conscious of the oohs and ahs that we hear at the auto shows," Tremont said. "Obviously, we do other research and testing, but when we do shows like the one in Tampa, it gives us a good idea of whether we're heading in the right direction. We've had concept cars that were met with very different degrees of enthusiasm.
"I think we learn something new from every one of the shows."
PREVIEW: Tampa Bay International Auto Show, today through Sunday, Tampa Convention Center. Hours: noon-10 p.m. today and Friday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. Admission $7 adults, $4 seniors, students, children 7-12, free 6 and under. For information, call toll-free 1-800-426-5630 or visit www.autoshowusa.com/tampa.