[Times photo: Ken Helle]
Visitors at the auto show walk past the Chrysler Phaeton, a retro convertible with windshields for both front and back seats.
TAMPA - Jon Finkel is grinning. Thursday morning, the Nissan manager is sitting next to me as we cruise downtown Tampa highways in a test ride of Nissan's brand new pickup and great new hope, the Titan.
With the Titan, Nissan seems to have pulled it all together - design, ride, roomy back seat, towing muscle and a luxury, gadget-loaded interior - and could be poised to deliver some first-ever serious competition from Japan to the full-sized and booming pickup market long dominated by Ford, GM and Chrysler.
"It's all about bending sheetmetal," jokes Finkel, who's obviously enjoying having a vehicle some consider the hot introduction of the year. After all, not all that many years ago, Nissan looked doomed. Well, the company has bounced back with strong profits, thanks to smarter products and more efficient production.
In fact, on this day Finkel, the dealer operations manager for the Southeast for Nissan North America, has a whole row of Titans, buffed and polished, sitting outside the convention center. He would later surprise invited area Nissan dealers by letting them take a Titan back to their dealerships to show customers in advance of the official Dec. 1 rollout. Tampa Bay, the Nissan manager says, is a market that loves pickups.
Okay, I admit it. I got a jump on my fellow reporters this week and grabbed the tough assignment of covering the Tampa Bay International Auto Show. Under one roof, this is the place to see, sample and sit in most of the 2004 vehicles, eye some funky concept cars and gape at a few autos with stickers three or four times the price of my house. At the Tampa Convention Center through Sunday, the show costs $8 for adults and $4 for seniors, students and kids 7-12.
And just for the record, Ford's green convertible Jaguar XKR Roadster with the large-caliber machine gun mounted in the back and missiles lined across the front bumper is just a mockup of the one that appeared in the James Bond movie Die Another Day. Those are not options available at rush hour when traveling Interstate 4 or U.S. 19.
Four hours is not enough time to do justice to an auto show with hundreds of vehicles ranging in size (and intimidation) from the Mini Cooper to the Hummer. But on a tour of the show with Jeff Bartlett, an editor with the magazine Motor Trend (a producer of this auto show) and a man of many insights about things that go Vrooom, some trends clearly emerged. Here's a top 10:
10. Pickups rule. I can see it slowly happening even in the parking lot of the St. Petersburg Times. The pickup is mainstreaming as people migrate to its flexibility, its ability to tow heavy loads, its smoother ride and its increasingly luxurious interiors. The stakes are big. The nation's best-selling pickup and vehicle of any kind - Ford's F-150, displayed on a rotating platform at the Tampa show - was redesigned for the first time in seven years. The look? More "masculine." At the same time, import automakers are gaining market share and are expected to take more than 25 percent of U.S. truck sales this year.
9. Never miss another movie. More and more, new vehicles are coming equipped with flip-down DVD systems to show movies to the backseat kids. Dashboard-mounted DVD mapping systems are hot, too. Nissan's Finkel says that despite the extra costs of built-in DVD systems and other gadgetry that can bump vehicles prices by a few thousand dollars, they are in big demand.
8. Big 3 meets the Not-So-Big 3. There's a whole lot of buzz about new vehicles, but Ford, GM and Chrysler are often on the fringes. That's too bad, because U.S. auto makers are actually improving the quality and, in some cases, the design and sophistication of their new vehicles. Motor Trend's Bartlett explained, as we walked through a Chevrolet exhibit featuring a $40,000-plus pickup and a convertible better left in GM's computer-modeling department, that most new U.S. models are getting better. But many foreign-made models are getting better faster.
Here's a tipping point or two to consider. For the first time, Toyota outsold Ford worldwide in the past six months. And Toyota will soon outsell Chrysler to become the third-biggest carmaker in the United States.
7. Fast and Furious: the trendsetter. The auto industry was clueless in 2001 when the street-racing movie Fast and Furious became a big hit with young adults. The movie is about the underworld of racers who convert lightweight compact cars into modern hot rods. It also spurred a major demand for speedy and customized compacts by young drivers. So before this year's sequel - 2 Fast 2 Furious - hit the big screen, automakers were fighting to get their vehicles and marketing message into the flick. Dodge offered $14-million to get its car into the movie, Bartlett said. But Mitsubishi Motors North America won by spending about $25-million. And the movie's stars appeared in Mitsubishi commercials. (Bartlett's No. 1 pick of the hip and speedy compacts? Subaru's Impreza WRX STI.)
6. Gas mileage, anyone? Anyone? Once again, the leader by far in the seemingly forgotten quest for better gas mileage is Toyota. The Tampa show features the 2004 Prius, the hybrid gas-electric vehicle that first hit this area's market in 2000. The new version is a four-door sedan with more internal room and better mileage than the original. All at the same original price: just under $20,000. Not that Prius has much competition. Ford's Escape, the first American car with hybrid technology, has been delayed until next summer.
5. Concept cars as eye candy. Visitors to the Tampa auto show can gaze upon three concept cars that exist only to give their makers a way to measure consumer interest in a design. The Chrysler Phaeton is a retro convertible with windshields for both front and back seats. The Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup offers an unusual side door into the bed of the truck. The Ford 427 sedan recalls the 1960s, but with a modern interior.
4. What's a sedan? The Tampa auto show is awash in new sedans. Really. I actually saw people getting into BMW and Lexus sedans. But overall interest in the traditional car paled next to all the more exciting and better-hyped trucks, SUVs and sports cars. "I guess sedans still are used for rental cars," says Bartlett.
3. Capturing the youth market. Not every 20-year-old is souping up a Fast and Furious compact. That's why automakers are trying boxy, surfer-styled vehicles out on the young driver market. You may have noticed Honda's Element on the streets. (Its seats fold flat to form beds.) Saturn's pushing a funky SUV called VUE "Red Line." And starting in March, look for the similar shape of Toyota's Scion to go on sale at area dealers. The four-door Scion xB at the Tampa show is surprisingly roomy. And who can argue with a price tag of about $14,000?
2. Building brand loyalty. Every automaker tries to encourage repeat buyers. At the Mini Cooper exhibit run by Tampa's Ferman Motor Cars, staffers encouraged owners to gather in Ocala on a coming Saturday to run their cars on a race track, eat food and share Mini Cooper tales.
1. A price tag for all wallets. I have to admit I was taken by some of those vehicles supposedly designed for youngsters. Okay, the $14,000 price tag impressed me, too, since the average price of a new car is $26,000. On the other hand, I (along with everybody else at the show) did my share of gawking at the Maserati, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Bentley models on display. And then there was the bright red Ferrari Enzo sports car, so elite that Ferrari picks the buyers. If you're lucky, you can purchase an Enzo for $649,000, or about the same price as 46 Toyota Scions.
