Crave

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Automakers aren't the only ones using the 2007 Detroit Auto Show to show off new products; Alpine also launched its new Imprint technology at the show. Imprint isn't a new car stereo or amplifier--instead, it's part methodology and part technology for designing the perfect sound to fit any car. Alpine researcher Alan Trevena, who demonstrated the system for me, said that Imprint takes a lot of the guess work out of designing a car audio system. Instead of relying on a "golden ear," an expert who sets the audio parameters based on his or her own opinion, Imprint measures a variety of parameters and comes up with an audio solution.

Alpine's Imprint signal processor

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I'll spare you the technical details, which can get a bit arcane. For the demo, Alpine had rigged out a Chrysler 300C with the system. Alpine had replaced all the speakers in the car, but it was still a modest setup. The dashboard had high-end speakers at either end and a center fill in the middle. Low-end speakers were mounted in the doors, and a 10-inch subwoofer sat in the trunk, making eight speakers in all. We listened to a variety of music during the demo, from classical to jazz to acoustic guitar to electronica with a lot of bass, and it all sounded spectacular. The system doesn't produce a surround effect--it's designed to make you feel as if you are at a live show. During the demo, I could close my eyes and get a sense for what the band would sound like if it was right in front of me.

The sound quality was really stunning, especially for a system designed with relatively modest components (barring Alpine's Imprint digital signal processor). Alpine hasn't announced any deals yet to get the Imprint system used in cars, but the company has done a lot of work with Chrysler in the past, among other automakers. Because of automotive production cycles, Alpine says Imprint won't appear until the 2010 model year.

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The retro-futuristic Ford Airstream

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First, Ford went back in time to redesign its Mustang. Now, the company travels back to the 1960s yet again to design the Ford Airstream concept. Ford took Airstream along on the trip to build this new crossover car, although to me it looks more like a minivan. Designers of the concept were influenced by 2001: A Space Oddyssey for the interior, which includes organically shaped podlike seats. The most notable element of the interior is the 360-degree video screen, which can show movies, video games, or ambient displays, such as a lava lamp. Did I mention this car is influenced by the 1960s?

Video screen lava lamp

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Beyond all the Ford Airstream's retro fashion, the drivetrain is cutting-edge, new millennium stuff. The wheels are driven by electric motors that get their juice from lithium-ion battery packs. The batteries can be recharged by plugging the car into an outlet or, while underway, from a hydrogen-powered fuel cell. This drivetrain, which Ford calls HySeries Drive, is currently being tested in a Ford Edge.

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Opinions differ wildly when it comes to automotive design, but no one could deny the sheer beauty of Rolls-Royce's new Phantom Drophead Coupe. The second car in Rolls-Royce's rejuvenated model lineup, the Drophead takes the elegance of the Phantom and adds exterior elements that make it more sporty and downright lovely. The most obvious elements are the brushed steel hood, which creates a nice two-tone effect with the body, and the teak cover for the convertible top, reminiscent of a Chris-Craft powerboat.

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Ostensibly a convertible version of the Phantom, the Drophead Coupe shares very little with its hardtop sibling. All the body panels are different, the Drophead is shorter, and the interior materials are designed to be weather-resistant. The Drophead uses coach-style doors, which open from the front, allowing for easy access to the rear seats. The convertible top is lined with cashmere on the inside and extremely thick, with five layers of insulation. The trunk lid is made up of two parts, hinged from the top and bottom, with the lower one forming a bench designed for people to sit on during picnics.

The underpinnings of the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe are pure BMW, which owns Rolls-Royce, with an aluminum frame to reduce weight, and a 6.75-liter V-12 engine. The engine produces 453 horsepower and pushes the 5,776-pound car to 60mph in 5.7 seconds. As with everything else in this car, dashboard tech is as good as it gets, with a premium stereo, navigation, and voice command all controlled with subtle and refined switchgear. Like the Phantom, the Drophead includes a split-view camera in front so the driver can see to the left and right of the car when pulling into a blind intersection.

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The long-anticipated introduction of Smart to the United States is at hand, with the Daimler-Chrysler-owned small-car maker showing off its 2008 ForTwo car at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. Although only a two-seater, the ForTwo features 12 cubic feet of cargo capacity. It's only 8 feet 10 inches long and can be parked perpendicular to the curb where other cars have to park parallel. The most powerful model uses a three cylinder engine, which pumps out 84 horsepower, not exactly astounding, but it gets more than 40mpg. Its most interesting power-train tech feature is a five-speed manual transmission with an automated clutch. With this type of transmission, you select the gear and the clutch is engaged automatically, making for quicker gear shifts than with a conventional pedal-controlled clutch.

Smart justifies the original development of the ForTwo with some interesting statistics. The average number of people riding in cars is only 1.2 people. Cars in cities are driven on average 18 miles per day, spending 90 percent of the time parked. Half of urban driving time is spent looking for a parking spot, a stat I can attest to in San Francisco. Smart has contracted with a major dealership network in the U.S. for broad distribution of the cars. Expect to see them in early 2008.

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This blog is all about things we crave, and what could be more craveworthy than the Maybach 62S? It sat there at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, penned off in a small booth all by itself. From the outside, it looks like pure evil, ready to devour unsuspecting motorists in the darkness of desert highways. The inside is a whole different story. It looks like heaven. When I die, I want to be buried there. It's more sumptuous than any pharaonic burial chamber.

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Powered by a 543 horsepower V-12, the regular Maybach 62 is no slouch. But the Maybach 62S, introduced at last year's Beijing Auto Show, uses twin turbochargers to pump the engine up to 604 horsepower, taking it to 62mph in 5.2 seconds. The rear seats offer all the amenities you could want (just let the chauffer drive). The two seats are individually adjustable, with ottomans that fold out from the bottom. Each seat gets its own video screen and foldaway tray table. Few private jets offer passengers this level of comfort.

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Chrysler's Stow 'n Swivel seating

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New versions of the Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Caravan minivans made an appearance at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. Come on, wake up! There really is something interesting about these minivans. Chrysler creates a cozy little breakfast space in the back by adding swiveling capability to its middle-row seats, along with a foldout table. And it really makes these minivans kind of cool road-trip vehicles. While a couple of friends drive and navigate, you and your friends are in back riding limo-style, playing poker and doing shots of tequila. (Make that last one lemonade if you don't want to get busted for an open container.)

The Chevy Volt concept car

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Bad pun, I know, but "Chevy charges forward" would be worse, because the concept Volt is an electric car. Chevy grabbed the front of its new Camaro and grafted on a small sports coupe made of lightweight composite materials developed by GE. GM has been using its Chevrolet brand to push its most futuristic alternative energy ideas, such as the previously announced Fuel Cell Equinox. The Volt seems especially designed to counteract the bashing GM got in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?, as the Volt builds on the technology GM used in its original electric car, the EV1.

While the car looks pretty cool on the outside, with a clear Lexan top stretching down over the hatchback, its underpinnings would make any tech geek drool. The Volt uses what GM calls its E-flex System, a drivetrain using an electric motor to turn the front wheels, getting its power from a bit lithium-ion battery down the center. With that electric drivetrain system, the car can go 40 miles and takes a little more than six hours to charge up.

The underpinnings of the Volt

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So to extend the range, GM adds in a three cylinder, turbocharged 1-liter engine. This engine isn't connected to the wheels, rather, it turns on and runs at a steady speed whenever the battery needs charging. GM says the range with the engine goes up to 640 miles. Now I know some of you are thinking, "Yes! I've been saying for years that instead of hybrids, cars should use engines to generate electricity, like they do in locomotives." Well, I've got some bad news--the Volt is far from reality. GM's press materials point out that a technological breakthrough in battery development must occur to for this concept to work. Currently, there's no Lithium-ion battery big enough to meet the car's requirements.

I don't know enough about battery engineering to figure out why someone just can't build a bigger battery, but I'm sure GM would use it if it existed. But take heart--battery technology, stuck in lead-acid stasis for most of the last century, is being pursued with a vengeance. The big brass ring? Owning a technology that could be used in all the world's automobiles.

Ford's Sync logo

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OK, it's Sync, not *NSYNC, and with its stylish logo it should be free of any associations from the band that made Justin Timberlake famous. Unlike the band, Sync also plays music. Microsoft has been trying to sell automakers on its automotive platform for a while and is really starting to gain ground. Last year at the Geneva Auto Show, Fiat showed off an installation of Microsoft's system, dubbed Blue&Me, in one of its cars. This year the software maker and America's number two automaker announced that a version of Microsoft's automotive platform will be available in 12 Ford Motor Company models next fall. And Ford intends to offer the system in every one of its cars for the 2009 model year.

Sync display in Ford Edge

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I saw Sync demonstrated in a Ford Edge. The Edge wasn't equipped with a navigation LCD--instead, Sync showed its messages on the standard monochrome radio display. When a Bluetooth phone was paired up with the car, Sync downloaded the phone's address book to the car. After that I could click a button on the steering wheel and tell Sync to call any name from the address book. The voice recognition in the system is good enough that it easily recognized my command. A Microsoft employee demonstrated how Sync could use text-to-speech to read text messages sent to a phone. Sync even translates common text abbreviations, such as reading out "Laughing out loud" when it encounters "LOL." However, I was told it wouldn't translate "WTF."

An iPod hooked up to Sync

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Bluetooth phone integration is cool and very useful in this implementation. In fact, Sync's features are better than those of any factory-installed system I've seen so far. And Microsoft claims it works with any Bluetooth phone on the market. But that's not the best part of the system. The Edge I saw the system demonstrated in had a USB port in the center console with an iPod plugged into it. With voice commands, I could say the name of any artist on the iPod's music library, and it would start playing that artist's music. Or I could call out a specific track, or genre, or album. Better yet, with the command "Similar music," Sync would find other songs its algorithms considered similar to the track I was listening to. A voice-command iPod playing through a car stereo is pretty cool, but would Microsoft throw that much support to Apple? No. Sync also works with the Zune and any MP3 player that has the Plays For Sure architecture, like my Creative Zen.

I'm sold. I want it. As I mentioned before, Ford will offer it in 12 models by the end of the year from its Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands. So far I know that the Ford Edge, Focus, and Five Hundred are definite choices. Personally, this system in a Lincoln MKZ (formerly Zephyr) with a THX stereo would make me want to own a Lincoln. The pricing for the Sync option isn't set, but I did hear "cheaper than you would expect" and "three digits." For hardware, the system uses a RISC processor and flash RAM, so I don't see why it should cost too much more than a flash MP3 player, except for the fact that it's a car option.

S550 on ice, with figure skaters

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At the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz demonstrated how its S-class could be used to smooth the ice of a skating rink. Or the company might have been demonstrating the new all-wheel-drive S550. Either way, most of the Mercedes-Benz floor area at the show was covered with ice, along with ice skaters chasing an S550 around the rink. Mercedes-Benz has offered its 4MATIC all-wheel-drive system in a variety of its models and used the Detroit show to announce its availability in the S-class. Mercedes-Benz brags in its press literature that it first developed an all-wheel-drive system in 1907.

The German automaker has been going to extremes to show off its new S-class, previously with the two-level structure it built inside a concert hall for the 2005 Frankfurt Auto Show, where it launched the redesigned S-class. BMW used big ice blocks to unveil its Hydrogen7 car, which might not seem as an impressive a feat as building an ice rink. But BMW has ice blocks at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show, a region where frozen water doesn't naturally occur.