Chicago Auto Show Tasty Morsels on a Limited Menu

WITH no real rivals in its path, a hot-orange Dodge muscle car smoked the field at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show.

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The show, which opened for press previews on Wednesday and runs through Feb. 17 at McCormick Place, follows prominent events on the international circuit in Frankfurt, Los Angeles and Detroit, filling a lull ahead of next month’s exhibitions in Geneva and New York. Those higher-profile shows gobbled up the season’s major model unveilings, leaving mostly crumbs for Chicago.

That left the showroom version of the Dodge Challenger, a car introduced as a design study in Detroit two years ago, as the center of attention among the Windy City introductions. The 2008 Challenger SRT8, a virtual Xerox of the 1970 original, is powered by a 6.1-liter 425-horsepower Hemi V-8 and should burn from zero to 60 m.p.h. in 4.9 seconds, Chrysler said. It goes on sale in June starting at ,095, including a ,100 gas guzzler tax, and will be followed in the fall by a broader line of V-6 and V-8 models that will be announced at the New York auto show.

Michael J. Accavitti, marketing director of Dodge and the SRT series vehicles, said that while cars such as the Challenger drank their share of fuel, the performance market still had legs.

“It would be naïve to think we could build these for the next 50 years,” Mr. Accavitti said. “But enthusiasts who put great value on the driving experience are willing to pay extra in fuel to get it — that doesn’t make them bad people.”

It was not only sporty coupes that drew from the past. The GMC Denali XT Hybrid Concept ran with the car-meets-pickup theme once offered by the Chevrolet El Camino and the Ford Ranchero. Based on the same rear-drive global platform that underpins the coming Pontiac G8 sedan, the Denali XT combines intimidating styling with a 326-horsepower V-8 and General Motors’ new two-mode hybrid system.

G.M. said it had no plans to produce the Denali XT, but a GMC spokesman, Randy Fox, said car-based trucks might have a future even as sales of traditional compact pickups have evaporated.

Ford’s determination to import some of its global-market successes to the United States could be seen in the debut of the Transit Connect, a space-efficient compact delivery vehicle that is popular in European cities. Sharing the tall and narrow proportions of the Dodge Sprinter commercial van (though it is much smaller than the Sprinter), the gawky Transits will be offered only to commercial customers at first — caterers, florists and the like — beginning in 2009. A Ford spokesman, Alan Hall, said the Turkish-built Transit could eventually be sold to everyone.

Many announcements in Chicago offered little more than cosmetic freshenings, updates that might serve dealers and customers well but didn’t exactly set off show fireworks. Those included 2009 facelifts of the Acura RL and Mitsubishi’s Galant, Eclipse and Eclipse Spyder. Other introductions were for offshoots of existing products: a pickup version of the Hummer H3, to be called — here’s a leap of creativity — the Hummer H3T; and the Chevrolet Traverse crossover, a bowtie-badged sibling of the Buick Enclave and Saturn Outlook.

Journalists and industry analysts gave a cool reception to the Volkswagen Routan, a modified Dodge Caravan minivan that seemed to glisten with flop sweat under the Chicago lights. Unable to bring its acclaimed Microbus concept to production, VW turned to Chrysler for a hand in getting a minivan into its American showrooms.

The partnership was struck during the tenure of Wolfgang Bernhard, the former high-ranking Chrysler executive, during his short run at VW. Chrysler will begin building the Routan at its Ontario minivan plant later this year.

Here are some other significant models shown in Chicago:

HYUNDAI IBLUE CONCEPT The eye-catching iBlue, first shown in Frankfurt last fall, is a hydrogen-powered 2+2 crossover that Hyundai says can travel 375 miles on a tank and top 100 miles an hour. Like recent fuel-cell vehicles from G.M. and Honda, the Hyundai’s fuel cell is packaged neatly under the floor.

HYUNDAI ELANTRA TOURING Now on sale in Europe as the i30 wagon, the Elantra Touring arrives here late this year to compete with five-door hatches like the Mazda 3, Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix.

BMW CONCEPT 1 SERIES TII First shown in Tokyo, this lightened carbon-fiber-laden version of the production coupe draws a bold historical connection between the new 1 Series and its spiritual predecessor, the 2002tii. BMW has no production plans for the 1 Series tii.

SUZUKI EQUATOR Expanding beyond its line of crossovers, Suzuki will add the Equator, a traditional body-on-frame midsize pickup based on the Nissan Frontier. Production will begin later this year at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tenn.

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