ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 31, 1996 TAG: 9612310133
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: Associated Press
ONCE AGAIN, CAR BUFFS want their rides sleek, sassy and souped-up. But they're no longer willing to pay the price.
Though sports car sales have been in a deep slump for years, the world's automakers are embracing the horsepower-and-testosterone market once again.
Sleek and sexy road rockets from the United States, Japan and Europe dominate the new-model introductions slated for this season's Los Angeles and Detroit auto shows.
They include a redesigned Corvette, the first all-new Porsche in 19 years, a supercharged Mercedes-Benz roadster and a new version of Acura's pricey speed machine, the NSX.
The new models are emerging as some venerable models fall by the wayside, victims of rising prices and a shift in consumer tastes to sport/utility vehicles and sporty pickups. Mazda stopped exporting the rotary-engine RX-7 to North America this year, Nissan ended the Z-car series when it halted production of the 300ZX, and Chrysler stopped importing the Dodge Stealth.
``Sports cars have been doing terribly over the past couple of years,'' said George Peterson, an industry consultant with AutoPacific Inc. in Santa Ana, Calif. ``Everybody was trying to develop best-in-class products. Consequently, they all got too good and too expensive.''
The enduring success of the affordable Mazda Miata and the strong first-year sales of BMW's Z3 roadster have proven there's still money to be made with sports cars if the price and product are right.
Sports car fans in the United States will get their first chance to see and touch the newest entries at this year's Greater Los Angeles Auto Show and Detroit's North American International Auto Show.
Much of the attention will be on Detroit, where the long-delayed redesign of the Chevrolet Corvette - the fifth generation of Chevy's high-performance sports car - will be unveiled.
Chevrolet managed to keep an unusually tight lid on the '97 Corvette until recent weeks, when some details and spy photos emerged as the car went into production at Bowling Green, Ky. The design is ``evolutionary'' rather than revolutionary, with familiar styling cues from past 'Vettes.
Other new models to be unveiled at the two shows include:
*Toyota's Kentucky-made, front-drive 1998 Sienna minivan, based on the Camry chassis, will have its world debut at Detroit.
*Several new sport/utility vehicles will be introduced at Detroit: the midsize '98 Dodge Durango, to be built off the new Dakota pickup platform, and the full-size '98 Lincoln Navigator, an ultra-luxury version of the Ford Expedition. Others: the compact '97 Honda CR-V, which is already a big hit in Japan, and a compact car-based Forester SUV from Subaru for 1998. South Korea's Kia will unveil its '98 Kia Sportage convertible at Los Angeles.
*Oldsmobile's new midsize Intrigue sedan makes its world debut at Los Angeles. The '98 Intrigue, which will replace the Cutlass Supreme in mid-97, takes styling cues from the Olds Aurora and Antares concept car.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB