(3 of 3)
The Californians do seem inclined (or ordered) to develop cars of a certain general type -- determinedly jaunty, self-consciously American. Having proved themselves unsurpassed at manufacturing and mass-marketing reliable, well- engineered cars, the Japanese seem to have descended on Los Angeles specifically to master the improbable art of creating cars that thrill. The most successful California designs have been tough-but-smart, fun-but- practical Middle American vehicles (Toyota's Previa minivan, Nissan's Pathfinder, Isuzu's Trooper and Amigo) or else sports cars that temper the species' inherent sexiness with a certain grownup decorousness (the Celica, the Miata).
The most interesting, thoughtfully conceived new cars coming out of Southern California may, in the end, owe less to local free-spiritedness than to the simple wisdom of hiring a few talented people and allowing them to work, leaving their problem-solving sessions and reveries undisturbed by the anxious buzz of corporate headquarters.
Many of their fetching schemes -- Toyota's inflatable car; Izuzu's moon-unit Expresso minivan; Michael Ma's Tatanka, a sort of 21st century Beetle -- will prove too impractical, too expensive, too weird. But the great achievement of the new California design colony is that such cars are being imagined and prototypes built. After decades of nothing but uninspired nips and tucks, of corporate blandness, of timid styling, automobile designers are being allowed to design again.