What do you say when no-shows show up the Detroit Auto Show?

Well... hopefully it'll be something less obsessively alliterative than that.

Even still, it's a pretty big deal when the century-old North American International Auto Show throws its annual shindig in Motor City and and it's stiffed by so many top car companies - Nissan, Mitsubishi, Rolls-Royce, Land Rover, Ferrari, and Suzuki. Porsche has been MIA for the past couple of years.

A run-down of that list tells us that some of these brands don't exactly crank out economy models. With the economic downturn, it could be well-heeled buyers are passing on Rolls and Ferrari this year and opting for that no-frills Prius line, so budget cutbacks are in order. Certainly, Mitsubishi and Nissan have taken it on the nose with Japan's helping of the meltdown; Nissan has had other trouble, with some bad automotive media reviews dicing up recent models.

But since we live in such a fussy, postmodern era - compelled constantly to apply literary conceits to the real world - it's tempting to see the Detroit show as (what's that word?) symbolic of our deteriorating status globally.

Maybe we're not Big League, anymore. Maybe top-flight prestige has migrated to nibble at clever cocktail condiment skewers in some other VIP lounge in some other power hub. Overnight, our financial and foreign-policy missteps - our gargantuan appetites - have rendered us third-rate. Low-grade. Budgie.

You can bet some of these cars will appear at other shows. Ferrari wowed the Paris Auto Show in October with a new model, ironically named the California. Oh, they're making some of the parties, but this year it seems it's American Judy's Turn to Cry.

OK... this country is known more for pioneering the auto industry rather than cooking up innovative car design. That ribbon must go to the Italians, with the engineering prize shared by Germany and Japan.

But we also invented Car Culture. See the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet. Have you driven a Ford lately? Little Deuce Coupe. Lost highway. Drivin' all night just to see my baby! Smash-up on 101.

ED "BIG DADDY" ROTH, dammit! 

And how about pioneering all that ancillary trade: motels, drive-in burger restaurants, toll roads, parking meters, snow chains and ski racks. In my day, the term "drive-in movie" described not only the location in which a film was viewed, but an entire genre of B-budget sexploitation gems like "Chain-Gang Women" and "Hell's Angels on Wheels".

Seeing these movies out of a car, in an art-deco movie palace would be an... unholy, devil-bastard child. An atrocity. I'm gagging NOW!

But back to my car-crash metaphor for the country, in general: Where do we go from here? Pay out tax money to save a crucial American industry? Rebuild that industry to make alternative-fuel, "green" cars. Continue to counterintuitively name cars Triangle? Cressida? "Hey, dad, I got a big date tonite! Can I borrow the Probe?"

And who'll clean up our oil spots?