Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Security guard Ubongen Bragado checks out
the Ferrari 360 Modena yesterday.

Isle auto show
shifts into gear

By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

The Ferrari 360 Modena, with 400 horsepower and a pure aluminum body, can hit 60 mph in 4.5 seconds, but you can catch it sitting still in the window of the Hawaii Convention Center.

The Modena, with its tiny door handles and a rear hatch window peering right at the 3.6-liter V-8 engine, is one of the top attractions of this year's First Hawaiian International Auto Show, which starts tomorrow.

For curious buyers, the Modena goes from $138,000 to $148,000.

The show, held in the past at Blaisdell Center, will bring roughly 200 new cars to the convention center this weekend, some of which won't sell until 2001.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
A worker readies the showroom floor for the three-day
First Hawaiian International Auto Show that begins
tomorrow at the Hawaii Convention Center.

By yesterday afternoon, local crews had moved cars into roughly half the space for the show, which is supposed to take up most of the center's 200,000 square feet.

Other exotic vehicles perched in the center's window fronting Kalakaua Avenue include the Lotus Esprit V-8, Porsche 911 Carrera and the Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster, which lists at $287,500.

The show isn't just for fancy cars, however. Prices range as low as $10,000 for the frugal shopper.

Liberty Productions, based in Pennsylvania, produces the show, while Motor Trend Magazine is the presenter.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
The Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Both are owned by New York-based EMAP USA, a multimedia marketing company. Sponsors include First Hawaiian Bank, the Hawaii Newspaper Agency and the Hawaii Automobile Dealers' Association.

First Hawaiian, which has been involved with the show since 1977, has used it to boost auto loans to 40 percent of its total loans statewide.

"We've been at this for over two decades and you can't help but generate loyalty," says Brandt Farias, the bank's vice president of marketing communications.

Based on past attendance, the three-day auto show should attract at least 30,000 residents, making the public event bigger than the convention center's 1998 open house, which drew 20,000 residents, according to Randy Tanaka, director of sales for the center.

Coordinators have spent months devising a traffic scheme, including three signs on the H-1 and 20 more elsewhere in the city, said Bryan Lilley, Liberty's vice president.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
The Lamborghini Diablo.

Parking will be available at the lower level of Ala Moana Center. Eight parking attendants will valet cars, and 12 police officers will direct traffic, though those ranks could change during the event.

"It's going to be an interesting test to see what happens," says Doug Williams, owner of events producer Douglas Trade Shows Management. "Ala Moana is a bit of a ways from the center."

On the road What: First Hawaiian International Auto Show. Where: Hawaii Convention Center. When: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: Adults $5, senior citizens and military $3, children $2. Web site: www.autoshowusa.com. Visitors can download discount coupons worth $2 off one adult admission. Parking: Ala Moana Center, lower level only.