What to Call the Auto Bailout? AARGH!

AARGH.

As Congress and the new Obama administration prepare to put their stamp on the Detroit bailout, any new law they pass will need a proper acronym. How about AARGH? As in the American Automotive Restructuring Guarantee of Help.

Evidence of Detroit's anguish, and of the entire auto industry's pain, was evident from the moment one walked into the car show's Cobo Hall home Sunday. There was only one coat-check area instead of the usual two or three; attendance is down for the press preview week.

A Chinese car company, BYD, got A-team exhibit space on the show's main floor to show off its new plug-in hybrid car, the F3DM, which went on sale in China a few weeks ago and will come to the U.S. in 2011.

In years past, the Chinese would have been sequestered to a hallway, or assigned display space in the outback of the show's lower level. But this year most companies reduced the number of cars put on display -- and Nissan withdrew entirely -- so the exhibit floor has a strangely sparse, half-empty feeling.

There's so much spare space on the lower level that the show set up a mini indoor test track to let people take hybrid cars for a spin, at low speeds.

Among journalists, Ford got good marks for its press conference that featured the new Taurus and the new Fusion hybrid sedan. "No apologies, no excuses, no compromises," Ford C.E.O. Alan Mulally said about the company's recovery plan.

Ford is the only Detroit car company that hasn't gone on the government dole, and finance chief Lewis Booth says he hopes Ford won't need any.

"We genuinely don't know," Booth said, "but if an economic recovery starts in the second half, we could get by without it."

by Paul Ingrassia

Photograph of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss gull-wing car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images.