Detroit may be collapsing, but Los Angeles’ car show must go on.

But there were thrills to be had.

Nissan, which was—depending on how you look at it—fortunately or unfortunately located adjacent to GM's moribund booths, continued to promote itself as the coolest of the Asian imports. Its CEO, Carlos Ghosn, delivered a cautionary keynote address to the media, but the carmaker brought its GT-R supercar to Los Angeles and showed off its new 370Z sports coupe, as well as its lovable, soft-edged Cube van-wagon. Elsewhere, vast crowds pressed against one another to drink in the Ferrari California, a sub-$200,000 "entry level" exotic from the Prancing Stallion. (Pointedly, neither carmaker will be making the trip to Detroit.)

As depressing as it is to look at a row of GMC pickups or at Chrysler's awkwardly retro muscle cars, there was considerable pleasure eyeballing the Hyundai Genesis luxury sedan, the Korean automaker's assault on Mercedes and BMW, and in checking out the all-white lineup of cars that Audi brought to Los Angeles. Jaguar and Land Rover, both sold earlier this year by Ford to India's Tata Motors, were side-by-side on the show floor, symbolizing a new era of luxury branding in the go-go realm of post-colonial carmaking.

And of course there is no recessionary gloom that Ferrari can't cut through, even though some critics complained that the new California is—ahem—ugly. But it didn't matter. The car is red, it's very fast, and for the L.A. Auto Show anyway, it had the right name and evoked the correct Hollywood flavor of sunny optimism. In at least one small yet extremely flashy corner of the car business, all was right with the world.

(A Spyker C8 Aileron sports car is shown during the Los Angeles Auto Show photo by David McNew/Getty Images)