American cars have European flair at Detroit auto show - by James R.Healey

After three decades of looking to Asia for automotive ideas and integrity, the American market is pirouetting toward Europe for inspiration. The about-face is driven by Europe's almost fanatical emphasis on smaller vehicles powered by smaller engines that emit little yet make big power. The cars often manage also to combine refinement and driving fun.

"Europe is five years — I don't want to say ahead of us, but every car you see" at big European auto shows trumpets low greenhouse-gas emissions, often more boldly than horsepower or price, says John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Moters. But perhaps no company is so committed to a salute to Europe as Ford Motor. For decades at its European headquarters on Henry Ford Street in Cologne, Ford has designed and developed models that have been rated highly by critics, valued by buyers, embraced by driving enthusiasts — and not sold in the U.S.

Ford hopes now to import some of that panache. At December's Los Angeles auto show it displayed the 2011 Fiesta, a subcompact sold in Europe and bound for the U.S. In Detroit Monday, it will unveil the 2012 Focus, due in a year in the U.S. It replaces the current U.S. model with the true "European Focus" driving enthusiasts have craved for years.

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