It's hard to spot amid the glitz and immaculately groomed display halls at the Los Angeles Auto Show, but an economic and environmental conscience at least wafts through the air as carmakers set their sights on this year and beyond.

Subcompacts are coming back, said Auto Show spokesman Barry Toepke. Sport utility vehicles are getting smaller and more fuel-efficient, many destined for that relatively new label: crossovers.

There's some focus on alternative fuels, such as gas-electric hybrids and others. The show's 2006 Design Challenge Award went to the GMC Pad, a diesel-electric hybrid billed as a loft on wheels that also has an onboard energy grid and cells that collect and store the sun's energy for conversion to electricity.

Of course, L.A. being L.A., folks still know how to trot out luxury and put the show into a show.

It's why Mercedes-Benz had string players on hand and a female acrobat climb a red velvet-lined rope in a gray Catwoman-like body suit as it unveiled its latest S-Class series. It's why General Motors trotted out "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno for some one-liners about its product lines, including the Camaro Z06 that will be the pace car (with Leno at the wheel) at next month's Daytona 500 auto race. And let's face it, an orange-and-black Lamborghini is a dazzling sight.

"There's still a market for super-exotic cars," Toepke said.

But even some of the ritziness had more practical overtones, or at least signs that tight budgets, high gas prices and environmental concerns have sunk in to some degree.

Take the Volkswagen GX3, which owes its life in part to a VW design center in Simi Valley, as an example. It's a concept car, or some odd cross between a sports car and a motorcycle. It has three wheels, no windshields, roll bars above you and 125 horsepower at a smidge more than 1,250 pounds. Its sleek, low-slung design drew gawkers galore at the show.

"It's a pure California concept," Volkswagen spokesman Tony Fouladpour said. "In this marketplace, with as many great cars as there are here, it's important that our brand play up its styling: more affordable, German-engineered cars. We aren't going to be the fastest and most luxurious, but we are going to be different."

The GX3 gets 46 miles per gallon and an estimated starting price under $17,000, but even Fouladpour conceded that the GX3 is too out of the ordinary for some.

He was standing next to VW's newest GTI, a two-door with a hatch that prices at about $22,000. A bit sporty, a bit family-ish, VW is "bringing this one to the masses," Fouladpour said. In about six months, he added, VW is going to offer a five-door (including the hatch) version of it, visualizing parents with small children needing those extra doors.

The mix was palpable in many of the Los Angeles Convention Center's cavernous halls, even over at BMW, which has a design studio in Newbury Park. Though it sported its usual array of sports cars and convertibles that can clip 60 mph in less than six seconds -- some of which also topped six figures -- BMW also showed off a sports wagon.

Ditto at Volvo, which had hatchbacks and SUVs in its litter. John Kinsey, a senior designer at Volvo's Monitoring and Concept Center in Camarillo, touted his new C70 convertible, a $38,000-plus beauty that he called the first true four-seat retractable hardtop.

Kinsey spoke directly in front of a large Volvo display board that promoted "green driving" and informed motorists that they can cut fuel consumption by 15 percent through such means as accelerating to half throttle, driving in the highest gear possible, avoiding idling, removing rooftop carriers when not in use and emptying trunks.

Smaller, lighter, use less fuel. And, Kinsey noted as he scanned across his "lot" and others, "There's lots of crossovers."

Those would be SUVs that still pack cargo space but are smaller, more fuel-efficient and look and handle more like cars. If some of that move is being driven by gas prices, some of it is also because of complaints that larger SUVs were too truck-like and bulky.

Toepke, noting a decline in sales of trucks and large SUVs, believes that crossover sales eventually will overtake SUVs.

There's some stab at cleaner-burning vehicles as well; witness the GM Sequel and the Honda FCX, both of which run on hydrogen fuel cells. BMW reps said the maker is looking into both hydrogen vehicles and hybrids. Today's diesel, Toepke said, no longer deserves its dirty, smoke-billowing image.

Still, automakers have a ways to go before they convince critics and skeptics who question whether they are truly serious about that. In the basement of one of the halls, Alex Campbell of ZAP Electric Car is one of them. ZAP stands for zero air pollution, and Campbell thinks big U.S. makers have tuned out alternative vehicles.

"Consumers clearly want cleaner cars," said Campbell, communications director for Santa Rosa-based ZAP. "They don't want to go to war over oil."

The company plans to offer test drives of its all-electric ZAP Zebra later this year. Campbell, who claimed the company has the only electric car that can go faster than 25 mph, thinks it will price at less than $9,000. Not all the marketing numbers are great so far, he conceded. To that end, ZAP also is looking at a tiny, all-gas "SMART" car that gets 60 miles to the gallon.

Toepke noted the debut of the 2007 Toyota Yaris, which replaces the Echo in that maker's small lineup. U.S. makers, he said, have largely "abandoned" the subcompact market to other manufacturers, a point also noted by industry analysts. However, GM spotlighted its Chevy Aveo subcompact at the show.

GM also had the star power of Leno, who drove in at the wheel of the Camaro Z06. He popped out and said, "How come they can drive it at 150 at Daytona, but they can't let me drive it up the ramp at 20?"

Leno, a well-known aficionado-collector of both motorcycles and cars, noted the Camaro gets 20 miles to the gallon.

Mark LaNeve, a GM vice president, announced a company initiative to look into ethanol, a corn-and-grain-based fuel source, citing a state project to have Caltrans' fleets run on it.

"So," Leno interjected, "you're driving along in your Saab, and you pull off to the side of the road and stick a couple of ears of corn in there?"

It was so L.A. Perhaps only in L.A. do luxury and economy co-exist so snugly. Over at Mercedes-Benz, the maker introduced its latest Maybach luxury machine that sells for $369,750. "If you say it fast," Communications Director Geoff Day cracked, "it doesn't sound so bad."

In Southern California, with its diverse population, makers have little choice but to offer both the grand and the more grounded.

Said Kinsey, the Volvo designer who lives in Ventura: "It's a real car culture here. It's where hot rodding started; it's where the aircraft industry took off. Southern California is unique. People keep their cars clean here. They are very, very serious about their cars."

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