There is no word to describe the intoxicating cologne of leather, car wax, horsepower and wealth that fills the cockpit of a $75,000 Jaguar XK8 . So I made one up: Autodesiac.

That also describes the love song I heard everywhere at the Cincinnati Auto Expo last week: Soft, chirping key chimes, muffled car doors slamming as firm as a salesman's handshake, and muted voices speaking in hushed reverence like funeral home visitors peeking into plush, leather-lined caskets on wheels.

"What is this Masterasti - err, Musterasti - ah, Mashter..."

"That's Maserati," the old guy was corrected. Or, in English, it's a cousin of a Ferrari that is pronounced "$100,000."

Just a short patch of rubber away, a sculpture in racing red revolved slowly on a turntable, all sinuous curves and polished chrome, like a steel anaconda that has eaten a plastic Corvette. It was the star of the show, the new Ford GT, and it drew a crowd of glassy-eyed dreamers who were so enraptured by the poetry of speed they hardly even glanced at the wheels on the spokesmodel. "Five hundred horsepower," she said. "Two hundred miles per hour. Zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds."

And, "$139,000."

Finding a car like that in a Ford showroom would be like finding an F-18 in the sporting goods department at Sears. It just can't be street legal.

"Cops would pull you over just to see what it looks like," a guy behind me mumbled. Yeah. Besides, I already owned a 1959 Ford with pie-plate taillights like that. It didn't come with a standard chrome fire extinguisher like the Ford GT - but there were days when it needed one.

My friends called it the tank, because the front bumper alone weighed two-and-a-half Kias. It couldn't pay the tax on 500 hp. But in a head-on collision, only one Ford would limp away - and it would not be the GT.

Half the fun of a car show is inventing excuses why you don't want what you can't afford.

I sat in an Humvee H1, and felt like running over shopping carts and puny pickups - but the automatic transmission does not even have a "Ram Speed," and there's no ring to pull when you bail out of the driver's door. No thanks.

I sat in a $57,000 Corvette and figured I would have to sell a kidney and one eyeball to China to afford it - and then I would need a knee replacement just to get in and out. Too much surgery.

I admired the "confident face" of the new Ford 500 and learned that its Motel 6 trunk can hold three bodies or eight golf bags, depending on your hobby. But then I'd get stuck driving the Sopranos to the golf course. Nah.

I looked at the 340 hp Dodge RT "don't call it a station wagon" SUV, the Cadillac XLR like a Corvette in a Gordon Gecko power tie, and the Nissan 350Z convertible shaped like an optical illusion, and I had to admit: Cars are much cooler than they were 20 years ago. But the names sound like sizes at the Big and Tall store. How did Barracudas, Cougars and Firebirds turn into medical problems ("He had to have a Touareg removed") or furnace parts ("You need a new Camry, and I have to replace the Element and the Altima")?

And then I hit my head getting out of the Jaguar XK8. There is no word to describe a $75,000 "Doh!"

So I think I'll keep looking. For a '59 Ford.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.