Change Agent; IS HENRIK FISKER a living bridge between traditional car-business thought and new-age technology? He's betting on it.(NEWS)(Company overview)

Byline: KEVIN A. WILSON

IN AN UNDERUSED OFFICE park about 30 miles north of where Detroit's North American International Auto Show takes place, a few dozen engineerslaptops and BlackBerry phones plinking and pinginggather around a table in a sparsely furnished conference room. On the walls hang old-fashioned 2-D printouts of a car in cross-section, the object of their deliberations. Among the crisp black lines, someone has sketched unsteady squiggles of blue ink indicating where a bit of hardware can fit into the package. In six weeks, the car is to appear at the show. In a year, it's supposed to be in showrooms. This is, to say the least, an intensely focused group.

Things are so intense that the engineers barely look up when Henrik Fisker and Thomas Fritz walk into the room. Formerly a designer at BMW and Ford's Premier Automotive Group (see sidebar), Fisker is the CEO of the small, California-centered company, Fisker Automotive, planning the radically different car in those drawings. Fritz is the company's chief engineer.

Were the CEO of any major automakersay, Ford's Alan Mulally or Nissan/Renault's Carlos Ghosnto walk into such a room, there would be at least a pause, someone assigned to do a little bowing and scraping, every ear tuned to the big guy's remarks to the journalist in tow. Not here. In part, that's a cultural distinction between any small start-up and the enormous global enterprises that dominate the auto industry. But it's also because most of the people in this room don't report to Fisker Automotive. They work for consultancies and suppliers to which Fisker has outsourced the work. This is an American car company, but "manufacturer would be a misnomerthe business model is different.

When these engineers go back to their home officesjust across town in Detroit; in Irvine, Calif.; in Vancouver, British Columbia; in Finland; in Germanythey'll still work together. The car exists in modern 3-D computer renderings, networked to allow for collaboration among those charged with creating all of its varied bits and pieces and ensuring that they come together as a single whole. This engineering office was established just a few weeks ago, and though desks are laid out in pods nearby, there are no computers yet. The work is urgent, the deadlines tight, and the ink-on-paper rendition suits their purposes.

There isn't even a coffee pot in the building, so someone has to make a Dunkin' Donuts run to fetch a box of magic black elixir. Along the way, they'll pass Fiero Lanes, a bowling alley named for the Pontiac sports/commuter car built in a plant up the road, a car and a plant now 20 years dead.

It is early December, and a cold wind blows across the drying bones of old Detroit, the abandoned factories and vacant storefronts, the "For Lease signs on buildings where family-owned machine shops once designed and built the hardware that made the factories run.