Imagine the streets of New York cleared of traffic just for you. Driving in your dream car – a Maserati GranSport perhaps? – you zoom downtown, uptown, through the park, without any lights or taxi cab honks.

This was just one of the fantasies being played out in the minds of guests Wednesday night at the preview of the New York International Auto Show, which opens to the public today and runs through April 3.

New Yorkers, after all, are a car-deprived bunch. Some, such as Hope Litoff, don’t have licenses. “So when I look at the cars in the show, I sit in the backseat,” Ms. Litoff explained. Asked what kind of car she drives, Martha Bograd said, “I’m driven – hopefully, in a BMW or Mercedes.”

Even those with cars don’t often have cause to use them. “I drive in the summer, once a week, when we go out to Long Island,” Chappy Morris, who resides on Park Avenue and has a house in Sagaponack, said. Mr. Morris drives an Audi that he first spotted at last year’s preview.

Some New Yorkers hope to send a message with their vehicles. While a student at the University of Michigan, Jeremy Abelson drove an electrically powered golf cart. “I drove it around campus as a political statement,” Mr. Abelson said. An interest in environmentally friendly transportation runs in the family. “My family has a fleet of hybrid cars,” Mr. Abelson said.

Some guests at the preview bring automobiles home. The appropriately named Dayton Carr won a Volvo S80 in 2001. This year, Brad Michaelson won a Maserati GranSport.

There are no cars in the near future of recently married couple Fabian Basabe and Martina Borgomanero. Neither has a license.

“We cab it,” Ms. Borgomanero said.

Mr. Basabe has some great memories from the days when he did have a license. “I drove an Aston Martin in the Gumball 3000 – we went from Paris to Cannes,” he said.

The main action of the party took place in the North Concourse of the Javits Center. Attractions included acrobats dangling from the ceiling and several Italian sports cars. Every few minutes, the crowd got excited when an official tucked himself into one of the cars and started the engine. But the cars didn’t go anywhere. Guests were meant to appreciate the loud sound of the engine revving.

As for the actual auto show – on two floors adjoining the concourse – demonstrators and security guards standing near the Hummers, Audis, and Saabs outnumbered guests. The bar and Valentino-clad ladies back on the concourse evidently had more allure.

Car lovers or not, 1,600 guests supported a good cause by buying tickets to the event, which cost $150 for cocktails and $1,000 to sit for dinner. East Side House Settlement, a social-service agency operating in the South Bronx, raised nearly $1 million for college-preparatory programs and scholarships.

Designated drivers of the evening (otherwise known as event chairmen and committee members) included Michael Moreno, Philip Yang, and Joan Young, all board members of East Side House Settlement; Jon Ylvisaker and Eleanor Lembo (a couple that would most likely drive a Volvo), and Melissa Berkelhammer, Harrison LeFrak, Mary and Ian Snow, and Jessica Zaganczyk.