For all the talk of a subdued Detroit show, with automakers dispensing with flash and playing soberly to Washington, it was refreshing to see at least one manufacturer pay brave tribute to the auto show’s glitzier heritage.

The event was Monday’s Lamborghini fashion show, compete with many of the standard fashion-show trappings: thumping techno, gaggled photographers and of course models, in this case sporting clothing and accessories from the Lamborghini Arti Marca winter collection.

The four models, dressed in racing-style jackets, cargo pants and tan boots (Lamborghini makes boots!) gave it a game effort. They swung their hips — the women did, at least — and emitted professional pouts to the cameras’ collective pan, all while deftly vamping around and between the three Lamborghinis on display. (For those sticks-in-the-mud who believe a car show is about cars, there were a blue Murcielago LP 640 coupe; a white Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder; and a blue Gallardo LP 560-4 coupe, all painted in matte colors.)

But after little more than five minutes it was over; the music went silent and the models disappeared behind a black curtain. And we were still in Detroit, not Milan or Paris, in the midst of a deep recession.

As the cameras dispersed and the reporters drifted away to cover the next electric-vehicle intro, only a distressing thought remained: If fashion models can’t save us, who can?