Best of the 2009 / 2010 Auto Show Season
Auto-show season begins in Frankfurt or Paris in September (the two biennial events trade the honor back and forth) and extends all the way through New York in April. In between, we’re at a different show almost every month. In addition to production cars due in showrooms soon and concepts that provide a glimpse of the future, the constant flow of news and information out of these shows gives those of us based in Michigan something to take our minds off the fact that half the state is out of work and the Lions still suck. Below, a look at the most memorable debuts—good and bad—from the 2009–10 auto-show season.
Most Significant Production Debut: 2012 Ford Focus
The Focus to which we now bid adieu was new in 1999 and won a spot on five consecutive 10Best Cars lists before being steadily decontented, hastily reskinned, and starved over the course of the following decade. With smart styling, new underpinnings, premium equipment—a backup camera and a parallel-parking system are on the options list—and a high-tech drivetrain lineup that includes direct-injection fours and a dual-clutch automated-manual transmission, the new Focus is positioned to establish Ford as a small-car leader just in time for CAFE regulations to put artificial emphasis on small cars in the U.S.
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Most Exciting Production Debut: 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia
This might seem like the lazy choice, but we didn’t pick the 458 Italia simply because it’s a mid-engined Ferrari. The technology packed into Maranello’s new volume model is a clear indicator of where the car business in general—and the sports-car business in particular—is headed. The 4.5-liter V-8 revs to 9000 rpm and produces an astronomical 125 hp per liter, the highest-ever specific output for a production piston engine. The dual-clutch seven-speed automated manual is the only transmission offered. There’s no traditional manual, as the gated shifter is on its way out at Ferrari. The winglets mounted in the front fascia deflect at speed to redirect air for changing aerodynamic needs. Perhaps now you can see why we picked the 458—the entire package is incredible. Well, that and the fact that it’s a mid-engined Ferrari.
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Best Concept: Porsche 918 Spyder
Porsche’s surprise concept from the Geneva show combines the 500-hp, 3.4-liter V-8 from the RS spyder prototype racer with a pair of electric motors putting out a combined 218 hp. Porsche says it’ll go 16 miles on electric power alone, but more important, it can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, tops out at 198, and can lap the Nürburgring in a claimed 7 minutes and 30 seconds—quicker even than the Carrera GT supercar. Or drive it easy, and the car can get 78 mpg—also better than the Carrera GT. The best part? Porsche has never shown a concept it didn’t later build, and we don’t expect it to start with this one. Look for a Carrera GT successor with styling and performance strongly influenced by the 918 to appear around 2013.
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“Don’t Do It!” Concept: Mercedes-Benz F800 Style
In the next few years, Mercedes-Benz is going to be releasing a new family of small front-drive cars to replace the current B-class, as well as preparing the next C- and E-class sedans. We hope they won’t look much like the F800, even though it’s said to portend the next generation of Mercedes styling. Really, it appears to have been crashed into a wall in preparation for battle with the most controversial designs from the beginning of BMW’s Bangle debacle. Of course, the F800 is said to support both hybrid and fuel-cell powertrains, and the next generation of M-B safety tech is previewed inside. All we have to say is “don’t do it.” Or at least tone it down.
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Most Fun Concept: Citroën Survolt
Concept cars are a tough business, because automotive enthusiasts are impossible to satisfy. Some critics want concepts that are a realistic depiction of upcoming models; others (or sometimes the same people on a different day) want concepts to be fanciful visions of a future never to be. The limbo-low Survolt is definitely in the latter group, and its unspecified “all-electric powertrain” provides some proof: No powertrain is so easy to package as a fictional one. How we wish this thing were the other kind of concept car.
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“We Wish” Concept: Peugeot SR1
A disciple of the same school of concept-car design as the Citroën, but just realistic enough to make us plead, is the Peugeot SR1. The achingly sexy roadster’s all-wheel-drive hybrid powertrain and oddball two-plus-one seating arrangement aren’t headed for imminent production—sadly, neither is the carbon-fiber hood, with exposed fabric in the center that gradually fades beneath paint toward the edges. However, this one does have a chance of influencing future Peugeot designs. The closer to exactly this, the better.
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Left-Field Award: Chrysler Delta Concept
Actually, there is in fact a third school of concept-car design—a brand-new school, it appears, attended exclusively by Chrysler. In Detroit this year, Chrysler showed a Lancia Delta (Lancia is owned by new Chrysler cohort Fiat) with a Chrysler grille on it. Chrysler representatives could tell us nothing more than “it’s a Lancia Delta with a Chrysler grille on it.” They couldn’t tell us if Chrysler is exploring this as an option for the U.S. or what, if any, insight it might provide into future collaborations between the brands. It was totally out of left field, and now we hope it, like a T-ball tagalong, will go back to left field, sit in the grass, and count the ants.
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Miss Congeniality: Ford Grand C-Max
Not the prettiest, not the most talented, but the one with a personality you just want to hug—that’s the Ford Grand C-Max. Ford’s upcoming seven-passenger compact minivan is, by virtue of being a seven-passenger compact minivan, not a particularly exciting vehicle. But the Grand C-Max manages a measure of style unknown to American minivan customers, a measure that could help the kids who grow up in the second- and third-row seats of this van not to abhor the segment when their own lives as young parents begin. We’ll see soon enough, as this one is headed to the U.S. in late 2011.
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Best No-Brainer: 2011 BMW 740i / 740Li
Fuel economy is the phrase of the day, the phrase of the week, the phrase of the foreseeable future. Whereas BMW now offers a hybrid version of its flagship 7-series, the company also divined a more reasonable way to boost fuel economy than a 455-hp hybrid based on a twin-turbo V-8. It slid its delightful inline six-cylinder beneath the 7’s long nose. Although the beefiest Bimmer sedan also offers twin-turbo V-8 and V-12 mills, the twin-turbo six is our favorite powerplant in the mid-size 5-series, and it should shine just as brightly beneath the elongated bonnet of the 7. Given that the engine and the car already existed, this had to have received the quickest boardroom approval of all time.
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Future-Collectible Award: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon
Know what we love? Wagons. Over the years, there have been a wide range of C/D project cars, and six of those have been hopped-up station wagons—that’s more than all the Corvettes, Pintos, and Mazda RX-2s combined. But none of those holds a candle to what Cadillac’s V performance team hath wrought: the 2011 CTS-V wagon. It’s the wholesome, supercharged, 556-hp CTS-V sedan, now with added wagon goodness. Five-hundred-hp wagon not weird enough? It’ll be available with a manual transmission. As spectacular as this car will likely be, it’s also going to be the Hemi ’Cuda convertible of our time, and it is going to sell in such tiny numbers that it might be the safest long-term investment in the automotive realm. Buy! Buy! Buy!
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Most Ridiculous Brand Extension: Aston Martin Cygnet
For those who don’t know, the Aston Martin Cygnet is a Toyota iQ—base price: low teens—dolled up in Aston Martin duds with its price dolled up commensurately. The idea is that even the most devoted of Aston Martin owners isn’t going to drive the DBS every day, and this gives him or her an appropriately sophisticated way of trundling into crowded cities to stock up on fermented grape juice. The Cygnet will be sold only to current Aston Martin owners, although we wonder if Aston will oversee resale to ensure none slips into the hands of the unwashed masses. Although the idea—an Aston for when you can’t drive the Aston—almost makes sense, where does it end? Aston owners use toothbrushes and wipe their asses, too. Will we get Aston-branded alternatives for those activities as well?
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Best 911: 2011 Ruf 911 RGT-8
All talk of the Cayenne’s profitability aside, let it never be said that the 911 is not the core of Porsche’s business. In the past auto-show season, the company debuted seven variations of its icon—that’s more 911 derivatives than there are models in Kia’s entire U.S. lineup. If you count coupes and cabrios separately, there actually were nine 911s: the Turbo (coupe and cabrio), the Turbo S (coupe and cabrio), the GT3 RS, the GT3 Cup race car, the GT3 R race car, the GT3 R hybrid race car, and the Sport Classic limited edition. But our favorite of them all was the 10th car, the 911 Porsche didn’t unveil: the RGT-8 built by Ruf. A clean-sheet V-8 of Ruf’s own design powers the neun-elf-based RGT-8, making 542 hp and using a flat-plane crankshaft like—Porsche can’t like this—that found in Ferrari’s V-8. Ruf says there’s room for turbochargers, too. We say there’s room in our garage.
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Best Twist on an Existing Car: Bentley Continental Flying Star by Touring Superleggera
Have we mentioned anywhere in the last 22 sentences that we love wagons? No? Well, we do. Although we love the quirky style of a wagon, we’re perhaps crazier about the unabashed functionality of the design. It’s this practical aspect of the medium that makes the Flying Star so much more of a non sequitur—as if people spending upwards of $200,000 on a car could get excited about practicality. Nonetheless, Touring Superleggera arrived in Geneva with a two-door wagon—they’re called “shooting brakes” in Europe—in tow. This one is based on the Bentley Continental GT convertible, of course, and we fell in love all over again. About 20 will be produced.
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Best Illusion: Honda 3R-C Concept
Here, we were looking for something that makes a compelling, but ultimately BS, argument about the motoring future. Devices of this sort—single-passenger electric pills for urban commuting—are becoming more frequent, and the companies hauling them out would have their constituents believing that this is the transportation of tomorrow. They actually are a smart solution to congestion and (local) pollution, and if wholehearted adoption were to take place tomorrow, the change in our transportation landscape would be tremendous. But even in Europe, where mopeds and motorcycles are far more common means of getting around, true personal transport is a small drop in the pond. This very well might be the transport of tomorrow; it just depends on how much longer today is.
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Most Promising Electric Car: Audi E-Tron Concept (Detroit)
If we are to one day whiz about in electric cars, we need great electrical ambassadors to sway our fossil-fueled populace. Audi’s first e-tron concept, shown in Frankfurt, was a stunner to be sure, but its anticipated price in excess of $150,000 will hinder its impact on the market. A smaller, lighter, less complex e-tron debuted in Detroit, one that—if it were built—would most certainly be less expensive. Audi remains open to producing it. We say two heads are always better than one, and the two-pronged e-tron approach can’t fail when both are this stunning to behold.
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Capt. Edward J. Smith “Turn This Ship Around” Memorial Award: Buick Regal GS Concept
Edward J. Smith was at the helm—figuratively speaking; actually, a subordinate had directional control at the time—that cold April night in 1912 when the Titanic sideswiped an iceberg in the Atlantic and sank. This award celebrates what might have happened had Smith had the wherewithal to turn his boat around. Having successfully survived GM’s bankruptcy, Buick needs to thoroughly reinvent itself in the U.S. in order to guarantee its prosperity. Reinvention in this case means attracting younger customers. The new LaCrosse is a decent start, but the smaller and ostensibly sportier Regal—particularly the potential of this turbocharged, all-wheel-drive GS concept displayed at the Detroit show—could bring to Buick showrooms a demographic not usually found there unless chaperoning a wandering grandma.
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Capt. Joe Hazelwood “Full Steam Ahead” Memorial Award: Chrysler
Chrysler takes this honor for, in the words of one staffer, “careening from show to show like a drunken tanker captain.” Joe Hazelwood, after all, was the captain of the Exxon Valdez at the time of its historic accident, and the early allegation—of which he was acquitted—was that he had been drunk when his ship beached itself on a reef.
Chrysler, for its part, didn’t seem to be able to find the light switch on its very dark stand at the home opener L.A. show in December. Then, at the Detroit show, it turned on the lights but should have turned them off in the department that invented the cockamamie new naming convention for Dodge trim levels. Now average Joes (even Hazelwoods) can purchase a Journey Uptown—take your Journey Uptown on a journey uptown, although a trip downtown might confuse the nav system—or maybe a Caliber Mainstreet or Uptown. Dodge SUV buyers can get into a Nitro Detonator or Nitro Shock, not to be confused with electroshock, a therapeutic method that might have prevented the naming debacle in the first place. Or the product planners could instead be subjected to endless Christina Aguilera performances, which the automaker can probably nab at a cut rate after collaborating with the singer on the Chrysler 300 Eco Style Christina Aguilera Edition shown in Geneva on a split stand shared with Italian marque Lancia. Say what? Full steam ahead, Cap’n.
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