The Frankfurt Motor Show is on again. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes because the Frankfurt Motor Show is like a small city unto itself. I’m quite sure it’s bigger than the central business district here in Hobart.
When I visited Frankfurt, in 2009, there were nine display halls. Each hall was massive. Some contain multiple brands but some were ‘owned’ by single carmaking groups. Mercedes Benz had their own hall. Volkswagen group had their own hall, except it didn’t include Audi, which had another pavilion all to itself. BMW had its own hall.
Jalopnik has a good article that provides some perspective as to the sheer size of these halls and you can imagine for yourself the amount of money that manufacturers spend on them. Rumour had it that Mercedes spent in the order of 30million EUR and that was back in 2009. Who knows how much Audi spent building an inverted city inside theirs, complete with mirrored ceiling.
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To the cars from Frankfurt, then…..
Autoblog do a good listing of the stuff they cover. I have to say that in looking through it, I haven’t been particularly inspired. Maybe I’m going off new cars all together.
Things that interested me (sort of, for both good and bad reasons), include the following:
Has there ever been a more dull looking 300hp hot hatch? The VW Golf R.
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Anything to do with the Mercedes AMG CLA45 is interesting. This is a racing version.
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I think I’ll mark this down as THE most interesting car at Frankfurt (for me). The new BMW i8. This is no longer a concept, which is what makes it so fascinating. This is a real-deal production car capable of a sub 4.5 second sprint with 94mpg economy in day-to-day driving.
I don’t know why but I find this much more interesting than a Tesla.
Here’s one in something other than car-show-white
And check out the launch video, with the car in black:
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1963 must have been a good year.
It’s the Porsche 911’s 50th birthday. It’s the Lancia Fulvia’s 50th birthday. It’s also the Abarth 595’s 50th birthday, so Fiat are celebrating at Frankfurt with an Anniversary edition of their popular retro-baby.
This Anniversary edition gets more grunt, special transmission, custom wheels, bigger brakes, an enhanced soundtrack and improved trim.
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I’m still trying to get my head around this Volvo Coupe concept. It seems so wrong but somehow also feels quite right.
Volvo – stop messing with my head!!!
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There is no conflict with the Porsche 918 Spyder. This is pure beauty mixed with absolute, uncompromising technical brutality.
And yes, I’ll also post the video of it setting a new production car lap record of The Ring.
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I’ve seen a lot of people get excited about this Jaguar crossover thing. It’s called the Jaguar C-X17 and I’m not excited.
Another big luxury SUV. I’m sure it will ride beautifully and cosset its occupants in the utmost comfort. But does the world need another luxury carmaker tapping the crossover market? Really?
Big deal.
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Non-Frankfurt……
Lambo beauty
We did a number of polls earlier about the most iconic cars from various countries. The one significant car country we didn’t cover was Italy. The reason: too intimidating. There are simply too many beautiful Italian cars to cope with. It’d blow up my poll software. My mind would melt. You just can’t assemble that much automotive beauty in one place without a permit and a hazmat suit.
The Lamborghini Miura is a case in point. This video takes a little while to get going and doesn’t reach the heights that it could, but it’s still pretty darn good. It tells the story of a guy who had one 40 years ago as a rich young Playboy, and the guy who became one of Lamborghini’s greatest test drivers.
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Ferrari Insanity
This video has done the rounds of the web all week. If you haven’t seen it yet, set aside 20 minutes and watch it now.
This is Chris Harris from /Drive wringing the necks of both the Ferrari F40 and F50. Both the video and the cars are amazing in every way.
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Nuts
A wonderful article from Hemmings observing first-hand the madness of the typical classic car owner.
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Volvo P1800
“What’s it like to own a $10,000 car? Find out for $3,995.”
Fantastic brochure and advertising images for the Volvo P1800.
Short. Worth a read.
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