Press days at the Detroit Auto Show are now done and dusted. I didn’t follow things in detail but there were a few standout cars and announcements that made enough noise to be heard over the miles.
All pics borrowed from Autoblog. I’ll put them back when I’m done. Promise.
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Buick Avenir Concept
OMG! Swade’s mentioning a GM vehicle and he’s not suggesting it looks like a horse’s ass!!
No, it doesn’t. Some might even call it attractive. Or maybe just handsome.
I’m not fussed. I just wanted to mention the Buick Avenir Concept because much of the design work was done here in Australia. That’s more important than you think, too, because Holden are closing their manufacturing operations here soon, so every bit of work available to keep the designers and engineers busy is a good thing.
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Ford GT40
Ford won this year’s Detroit show with the GT40. Hands down. It was the biggest announcement and it’s one of the best looking cars unveiled this week.
And the guy who designed it is a Tasmanian, or so I hear. Woohoo!
It has bucketfulls of carbonfibre and aluminium, and a stonking V6 Ecopower engine that makes more than 600hp. Imagine that – a smaller turbocharged engine being used where a big engine used to be. Genius!
It don’t look ‘alf bad, either. AND…. they’re actually going to build it!
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Ford Mustang 350R Shelby Cobra Pony Bullet Eleanor Concept
Like many, I was a little worried about the new Mustang styling. Worry no more. Like most re-designs, it grows on you and this souped up, stripped out version with 500+hp looks the goods.
Notable: carbonfibre wheels are coming to the masses.
I like the fact Ford is doing their show cars in blue. It suits.
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Jaguar and Bentley
Jaguar announced the name of their upcoming crossover vehicle – the F-Pace. No, really. Po-Face will be available in 2016.
Not to be outdone when it comes to stupid naming, Bentley also announced the name of their upcoming crossover. It will be called the Bentley Bentayga. No, really. It wasn’t because they lost a bet with Rolls Royce or anything like that. They’re doing this voluntarily.
Back to Jaguar news, they’re also working on electric windows that will move up or down when you touch a certain spot on the glass. They’ve got it to go down OK, but it’s tough to get back up when the touchscreen area is hidden in the door.
Again, not to be outdone, Bentley are designing an automatic window system using cameras pointed at all four seating positions. The windows will raise themselves automatically as soon as the car detects an occupant sneering at a poor person.
Sadly, only three of those four stories are true.
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Chevrolet Bolt
Chevy showed their new fully electric vehicle – the Chevrolet Bolt – which they haven’t committed to building yet and therefore when they don’t, will not have a range of 200 miles and will not cost around $30,000. A true non-gamechanger in the finest GM tradition.
- the Chevy Jolt, a joint-marketing exercise that runs purely on Starbucks coffee.
- the Chevy Halt, which will not go anywhere at all.
- the Chevy Solt, a seasoning-based car for the phonetic driver, and
- the Chevy Dolt, marking the return of Bob Lutz to the GM family at the age of 106.
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Alfa Romeo 4C Spider
It looks good in Giallo, but will look even better in Rosso. Step 2 of Alfa’s re-launch into the US market comes in the form of a sexy Spider that weighs just 9 kilos more than the hardtop it’s based upon.
Thank goodness they got rid of those insect-lights at the front.
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Volvo XC90 R-Design
I hadn’t noticed before, but Volvo are bringing back the brick.
Massive.
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What did you like?
That’s my take from Detroit. I’ll add a dishonourable mention to the Mercedes ripoff of the BMW X6, which has to be the most un-ripoff-worthy vehicle of all time.
Did you see anything you liked, or disliked?
Comments are open if you’d like to share.