Motor shows

Glorious Goodwood is better than ever

Chas Hallett — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:08:19 GMT

You join me live from the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

With the sun baking down and surrounded by the world’s best supercars, some of the latest concepts and the pick of competition cars from the past 50 years there really is no place that I’d rather be. It’s petrolhead heaven.

The F o S goes from strength to strength. I’ve been coming here for the last decade and every passing year it seems to get that little bit better, that little bit busier and that little bit better supported by car makers and motorsport teams.

So one thing occurs to me. Let’s not worry too much about the demise of the London motor show. We’ve already got a motor show that’s the envy of the motoring world and it takes place in West Sussex once a year.

Technorati Tags: Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood's 2009 highlights

Mark Tisshaw — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:30:00 GMT

Tomorrow marks the first day of the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed and from what we’ve seen and heard so far, it’s going to be the best one yet.

Whether you’re a fan of classic cars, supercars, concept cars, Le Mans cars, F1 cars or rally cars, you’re not going to be disappointed. But what can you expect to see on Lord March’s estate this weekend?

First up, rally cars. The all conquering five-time WRC champion Sebastian Loeb will be making his first appearance at the show. Loeb will be demonstrating his Citroen C4 WRC car at regular intervals on the 3km gravel Forest Rally Stage. His team mate Daniel Sordo will also be appearing.

Britain’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge star Kris Meeke will also be taking to the gravel in his Peugeot 207 contender. Meeke has been lined up to do a few runs in Colin McRae’s Mk2 Ford Escort as a tribute to the ex-world champion.

F1 fans won’t be feeling left out either. Six current F1 teams are scheduled to appear – Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Red Bull, Brawn and Toyota – while British drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, as well as Mark Webber, Timo Glock, Marc Gene and Pedro de la Rosa, will be making an attendance.

Past masters are also likely to be giving a few demonstrations to the 150,000 strong crowd include Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Sir Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart and John Surtees among the 120 plus star drivers scheduled to appear.

If you like nosing at what cars you’ll be driving down to Goodwood yourself in in ten years then there will be more than enough concept cars to keep you interested. The highlight has to be the Citroen GT concept supercar, while other head turners will include the Infiniti Essence and Renault’s new electric concept fleet.

Supercar fans are in for a treat, too. Ferrari will be showing off a trio of its new contenders – the 599 GTB HGTE, California and Scuderia Spider 16M – while the new Lotus Evora and a Goodwood special lime green Jaguar XKR will keep British fans happy. We'll also get a sneak preview of the Lexus LF-A supercar for the first time in the UK.

More exotic metal on show includes the Tramontana, Spyker C8 Airleron and Stile Bertone Mantide, while the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S is sure to have you reaching for your earplugs.

There’s going to be a celebratory feel about Goodwood this year as Audi celebrates its 100th anniversary and Sir Frank Williams’ four decades in F1 I commemorated. Be sure to check out the 35-metre high Audi monument, which features a new R8 V10. A selection of Williams F1 cars, including the FW07 and FW29, will also be running up the hill at various points throughout the weekend.

Goodwood seems so vast this year that it’s almost impossible to list just everything to see or do. Everyone is going to have their own personal highlights from the festival to take away and Autocar is going to be right there to capture all the very best bits.

There will be a report and picture gallery online on Monday, with a full report set to follow in the magazine on Wednesday. Stay tuned to Autocar.co.uk throughout the weekend for regular blogs, news, pictures and videos from Lord March’s estate.

Technorati Tags: Goodwood Festival of Speed, Ferrari, F1, Citroen GT, Jaguar XKR, Le Mans, WRC, Lotus Evora,

Getting excited about Goodwood

Mark Tisshaw — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:35:07 GMT

Next weekend, I’ll be making my first ever trip to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This is a pretty poor admission for any car enthusiast to make and sadly I can’t come up with a justifiable reason why I have never made the trip down to Lord March’s estate.

When my tickets arrived today, I found myself getting rather excited. Having only ever seen pictures of the festival in magazines, and clips on the TV, I always thought it looked too good to be true.

But, having looked at the map of what there is to see and do at the festival, I’m pretty sure it will be every bit as good as it looks. Where else could you possibly see supercars, concept cars, F1 cars and rally cars all in the same place, most of them running at full whack up the hill?

My first port of call is going to be the Formula One Paddock. I didn’t make a trip to Silverstone this year so the chance to get up close and personal with the class of 2009 is an opportunity not to be missed.

The Sunday Times Supercar Paddock is also pretty high on my to-do list. As a Ferrari fan, I’m particularly interested in having a poke around the Ferrari California and Ferrari 599 GTB HGTE.

And, as you may have read the other day, I’m also rather keen on the GTbyCITROEN concept supercar. I’ve seen a lot of pictures, and read all the stats, but the chance to see this thing shifting up the hill and listen to the noise it makes will be intriguing.

There are also going to be a few other gems that will be appearing that may slip under your radar. The Vauxhall Insignia VXR will be taking part in the hillclimb, too. This is another car that I’m sure will make a big impression, not just for the way it looks but probably the way it sounds as well.

And then there’s the Forest Rally Stage. It’s going to be a good opportunity to get up close with our own Intercontinental Rally Challenge championship leader Kris Meeke and his Peugeot 207. I’m sure there will be plenty of other legends hovering around the rally stage there too, so the long walk up the hill should be well worth the effort.

Hopefully I’ll see one or two of our Autocar readers there, too. If you see me wandering around like an excited schoolchild, be sure to snap me out of it and point me in the direction of the nearest supercar.

There seems so much to see and do that I might struggle to see everything in one day. Does anyone have any suggestions for where to go and what to see for a first time Goodwood goer?

Technorati Tags: Goodwood Festival of Speed, Goodwood, Kris Meeke, IRC, Ferrari, F1, Formula One

China's brand-new problem

Matt Rigby — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:03:00 GMT

If the 2009 Shanghai motor show has proved one thing, it’s that it’s time to take the Chinese car industry seriously.

The products are now almost uniformly convincing, the reliance on joint-venture products and hand-me-down platforms is dwindling ever more rapidly, and copycat designs are no longer commonplace. There’s only one remaining stumbling block to Chinese companies becoming serious global players, and that’s branding.

It’s understandable, to an extent, that western eyes and ears are going to be troubled by such an alien language and culture, but the Chinese makers will have to deal with this obstacle if they are to become serious forces outside of their domestic market.

JAC, for instance, showed a very credible Mondeo-sized saloon, but it, as far as we can make out, is called the JAC HFC7240. However you spin it, this is not a catchy name. And although the Great Wall Coolbear (pictured above) seems like a genuinely with-it rival to the Scion xB or Nissan Cube, that name sounds more like a 1970s soul singer than a youth-oriented MPV.

Read Steve Cropley's full Shanghai show report

Still, there were definite signs at Shanghai that the Chinese industry is sorting its branding issues. Both Chery and Geely, two of the most internationally minded Chinese car companies, chose Shanghai to launch a range of sub-brands. Chery launched the Karry, Riich and Rely names, while Geely gave us Gleagle, Emgrand and Englon.

They might not trip off the tongue, but these names show that the Chinese are thinking hard about all-important market positioning.

Pronunciation problems may prove a little more difficult to overcome, however. Karry is pronounced Kai-rui, Riich comes out as Rui-qi, while Rely, rather astonishingly, becomes Wei-lin. Just shows the branding tightrope any Chinese company wanting to export to world market is going to have to walk: how do you stay Chinese, while making sense to a western audience?

There is an amusing by-product of the pronunciation problem: SAIC’s choice of Roewe as the replacement for the Rover badge. That, ironically, should be pronounced ‘wrong way’.

Technorati Tags: Shanghai motor show, Geely, Chery, Great Wall Coolbear, JAC

China by numbers

Chas Hallett — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:01:00 GMT

Here in Shanghai I've been discussing the Chinese market with lots of people and no matter how many times you hear them it's impossible not to be overawed by the numbers.

Here's just a few. There's a good chance that there will be ten million cars sold here this year. That means the market's quadrupled in eight years and it will end up being bigger than the US market this year. And it's likely to be the world's biggest market for years to come.

China's doing a good job of propping up GM at the moment too. The US giant's Asian subsidary will sell 1.2 million cars here this year. And that will be two million in five years time at the latest. Volkswagen is having similar success. No wonder everyone's piling into China as quick as they can.

Panamera: looking good

Chas Hallett — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:33:00 GMT

The Porsche Panamera is the latest in a long line of cars that I really should have waited to see in the metal before I really made a judgement.

In all the early pics I thought that it looked ungainly and undesirable and too much like an awkwardly elongated 911.

But I've just seen it at the media unveiling, 95 floors up in a Shanghai hotel ahead of Monday's motorshow. The verdict? It's not a rip-roaring beauty but it looks 300 per cent better than in any pic you've seen. It's long, low and looks especially svelte from the rear three-quarters, which, considering the performance of the Turbo version, is the view we're most likely to see.

The cabin, though, is the real treat. It's way more luxurious than anything Porsche has produced before and much higher quality too.

The company wants to sell 20,000 of these things every year. I now think that's not going to be a problem, even if Porsche can no longer gurarantee the support of the hedge fund buyers.

Lagonda: right car, wrong motor show

Matt Saunders — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:10:00 GMT

There has been an awful lot of people with an awful lot to say about Aston Martin’s new Lagonda concept. Having been at the car’s unveiling and heard some of the sharp intakes of breath when the cover came off, I’d have to agree that it’s not the most visually appealing car the company has ever created.

For what it’s worth, I think the decision to take so much design inspiration for it from the low, sleek, pre-war ‘LG6’-based V12 Lagonda was a bad one. If Aston is intent on making an ‘allroad supercar’, it shouldn’t try, either through the marketing material or by the car’s design, to disguise it as something else. If Land Rover decided to make an uber-Range Rover, you can bet it would look a lot less mixed up than this.

However, it’s important to recognise that Aston launched this car to the wrong audience. It doesn’t really matter what you, or me, or anyone else living in western Europe thinks about the way this car looks or what it represents. It’s a car for Moscow, Mumbai, Beijing and Buenos Aires.

Isn’t it a bit odd, therefore, that Aston should chose to launch it at Geneva rather than the Beijing show in six weeks’ time? Maybe the decision was taken for budgetary reasons, maybe because Geneva is such a significant show historically. But, for me, that too was the wrong decision.

But even if you don’t like the new Lagonda, what it promises to do for Aston Martin – by improving Gaydon’s relationship with Mercedes – is to prepare the ground for the company’s next generation of sports cars. Don’t forget that Mercedes is just finishing the development of the SLS sports car, with its carbon fibre-rich construction, inboard pushrod suspension and transaxle twin-clutch gearbox.

If Aston could get its hands on those mechanicals, imagine what the next DB9 could be like.

Technorati Tags: Aston Martin, Lagonda, Geneva, Beijing, Mercedes SLS

Doctor, doctor

Mike Duff — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:36:00 GMT

One of my favourite games at motor shows is to find the most obscure manufacturer, and this year at Geneva the winner is undoubtedly 'DR Motor'.

Despite its obscurity, the company has a decent-sized stand in one of the main halls, dotted with various semi-familiar looking models. One of these looked very like a Toyota RAV4. So similar, in fact, that I initially presumed the company's business consisted of applying bodykits to existing models.

It turns out its more complicated than that. DR Motor is actually an Italian outfit that brings in various Chinese vehicles, several of which seem to have been – with the most favourable possible interpretation – liberally 'inspired' by existing European cars. These are then fitted with Fiat diesel engines and sold in Italy via a large supermarket chain.

Read more on DR motor

Apparently copyright lawyers have already been involved over the similarities between various of DR's offerings and existing models – the RAV4-alike is certainly convincing enough from some angles. But in the meantime Italian punters are getting the chance to buy cut-price lookalikes combined with Fiat diesel economy.

Technorati Tags: Chery, DR Motor, Fiat, Toyota RAV4

Nissan Qazana: My Geneva star

Chas Hallett — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:19:00 GMT

There's a pretty clear-cut star of the Geneva show for me and that's the Nissan Qazana concept.

The Qazana is innovative, funky and, hopefully, not too far away from the mini-SUV that will be rolling off the production lines in Sunderland in around a year's time.

Close-run second for me, though, is the Lagonda concept. Just for the sheer audacity of the thing. It may just be proof that timing isn't everything.

And the biggest disappointment? The VW Polo. After the latest Golf and the Scirocco I was looking forward to this one. What I found was a cheerless and rather humdrum supermini. Of course it will be a big success and doubtless will be highly competitive to drive and painless to own. But surely a little more sparkle wouldn't have gone amiss?

Geneva homepage - see all the cars from the Geneva motor show 2009

Technorati Tags: Geneva, Nissan Qazana, VW Polo, Lagonda

Geneva - live from the show floor

Mike Duff — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:19:00 GMT

Say what you like about the global motor industry - but it knows how to put on a show.

For manufacturers, the world outside is filled with collapsing sales and red balance sheets, but on the floor here at Geneva the story is one of optimism and shiny new metal.

But the global 'carpocalypse' is also creating the sort of hard news that motor shows aren't really known for. GM's press conference could be best described as a feeding frenzy, as network TV cameramen fought for the best position and correspondents elbowed each other aside to grille GM's assembled brass about the future relationship of GM Europe and GM in America.

The good news, from a British point of view at least, is that Ellesmere Port is still 'well in the frame' for the possible siting of the Opel/ Vauxhall Ampera factory.

Live at Geneva 2009: watch the Ferrari 599XX video blog

The strangest juxtaposition of the show is the fact that Opel and Saab have their stands right next to each other. Only about 10 feet of carpet separates the two, but there's also what might be described as an icy chasm as Saab's execs contemplate their independent future. If it matters, I can report that the Saab 9-3X looks half-way decent in the metal.

Anyway, it's only lunchtime - still plenty more to see.

The return of AMG

Steve Cropley — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:33:00 GMT

The partial unveiling of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG gullwing ‘super sports’ car yesterday, one day before the start of the Geneva Motor Show, isn’t just the unveiling of yet another high-performance option for Aston-Porsche-Ferrari buyers.

It also stands for victory – at last – for Daimler’s AMG division over McLaren Cars in its decade-old battle to be the Three Pointed Star’s ‘senior’ high performance division.

Ever since Mercedes and McLaren first began planning the Woking-built SLR, there were always strong signs that the men in charge at AMG, just outside Sturrgart and practically down the road from Merc headquarters, believed it should be they who handled M-B’s most special cars, but a bunch of F1 upstarts hundreds of miles away across the Channel.

McLaren, meanwhile, was inclined to refer to AMG internally as “a hot car business” which rather minimises AMG’s comprehensive and multi-faceted business. The debut of the SLS – an all-aluminium wnd thus more traditional car, which draws heavile on forever-famous ‘50s 300SL Gullwing Mercedes – shows that AMG is the senior partner at last. That fact accounts for at least a little of the great pride showing on the faces of AMG’s officials at their launch yesterday.

Geneva homepage - see all the cars from the Geneva motor show 2009

Welsh-built engine at the heart of Lincoln C concept

Chas Hallett — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:42:39 GMT

I really liked the Lincoln C concept that we saw at the Detroit motor show.

Just to recap it was designed to show that Ford’s ‘luxury’ and US-only brand could be scaled down – and just to prove it the show car was built on a Focus platform.

But before you think that this has nothing whatsoever to do with us here in the UK, take a look at the engine. It’s a 1.6-litre turbocharged 180bhp engine, using Ford’s Ecoboost technology and the first time that Ford has shown us a four-cylinder version.

Yet despite this motor being previewed in an auspiciously American car, it’s actually built in Bridgend, South Wales and so is going to have plenty of significance for us too. Expect it to replace the 2.0-litre petrol engine in the Mondeo any time soon and it could produce the sort of figures that stops the 2.0-litre diesel being the engine of choice.

Whether the Americans will ever take to it is another matter.

Still, there was much for them to enjoy at Detroit 2009. See for yourself all the cars that made it a bumper show:

Jaguar XFR
Jaguar turns the XF into a super-saloon with an all-new 5.0-litre supercharged V8 engine.

New Mercedes E-class
Mercedes has promised class-leading comfort and safety from the conservatively styled E-class, but class-leading reliability would be the real step forward.

New Ford Taurus
America’s Mondeo and Ford’s “premium flagship”. The Taurus was credited with turning around Ford’s fortunes in the mid 1980s; almost as much is required from the seventh generation.

VW Concept BlueSport
Arguably the star of the show. Volkswagen unveiled the perfect car for the current economic climate in the shape of a diesel roadster.

Cadillac Converj concept
GM delivered this concept to prove that Chevy Volt’s technological blueprint could be rescaled.

Audi Sportback concept
The Sportback concept previews the Audi A7, a Mercedes CLS rival.

Lexus HS250h
The HS250h is Lexus’s first stand-alone hybrid model

Chrysler 200C EV concept
Chrysler’s electric vehicle concept also previews the next 300C

Subaru Legacy concept
As the name implies, this concept previews the next Subaru Legacy.

Toyota FT-EV
A zero-emissions electric iQ and part of Toyota’s plan to make a million hybrids and electric vehicles a year by 2010.

Chevrolet Spark
This concept previews the new Spark city car, due on sale early next year.

Lincoln C Concept
A Ford Focus-sized Lincoln, with a welsh-built four-cylinder turbo motor.

Fisker Karma
Fisker unveiled the production version of its hybrid saloon and added a convertible version of the four-door as the concept Karma S.

BYD F3DM
BYD revealed a production version of the F3DM electric saloon, and claimed that the car is already for sale in China. America will have to wait until 2011.

Mercedes BlueZERO
Mercedes announced that it is to create a three-tier range of electric cars that will use the sandwich-floor platform which underpins the current A-class and B-class.

Technorati Tags: Lincoln,C concept,Ford,Ecoboost,Detroit,Mondeo

Subaru's Legacy concept

Ed Keohane — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:32:00 GMT

This is the Subaru Legacy concept at the Detroit motor show. And I have to say, "I don't like what I'm seeing." I'm not a fan of the gawky looks of the current Subaru Legacy either, but I love the way it drives. The boxer diesel estate is particularly good.

[Go to the site to view embedded media]

So here's my verdict on the Subaru Legacy concept: forget the looks. If it drives half as well as the current car I'll be pushing my way to the front of the queue. What do you think?

Subaru Legacy - Detroit motor show 2009

My Detroit star on video: VW BlueSport

Matt Saunders — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:03:10 GMT

Time and perspective is all it takes to make clear which of Detroit’s star attractions shines brightest. When you’re at a show, wandering from one unveil to the next, you’re literally bombarded with metal. Time to digest what you’re seeing is exactly what you don’t have.

But having been asked this morning, and having seen what’s been discussed online the most since press day, there’s almost no competition for ‘Star of the Cobo 2009’; the VW Concept BlueSport wins at a canter.

I’ve already written here why I think this car promises so much; it just seems so well judged, skilfully executed and perfectly timed. I’m confident that it’ll be great to drive too.

[Go to the site to view embedded media]

And, since we’ve looked up VW’s official action footage of the car, you can see it on the road above. Looks even better than it did on the show stand, doesn’t it?

One final note on the new mid-engined VeeDub: VW UK’s promising us a drive of our own in it before too long, so we should be able to report, for certain, whether it really is such a brilliant sports car. Keep your eyes glued to Autocar.co.uk over the next few weeks for our report.

Technorati Tags: Detroit,VW,motor show,Volkswagen,BlueSport,concept,Cobo

Detroit delivers when it comes to the crunch

Steve Cropley — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:42:44 GMT

How interesting to see a reporter in the car industry’s favourite newspaper, Automotive News, naming this year’s Detroit motor show as one of the best and most interesting in the US for years.

Found myself thinking exactly the same, for a variety of disparate reasons. First, the whole thing was shorn of the usual distracting and low-rent razzamatazz. Everything that was shown seemed to have true significance.

In the run-up to the show there was comment about the cold Detroit weather (it was 15C below at times) matching the mood of the show, but my experience was that – once you had dispensed with the usual weary credit-crunch platitudes – people were as keen to talk cars as ever.

Second, the cars were good. No daft concepts going nowhere. The Volvo concept showed off the coming S60. The VW concept roadster was so desirable you wanted to drive it home. The new Jags looked terrific. So did the Merc E-class and the new Lexus hybrid.

Third, there was a curious feeling of relief that at least we had now found the low level at which the industry is going to have to operate for a while.

One industry boss told me that US car sales were currently so low that if they stayed at that level it would take 25 years to replace the whole car park – to swap the entire fleet of cars on US roads with new metal. That’s a situation which is clearly unsustainable, he told me – the industry needs a figure of roughly half that to sustain itself.

Nevertheless we’d tasted the worst, he believed, and the next major change would be an improvement, though he wasn’t looking for that until next year.

Fourth, all the right people were there. Company heads turned up in droves, aware that in this new world of stringent (or entirely absent) advertising budgets, the best way to get a message across was to try and place it in the media. That’s music to the ears of any hack and hopefully his readers.

In the months ahead, news is not going to be in short supply. It’s one of many reasons why we’re already looking forward to Geneva at the beginning of March.

See for yourself why Detroit 2009 has been such a bumper show:

Jaguar XFR
New Mercedes E-class
New Ford Taurus
VW Concept BlueSport
Cadillac Converj concept
Audi Sportback concept
Lexus HS250h
Chrysler 200C EV concept
Subaru Legacy concept
Toyota FT-EV
Chevrolet Spark
Lincoln C Concept
Fisker Karma
BYD F3DM
Mercedes BlueZERO

Technorati tags: Detroit motor show