Salon Frankfurt 2010

I never thought that I’d fulfil my secret desire (Ed. Oh puhlease!!) to attend a major international motor show (sorry Melbourne International Motor Show, but this was 10 times larger, I kid you not). But after a 7 hour return drive from Alsace to Frankfurt, I can now tick that off the list. It was sensational (for a car geek like me anyway). So here is my biased report of what I saw....

This year Green is the new black, with every manufacturer trumpeting their environmental credentials. Seems almost everyone has got a car that emits 99g/km or less of Co2 on their showroom floor. Some were trumpeting louder than others:

BMW
For example BMW (who had an entire pavilion to themselves) had what I liken to a life-sized scalextrics track around the extremities of the hall and had their entire range driving around in circles with their fuel consumption number plastered on the sides of the cars along with the phrase “Efficiency Champion”.

A 3 series BMW which uses 4.1l/100km - that's 69mpg in old speak. Not bad

As you entered their pavilion and climbed the grand staircase, they had pulled out of their museum in Munich some of their previous eco warriors such as an electric car from 1972. Does kind of beg the question as to what they have been doing with that technology for the past 37 years. Anyway, their showstopper was this fantasy in bendy plastic called poetically “Vision Efficiency”: Ed. We visited the BMW Munich museum in 2004 and it was crap. These were the only interesting cars in the collection.

BMW Vision Efficiency - Great economy (3.76l/100km - 75mpg) and you guessed it, 99gm/km of Co2. It also does 0-100 in 4.8 seconds, so it seems you can have your cake and eat it too.

Mini
BMW has done wonders with the Mini Brand. Baby boomers are paying a mint for a tiny little toy car (no offense Derek, Elizabeth) and so BMW keep churning out new variants that need to be added to the matchbox collection. Here are 2 more:

Mini Coupe

Mini Cabriolet - Check out the gingham pattern on the seats – Camouflage for your David Jones purchases

Battle of the Super Lux Barges
An interesting co-incidence had both Rolls Royce (owned by BMW) and Bentley (owned by VW) launching their all new range toppers, a once in a decade event.

Rolls Royce Ghost

Bentley Mulsanne

Which do you prefer? Or should we even care as we’ll never own one? Still it’s hard to go past a rear hinged door. Ed. Je suis d'accord. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this but the ghostly one was quite sexy. You could probably have sex comfortably in either.

Saab
Saab was bought by GM in the 90’s and has struggled ever since to retain individuality in its products, or in fact to even update them. Ironically just as GM is about to offload Saab, the 10 year old 9-5 is about to be replaced with what I think is a beautiful saloon. Photos don’t do it justice. It has real presence and the line is an aesthetic delight. Ed. Olivia, I think it's time to ditch the Jag and get a new Saaby.

Peugeot
Over at Peugeot, when I first saw this I laughed and then dismissed it as a design wank. But then I watched the presentation video and saw a very clever idea. It may not come out well in the photo, but this microscopic car has 4 seats thanks to the rear passengers legs sitting either side of the passenger in front. Sure, not great for a drive to Uluru, but do-able for a short ride across town. All in a car smaller than a Smart.

The other show stopper at Peugeot was their Audi TT eating RCZ. If it drives like it looks it should sell in droves. I love the curved glass roof.

RCZ - Beautiful car, and note the designer patterned rain curtain behind it (no doubt coming to an MTC play in future at unimaginable expense).

Citroen
Obviously I have a thing for things French and this extends to cars. So over at Citroen I had lots of fun checking out the new C3 and DS3, but first this quirky show car with the unfortunate name Revolte. I personally love purple, but the velour seat that wrapped from the back around to the dash on the passenger side was even a bit much for me. Still I think this is a good example of the design freedom that the new wave of LED headlights will afford designers. The Revolte is a teaser for the new generation Citroen C1 due in 2011, however this design will probably be under the DS marque.

Citroen have decided to launch a sub-brand targeted upmarket to appeal to people looking for more design flair (like those buying minis and Fiat 500s). The brand is called DS (Different Spirit) and refers back to a famous Citroen model from the 1960’s
DS badge

The first product is the DS3, which is really just a 2 door version of the new C3 and replaces the now defunct C2 (based on the old C3 and which also had a separate design look). A lot of the DS3 is common with the C3, but the designers have been given more latitude to give the car a distinctive and classy look. I think they mostly succeed, but with a dash and interior plastics shared with the C3, they might struggle to convince people to pay Mini-type prices, especially when the C3 is not sold for a premium price. Ed. I'm convinced. Now I just need to get a job.

The DS3 - White with power blue roof not on my shopping list, but the gun metal grey with burgundy roof would make a short list.

Lexus
Lexus (Toyota’s luxury brand) has no small cars to compete with the likes of Audi’s A3 or the BMW 1 series, so they are proposing this contorted Corolla. As it is reportedly based on a Corolla, good luck. Toyota’s previous attempt to slap a Lexus body on a standard Toyota (the Camry based ES300 series) has never worked in Australia in terms of sales success or to advance the prestige of the Lexus brand.

Lexus LF_Ch - A gold rolled Corolla

Opel
Opel is GM’s main company in Europe and has been the source of many great Holdens over the past 30 years, most notably the Commodore (1978-2006) and the Astra (since 1995). It is therefore a disgrace that Australians are going to be denied this latest generation Astra (on the heals of also not getting the newest generation Corsa as our Barina (but a crap Daewoo instead) and not getting the Vectra replacement, the Insignia (which just won European Car of the Year) but the crap Daewoo Epica instead :

The Astra is built on a platform that is also shared with the new Holden Cruze (made in Korea now by Daewoo and from next year in Australia by Holden). Unfortunately the Cruze gets a second rate suspension system and an old generation of engines. So whilst Europeans are gliding around on the latest suspension powered by the most efficient and economical engines, once again Holden craps on its Australian customers with cheap designs and archaic technology (see Note 1). So weep for this beautiful car you will not see on Australian roads.

Ed. He does go on a bit. Just read the notes but be thankful that he hasn't included his opinions about Ford. I suspect that the real problem is that Holden has a Finance Director who is Dale's clone.

Battle of the 4 door sports cars
True sports cars are supposed to have 2 doors, right? Well not any more it seems with a number of traditional sports cars specialists trying to morph their sports car silhouettes into 4 door sports cars. Porsche has been very public about its first 4 door sports car, the Panamera. More circumspect has been Aston Martin who revealed its Rapide at the show. So it was great chance for me to see both cars for the first time in the metal and make an assessment as to how successful they have been in converting their 2 door design language into a 4 door design.

Aston Martin Rapide
The fact that I didn’t photograph the Panamera is a reflection that a – its been so public in the media that I’m sick of it, and b – that I don’t think they succeed in making the Panamera look like a natural 4 door. A total knock out win to Aston Martin in my view. Ed. It is georgeoussssssss!

Jaguar
Jaguar had their new XJ on show, and it is a major change in that it does not recycle the historical Jaguar designs, but looks forward to a fresh concept. Unfortunately they only had one car to view, behind ropes, and not on a turntable. I’m slightly suspicious that they only want people to see the front/side view, as from photos I’ve seen the back of the car is quite odd.

Battle of Electric Sports Saloons
The cutting edge of electric cars seems to be being played out with specialty manufacturers in the US. Tesla and Fisker both had stunning electric or hybrid luxury saloons (the all electric Tesla has amazing performance and a range approaching 500km: 3 times further than GMs Volt concept which won’t hit the road for 2 more years ). There is an interesting back story to these two cars and lawsuits flying. So advanced is their technology that Mercedes recently bought into Tesla to access the technology.
Tesla
Fisker Karma

Mercedes
One of the most beautiful car designs of all time (in my opinion) is the Mercedes 300 SL of 1954. Mercedes have not tried to update this design in the ensuing 55 years, but have now decided to do a modern interpretation (the SLS). It is stunning (but not as good as the original)

The original 300 SL (photo taken at the National Car Museum in Mulhouse - gallery to come)

New SLS AMG

Whilst at Mercedes, David and I had to check out the new mid-sized coupe as we have both often drooled over the previous coupes. The last 2 generations have been called CLS (inferring a C-Class origin), but with this new generation Mercedes have decided to Call it an E Class Coupe. Either way we both think that it is again a bodacious offering.

David behind the wheel of a E250 Coupe

Renault
As most of you know David and I have a Renault Clio II, which we’ve been very happy with for 7 years, thus we are keen followers of Renault’s upcoming models. Earlier in 2009 the 3rd generation Megane was released as a hatch and a striking coupe. (Ed. I want it and I want it now - even before the Citroen DS3.) Whilst we’ve been here in France, a pretty wagon has joined the range. We were expecting the new Megane sedan to be unveiled at the show, but Renault surprised everyone by releasing the new sedan under a different name, Fluence, with a unique front design to differentiate it from the other Meganes.

The new Fluence

Megane Coupe

Just to confuse things, Renault has also released this year a coupe version of the 3rd generation Laguna. For those of us with a long memory, this car appeared as a design concept 5 years ago under the name of... Fluence!

Laguna Coupe (aka the 2004 Fluence Concept)

Now if Renault Australia would just lift its game and bring in the versions of these cars that we might consider buying (specifically a Megane Coupe in that gorgeous copper colour with a reasonably powered and economical diesel engine; not just a ball tearing petrol version as is currently the case).

Renault also displayed 4 electric vehicle concepts that they say will be fully commercialised in 2011/12. David commented that the tag line Renault were using was rather defensive: “Renault might not be the first to talk about electric cars, but we’ll be the first to let everyone drive one ”. Ed. While everyone else actually had real electric cars on display Renault only had plasticine models. But Dale assures me that these will probably make it into mass production before many of the others.

Electric Fluence

Electric Zoe – a pointer to next generation Twingo or Clio styling?

VW
The Eco champion of the show would have to be this odd 2 seat VW concept called L1. At 1.38l/100km (204mpg), its 10 litre tank can give a range of 700km!

Now after all those cars, you wouldn’t think people would have time to shop for accessories, let alone totally unrelated non-automotive products. But somehow people did.

Massage anyone? In full public view?

Notes
1. Examples of Holdens indifference to supplying its customers the best product (in my living memory):

• 1.1 - 1976 HX Kingswood– In spite of the usual advance notice of pending improvements to pollution standards Holden did the nastiest possible job with the anti-pollution measures gutting the engines
• 1.2 - 1981 VC Commodore 4 cylinder – in a cynical attempt to offer customers respite from the fuel crisis, Holden stuck a gutless, uneconomical and undersized engine into the Commodore by taking its then smallest capacity 6 cylindre engine (with roots back to the 60’s or more unkindly the 1940’s) and lopping 2 cylindres off (creating a 1.9 litre engine with a paltry 54kw)
• 1.3 - 1986 JD Camira – When unleaded petrol was introduced, Holden replaced the 1.8 litre multipoint fuel injected engine (rated at 83kw) with an unsophisticated 1.8 litre throttle body injected engine (rated at 66kw) even though it had better engines it was manufacturing for export.
• 1.4 - In 1986 Holden finally killed off its ancient locally designed 6 cylinder engines and put a proper modern alloy OHC engine into the Commodore. Although this new engine (from Nissan) was only 3 litres, it produced about 20% more power than Holden’s final 3.3 litre engine. It was a revelation, but just 2 years later Holden replaced this engine with a rough as guts old V6 from its parent in the US. This “new” V6 dated back to the 1960’s and at 3.8 litres was a step backwards in efficiency and refinement. Holden continued to use this engine and its upgraded versions until 2006!
• 1.5 - Holden finally introduced Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) on the Commodore in 1995 amid much fanfare, but instead of a state of the art system they copied the IRS dating back to the 1970’s from Opel who had designed the original Commodore (in fact Holden probably could have put this IRS system into the original 1978 Commodore but waited 17 years to do so). This IRS system caused uneven tire wear leading to premature tire replacement. It took until the 2007 VE Commodore to get a proper IRS system.
• 1.6 - Holden finally put a 4 speed auto into the Commodore in 1986, long after most makers had made this change. In spite of 5 and 6 speed autos being the norm for the past 5-10 years, Holden has continued to use a 4 speed auto for 23 more years (a 6 speed finally arrived this month as the standard on Commodore, but the ute still struggles on with a 4 speed).
• 1.7 - In the late 90’s Holden started sourcing its Barina from Opel where this car was called Corsa (up until then the Barina had been re-badged Suzuki Swift). In 2006 when Opel released its new Corsa, Holden decided to drop the Opel and instead import the old Daewoo Kalos as its new Barina. This car was already 5 years old and had a 2 star safety rating. Now 3 years later Holden are still serving up this clunker.
• 1.8 - Around 1997 Holden replaced its unloved Camry clone, the Apollo, with the beautiful Opel Vectra. Holden even briefly manufactured the Vectra in Australia. Last year Holden dropped the Vectra ahead of its European replacement and started importing the very mediocre Daewoo Epica. The Vectra replacement, the Opel Insignia, has just won the latest European Car of the Year Award. Thanks Holden.
• 1.9 - Just to prove how misguided Holden have been with their cheapo Daewoo strategy, Holden also started importing the Astra-sized Daewoo Lacetti as the Holden Viva to sell along side the old Astra. It never came close to selling in the numbers the Astra continued to sell. People want a good car at a good price, not a shit car at a cheap price.