By the time the reporting hordes arrived in Detroit on Sunday to prepare for the opening of the Detroit show - or the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), as they insist on calling it - the local press had long ago decided the theme of this year's event. It made both a nice change from the 'responsible' direction of recent fixtures and a welcome contrast from the -10deg C weather ruling outside.
'Big and fast is back' yelled a big, red banner in the middle of page one of Sunday's Detroit Free Press, and as soon as you started looking at new models, you knew they were right - almost as though the industry had known all along the three-year cycle it requires to make new cars that petrol would be selling at just two bucks a gallon at the exact moment these creations were due to hit the highway.
Mind you, it deserves to be said that every one of this year's powerful cars was claiming enhanced efficiency, too, and with good reason.
General Motors, which grabbed what is often Ford's first Monday launch slot, dived straight into familiar zero-emissions territory with a great-looking second-generation Volt plug-in saloon (its battery-only range enhanced from 35 to 50 miles), then grabbed further plaudits by launching a pure EV concept, a hatchback sized between the Corsa and Astra that offered a 200-mile range and was tipped to cost an affordable $30,000.
GM chief Mary Barra, taking some rare time away from dealing with massive recalls and apologising for the sins of her predecessors, described the Bolt as "a daily driver", and it certainly looked feasible as one.
It looked to me as if GM had really stolen a march on the field with a well-packaged small car with such a range - but it's a comment on the eternal appeal of big and fast that by the end of day one of this Detroit show, most commentators had stopped talking about these notable achievements.
Ford packed people into the adjacent Cobo Arena to reveal its third-generation Ford GT, a 600bhp-plus V6 EcoBoost mid-engined creation which, through subtle shaping and judgement, managed to project a relationship with its father and grandfather without mimicking anything about them.
There were a few rumours of a Ford GT around before the show, thanks to a set of leaked stand plans, but no one knew for sure, which pleased Moray Callum and his Ford design/engineering team, who had done all the work after hours in a specially set up basement studio.
The threatened Focus RS failed to show, probably because the Blue Oval is keeping that one for Geneva in March.
Most British interest surrounded two 'phantom' cars that weren't actually present. Jaguar Land Rover chose a meeting in the 1950s lair-cum-studio of GM design guru Harley Earl (now an educational institution) to do a bit of crowing about its excellent 2014 sales and to reveal that the former C-X17 concept, a Jaguar 'sports crossover', would go into production carrying the name F-Pace. It seemed logical to most of us but proved mildly controversial.
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Buick Avenir
Darren....
Although having said all that this posting will be probably on page 2 and you won't be able to see it anyway!
I know that car design is a
But what seems to be missing in most of these is some simple old-fashioned elegance.
For example, it's good to see the Ford GT and Honda NSX, but neither is as handsome as its predecessor.
MrJ wrote:I know that car
The infinity is a good looking car, it somehow reminds me of old BMW 6s and 3s coupes when they were handsome vehicles. Perhaps with the Mercedes RNA tie up, some Infinity designers can go over to Mercedes and sort out their over fussy styling.