What can we expect at the Paris Motor Show? Fleet Voice
Wednesday 22 September 2010: The Fleet Voice Column.
The motor industry loves Paris in the autumn time. A chance to enjoy the City of Light, sip un café while watching the world go by and indulge in some of the finest cuisine. And that’s all inside the show halls of the Paris Motor Show.
Yup, it’s show time again and Paris is the first big one after March’s Geneva show to get the season under way. Naturally, Paris is a chance for the French to show off their fancies in the form of concept cars and Citroen looks set to steal the march this year.
The Lacoste concept from Citroen is typically whacky and oddball, not just for a show car but for what we’ve come to expect of Citroen. Well, this is a company famed for having its named plastered up the side of the Eiffel Tower in lights.
Creative the Lacoste may be, but more importantly it gives a fair old hat tip to how the next generation C1 city car will look and feel. Okay, the weird styling will be seriously toned down, but look forward to something with a more stand-out look than the current model. Also expect a fuel-sipping three-cylinder engine as Citroen gets onboard with the likes of Fiat by offering pint pot engines with fewer cylinders than we’ve been used to up till now.
Citroen is even more unusual at Paris with the Lacoste for not going down the hybrid or electric route. In the past couple of years, every motor show has been hijacked by one car maker or another revealing its world-beating plans for electric propulsion, and Citroen has tried this tack in the past.
Good on Citroen for not making the Lacoste yet another eclectic electric, though this hasn’t foiled the plans of Peugeot to reveal another electric machine. Meanwhile, over at the Renault stand they have some more fundamental stuff to reveal in the shape of the facelifted Laguna.
The Laguna should have been a bold, clean sheet jump start for Reggie in the company car heartland. Instead, the three-year old Laguna was bland to look at, drive and sit in. Having seen some pictures of the car that will have the sheets pulled off it in Paris on Thursday, it doesn’t look like the revised car is going to reverse the Laguna’s downward fortunes in the UK’s company car market. Ho hum, we’ll have to wait till November to find out when the car reaches the UK.
For company drivers, the big noise will be over at the Ford stand where the all-new Focus, including the ST model, will be basking in the spotlights. It’s a measure of how successful the ST has been for Ford that it’s unveiling the sporty model at the same time as the standard hatch. There’s nothing too radical about the new Focus to look at, appearing much like a more grown-up Fiesta.
However, under the bonnet, the new Focus promises improved economy and emissions, and Ford will reveal prices closer to the car going on sale. We can only hope that Ford drastically revises its pricing structure over the outgoing model’s that suffered so much from several price hikes during 2009. Those price rises simply made the fun to drive Ford too uncompetitive against a pool of very talented rivals.
General Motors will hope to temper some of Ford’s thunder with its GTC concept. Come on, though, GM, let’s stop trying to tease the showgoing public and just call it the Astra Sporthatch. We know that’s what it is and it’s due on sale soon, hot on the heels of the Astra estate next month. Still, it’s a decent looker and should keep the flame alive for three-door family hatches. There’s also the promise of a VXR version and Vauxhall has never shied away from big power in its hot hatches, so the Focus ST’s 262bhp motor will have some stiff rivalry to deal with.
Other new metal from the General mostly comes from the Chevrolet side of the tracks. Chevy has no less than four new models, including the Aveo, Orlando MPV, a hatchback version of the Cruze and new engines to revitalise the Captiva compact SUV. The Cruze hatch is an interesting addition to the Chevy line-up and should help drum up more business sales for this dull but good value model. As for the Aveo, we’ll have to wait and see if it’s any good to dive, but if it delivers the same honest and fun package as the Spark, they could be onto something. As for the Orlando, it’s hard to see it replacing the Renault Scenic and Vauxhall Zafira in company car drivers’ affections.
Coming back to electric cars for a moment, there is still a glut of them to be launched at Paris, as well as several hybrid models. The Mitsubishi i-MIEV all-electric versions looks likely to continue having as little impact on the sales charts as it does on the environment. However, a hybrid Honda Jazz sounds far more appealing as it takes a small car with plenty of virtues and adds even lower emissions and better economy. This could be the model that pushes the Jazz further into the mainstream to compete with diesel-powered rivals.
Mercedes’ A-Class E-Cell is only going into limited production, with 700 cars to be offered to carefully selected customers. Why not just hand it over to the first 700 to sign up for one to get a more real-world view of electric cars? Only Merc can answer that, but the E-Cell looks set to herald a plug-in future for Mercedes.
The same can be said for Saab, though its 9-3 ePower is only going to let loose on a mere 70 selected souls for its trial in 2011. Looking on the bright side, Kia’s Pop is an unashamed motor show indulgence and it’s a concept we’d like to see make the light of a showroom. This is what small city cars should be like if they’re going to use electric power. Good on you, Kia.
There are plenty of other cars to be revealed and revelled in at the Paris show, but let’s finish on a good old fashioned motor show high with the Maserati GT Stradale. It’s a lighter, faster, harder version of Maserati’s GranTurismo and packs 450bhp for a top speed of 186mph. Yes, it’s got no sympathy for fuel consumption or carbon dioxide emissions, but this is what we really want to see at motorshows: a bit of unashamed glamour.
Alisdair Suttie
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