The Detroit show – in balmy -17C temperatures, I hear – dominated proceedings this week with those that went describing it as the most optimistic in a long time. Some nice new product appeared, not least the long-awaited Honda/Acura NSX and Ford GT.
We Z-list, ‘trade website’ plebs never got near the last Ford GT, of course, but I do recall once being allowed a few long-distance hours in the original NSX and marvelling about how you could drive at the limit (yours, more than the car’s) yet it would happily pootle up to the shops as easy to drive as your granny’s Civic. Naturally, the new one is a hybrid; I live in faint hope of getting a pedal one day.
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Having not read the story yet, I saw ‘Chevrolet Bolt‘ on a colleague’s headline and changed it to ‘Volt’ having assumed a simple adjacent-key typo. Ooops. Change back. That name sure attracted controversy this week (‘bucket of bolts’ and all that), rather ignoring the fact that GM has more or less doubled an affordable EV’s range and knocked up something that might give the practical Nissan Leaf hatchback a run for its money. There also was a new Volt, a range extender now with more electric range and a proper five-seater with, hopefully, luggage arrangements (lower load lip, more space) more suitable to family use. I like the more GM family style dashboard, too. Bentley, yet again, teased its luxury crossover and announced its name and Jaguar also put a name to its contender.
As always, all our coverage is bundled in one handy package here.
Away from all that, I went off to try VW’s latest UK market ‘boring’ saloon and estate. In GT form with a whacking great twin-turbo diesel, DSG tranny and four-wheel drive the latest, eighth(!) generation Passat is anything but. We also took a look under the hood at Tesla’s share price fall and eyeballed the current trend of vehicle lightweighting.
The salvage saga of the listing car carrier Hoegh Osaka continues, not at all helped by some pretty atrocious weather in the Solent. There’s 1,200 Middle East bound JLR models, 65 BMW Minis, one Rolls-Royce and some JCBs in the cargo uplifted from Southampton, a major UK vehicle export port. We’ve been following this since it happened and our coverage is grouped here.
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By GlobalDataHave a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
