Geneva Car Show 2011 - Hybrid, Electricity, and ..... ?

So, what's new at the Geneva Car Show 2011? Well, if you need the newspapers, then they claim that 170 new cars are shown by 700 exhibitors. Hmmh. What does "new" mean? I have seen lots of hybrid and semi-electrical derivatives of known cars. I have seen a number of interesting concept cars and a number of quite ugly ones too. I have seen new versions of sportscars.
So, what do I really remember after 8 hours of constant walking around and taking pictures? Yes, the BMW Vision concept car is quite impressive. The Alfa Romeo 4C concept car hopefully never makes it close to production, it's clearly not my cup of tea. I certainly will remember forever the highly attractive Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato (from 1962) at the Aston booth. It probably was the most beautiful car of the show. I was quite impressed by the Mazda 4 door saloon concept car, nice design and good presentation, really! And then the Bertone Jaguar 4 door saloon car. First I really liked the car, when I spotted it in a newspaper. But now, having seen it in the real world, I am not so sure anymore. Would the design really last well over time? I doubt it. It's too short term oriended in my eyes.
Wiesmann showed a design concept that makes you like the current designs even more. I was positively suprised when looking at the Carozzeria Touring design for a potential new Gumpert. The existing car is quite functional and beauty probably wasn't high on the criteria list, but the Touring version could make it one of the better super cars in my eyes.
Giugiaro showed a Volkswagen that makes the existing fleet of Volkswagen look quite old and outdated. Yes, that's a direction I could support! The Saab concept car makes you hungry for more, while the Lamborghini Aventador sort seems to be more of the same, no real quantum leap that I would have hoped Lamborghini could do (think Miura versus Countach). De Tomaso surprised with a comeback presenting the de Tomaso Deauville. There's a good and a bad message here: The Deauville is not pretty at all and really nothing you would dream of, the people from de Tomaso announced that they will present a new Pantera later this year, so we still can hope for better things to come. Some nice displays with old cars were shown as well, I mentioned the Aston, but there was also a Jaguary E Type from 1961, a Mercedes Simplex and a Lehner-Porsche. Too bad Renault only tried it halfway, cutting a 1961 Renault R4L in pieces ....
What would I want to buy? I honestly don't know!
More and other pictures can be found here!

Ferrari F40 vs Porsche 959

In the last episode of the current Topgear series Hamster had the pleasure to drive both the Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959, the mid 80ies super cars. What a wonderful movie! As usual the pictures were marvelous, but the sound track was even more exciting. Amd Richard got it right by summarizing the characteristics of the two cars. And of once he and Jeremy even agreed on what the better car was, both voted for the F40. But Richard made a good point, that the Porsche 959 actually was the car to show where the future would be, not the Ferrari. Funny, that at the end both cars apparently collapsed on the fast lap with Stig, but anyway the track was damp and ....

Does the Volkswagen XL1 stand a chance?

Volkswagen has presented the VW XL1, a car doing almost 100 km with 1 litre of diesel fuel. So yet another prototype. Let's turn the page. But stop, Volkswagen also announced that they will be producing this car in two years and everyone can buy one. Surprise! If Volkswagen really is able to produce this prototype style sports two seater then I will be putting it on my wish list. Honestly, it looks good and stylish, it has the gullwing doors I love and I can drive it to save the world. Great, isn't it? Of course it's a question of pricing too. I would not want to pay more than let's say 40'000 Euros for a car with the performance of an 80ies saloon car despite all the styling bells and wistles. But clearly this is the most advanced thing Volkswagen has presented in a decade and I will follow its progress closely

100 Years of Rallye Monte Carlo

100 years ago the first Rallye Monte Carlo was started. Challenges, rules and setup changed from year to year and initially it was more a reliability and regularity test than a speed race. Only in the 60ies they invented the special sections where speed was king. From time to time they invented funny rules, such as the more people you have in the car you more points you gain, or a design evaluation where Coupés were more valuable than Convertibles. Most of us probably remember the times of the Mini Cooper, Alpine A110, Porsche 911, Lancia Stratos, Audi Quattro and the Group B.
On zwischengas you find an article for each year and plenty of pictures (in total more than 200) and it's quite interesting to see the winners and losers coming and going.

The beginning of speed control - Ford Thunderbird

For the 1964 Ford Thunderbird you could order a new speed selector device. Ford claimed that motorists could save up to 20% fuel and that the system would reduce driver fatigue and lessen engine and brake wear.
Well, I wonder whether this was really true. If you really want to save fuel you actually turn the speed control off. Interesting was that the system would take control as soon as you are driving with the speed you have selected with the little wheel, different to today where you have to restart the system when you are ready.
But anyway, in 1964 this system was quite an innovation as you can imagine

Forgotten Fiberglass - great resource for research and inspiration

During the 50ies and 60ies a lot of cars and car bodies have been created using fiberglass (others may call it plastic, but it isn't really, polyester was another term). Thanks to this material even small production runs could be made profitable and much more variety was possible.
Especially the US had a strong fiberglass era, resulting into brands such as Brooks Boxer, Glasspar, Ascot, Woodill Wildfire, Irwin Lancer, Scorpion, Wasp, Edwards, Grantham Stardust, Venus, Meteor, Kurtis, Maverick Sportster, Victress, BMC Singer, Vale, Allied, Atlas, Multiplex, Bosley, Lasaetta, Chicagoan, Lightning, Rockefeller Yankee, Triplex, Hollywood Plastics, Snohomish Plastics, Almquist, Alken, Sorrell, Bangert, McCormack, La Dawri, Kellison, Byers, BoCar, Devin, LeMans Coupe to name just a few.
For people interested in these cars and components there's a great online resource: Forgotten Fiberglass. Have a look and you'll be amazed of what has been built during these years.
For German speaking people there's a summary and an interesting gallery on this era on zwischengas.com.

What and how would you an iPad Classic Car Magazine to be?

The Apple iPad is quite a famous gadget and after many companies missed the hype around the iPhone lots of media companies are investing into iPad applications to be part of the game this time. Wired for example set some sort of a benchmark.
As we are thinking about bringing a zwischengas-iPad-application sometimes during 2011 we are wondering what the features would be that iPad users would look for. Of course the App needs to make use of state-of-the-art multimedia, i.e. sound, video, images, but that's probably not enough. It must be more than a website with different navigation patterns and controls, right? But what exactly?

www.zwischengas.com officially launched

It was a lot of hard work, but now its available for public use: www.zwischengas.com. It's targeted towards German language readers, but the pictures are of course multi language. Have a look and you will understand that my blogging frequency went down over the last weeks.

What we can celebrate next year (2011)

Soon we will swap 2010 by 2011 in our calendars. So I started to think about what cars have been presented 50 years ago. Here's a first list:
Renault 4
Jaguar E-Type
VW 1500
Peugeot 404
NSU Prinz 4
Fiat 1300/1500
Daf 600
Devin VW (Devin D)
Citroen Ami 6
Fiat Coupé 2300 S
Simca 1000
Jaguar Mark X
Triumph TR 4
Ferrari 250 GT(E)
Alfa-Romeo 2000 Sprint (Bertone)

Yes, I agree, not all of these have the same relevance ;-)
So, here's a list for cars presented 30 years ago (so 1981):
Alfa-Romeo GTV 6
Audi Quattro
Audi Coupé
Talbot Murena
Porsche 944
Renault 5 Turbo
Ferrari Mondial
Mercedes 380/500 SEC
Opel Ascona (front wheel drive)
VW Jetta
Talbot Tagora
TVR Tasmin
As always, I am open for feedbacks and corrections.

Devin D restoration project for sale - now on ebay

I have been writing about this Devin D restoration project before. It's a very rare find! It has been with the same owner since 1973 and comes with a clear title identifying the car as the number 20 of totally 49 Devin Ds every built. It will make a splendid vintage racer, but could also be finished as a street car. Of course, there's some work to do, but the components are available.
The odometer apparently reads only 1139 miles. The car had been raced in original red with black interior and also with Porsche silver with burgundy accents. The car had been prepared to re-paint when the current owner bought it. The instruments, wipers, windshield and other components where remove to sand and refinish. The car has remained in this condition to this day. There is an additional windshield glass from 1956 Porsche Speedster, full top, bows and side-curtains. There are other additional parts, such as exhaust and muffler and other sundry parts.
So, if you are in the market for a rare vintage racer (I know of only two D Devins in Europe) then here's an opportunity to acquire a fantastic platform to start with.
As said, it's on ebay now. Have a look.

The Classic Car Season is over

A few days ago I posted a comment on my last trips with my cars for this year, and I was right. In the meantime the winter has visibly arrived, with snowfall and cold temperatures.
So for the next couple of months it will be more about reading books and magazines, watching movies and maybe working on the cars, than driving our cherished classics. Well, that's how it is when you live in central Europe.

When you have to pay more to NOT get an aircondition

This is the Porsche Cayman R. It's a lighter and more powerful version of the Cayman S. To save weight, the Porsche Engineers got rid of the radio and the aircondition. They also got rid of some other comfort accessories and items. They increased power by 10 HP, which shouldn't cost them much more as it's probably chip tuning only. So, you get almost the same, but less and you pay a lot more for the package, Euro 7'300.- to be specific. Okay, the lighter wheels may be a bit more expensive, but honestly, why would you pay so much more to actually get less? True weight saving must start with the basic concept of the car, not by removing convenience.

Auto Zurich 2010 - McLaren MP4-12C Ferrari 599 GTO Aston-Martin Cygnet ...

Auto Zurich cannot be compared with the Geneva car show. But looking at the range of new cars presented in Zurich it must be said that it's still an impressive show. New cars on scene were the Ferrari 599 GTO (for people with a lot of money) , McLaren MP4-12C (for people with a need for exclusivity), Volkswagen Passat (for people with families), Aston-Martin Cygnet (for people who want to pay twice the money to receive a Toyota IQ), Ranger Rover Evoque (for people who thing the BMW X6 isn't nice enough), Brabus Mercedes-Benz SLS (for people who thing the standard thing isn't expensive enough), Mercedes-Benz CLS (or people who only know short people to get into the back), Porsche Carrera GTS (same as a standard 911 for the GT3 price when fully loaded), new Veritas (if convenience is not an objective), Mitsubishi MIEV (if electricity is available where you park), and so on. The Zurich show is also a good show, because you can see all the cars in roughly 90 minutes ...