2008 Paris Auto Show: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
October 07, 2008

By AutoObserver Staff

PARIS -- Everyone loves coming to the Paris auto show.  Mostly this is because it is not the

Frankfurt auto show, with which it alternates on the yearly schedule of auto shows.

When you go to the Frankfurt auto show, it is all about the Germans. It is all about BMW and Mercedes, really. They're telling you, "We understand machines and technology, and that's why we own the history of the automobile. You can buy a ticket if you wish and come visit us in our big tents in Frankfurt and worship the spectacle of our technical competence."

Paris is the City of Lights, and the French car manufacturers like to demonstrate that they have the same competence as the Germans, only with romance and flair. The French tell you, "Yes, our cars might look funny, but we understand joie de vivre, the joy of life. Of course our cars might look freaky and whacked out, but you are stupid if you don't understand."

We can go into the character of Geneva (the neutral Switzerland of car culture in both place and style), another time, so let's focus instead on Paris, where this has also been Paris Fashion Week. It's interesting that fashion, so quick-paced and trendy, has slowed down its outlook recently and reconciled itself to working with less. This same theme ran through the Paris auto show, since it has taken place in the midst of a global economic meltdown. Slow down (literally) and make things work with less (literally).

Of course, the whole green thing has been muddling along for some time now, as the Germans have clung to diesel, the Japanese have embraced electricity, and the Americans have been kind of faking it, waiting to see which technology strategy would prevail and hoping the government would bail them out (which it has, making the Americans the winners in this game). With the Paris show, the City of Lights has plugged into an electric future, only it is one that is both diesel and electric - the diesel hybrid. This is the answer for everybody -- a global green technology -- as it promises fuel-efficiency without sacrificing power, which is what everyone wants, whether it's Europe, Japan or America.

The Good
Aston Martin One-77 Concept: A very beautiful car from Aston Martin, where so many beautiful cars come from these days.  Of course this car still doesn't have the same impact as the original Vanquish, which had the same kind of magical thing as Jay Gatsby wearing that white shirt in The Great Gatsby, a kind of rightness that just made you want to cry. Instead the One-77 is kind of like Gatsby's younger brother, not quite as handsome and wearing a more conventional striped oxford shirt.

Audi A4 Concept E: The current Audi shape started out so abnormally clean that it was almost as if the design process had been stopped too early. Then Walter de'Silva stuck that awful, awful full-frame grille on the shape, so the front of the car had a slack look, as if it had been cruelly paralyzed by Bell's palsy. Now we've reached a more mature shape that has simplicity, but with all the right beautiful accessories.

Citroen Hypnos Concept: This is a hybrid that's aggressive like a BMW instead of dorky like a Prius.  It's young and forward, like a VW Scirocco. It shows us that it's possible to embrace a hybrid future without having to wear Earth shoes from the 1970s.

Lamborghini Estoque Concept: Like the Aston

 Martin Rapide and the Porsche Panamera, the Lamborghini four-door sedan brings some glamour to the class of super beautiful cars. Sexy coupes like the Ferrari Enzo and Bugatti Veyron aged quickly in the public consciousness because they're really for rich old people who are still working out dreams of the 1960s. Glamorous sedans like the Estoque are the cars that young people can aspire to. You say to yourself, "I might be driving a Civic sedan right now, but some day...."

Mercedes-Benz C250 CDI: This is just a C-Class with a twin-turbo 2.2-liter diesel engine, but it doesn't make you choose between intelligent fuel-efficiency and intelligent power, because it has both. This is the kind of car we'll all be driving in five years, as it combines 204 horsepower and 155 mph with 54 mpg on the European driving cycle. It's the next step -- the right strategy for right now.

Mercedes-Benz Fascination Concept: This wagon-style concept gives us a look at the next version of the Mercedes styling vocabulary and it seems like new design director

Gordon Wagener has rescued the car company from becoming terminally encrusted with design frosting.  The Mercedes design mojo is back, and it gives us a glimpse into a new post-Bangle era. Since Mercedes-Benz is still the no. 1 aspirational brand, this new hot styling will make the company the one to watch. Meanwhile the Fascination concept itself is what the R-Class should have been all along, rescuing the utility concept from the off-road themes of the SUV and making the wagon idea as cool as all designers know it to be.

Mini Crossover Concept: It's not so remarkable in itself, but it shows us the way BMW has perfectly -- perfectly -- expanded the Mini look and brand across several different model lines. First came the coupe, then the convertible, then the Clubman and now the Crossover. The progression is so smooth and well-conceived; so disciplined from beginning to end.  BMW is expert at minor model changes, making small alterations to sustain a model's appeal over time. In comparison, the American and Japanese car companies seem like they're trying out random ideas all the time, going for the big statement and then putting up with the inevitable decline in consumer interest that follows.

  Nissan Nuvu Concept: An electric car that represents the best of Japan, where product design is far more influential than car design. It says, "I might look like some kind of electronic appliance, but I'm not ashamed." Actually, it looks like the son of Cat-bus, one of the interesting anthropomorphic characters in Hayao Miyazaki's award-winning and very influential family film, My Neighbor Totoro. Very different, but this is what Japanese designers are thinking about.

Smart Fortwo Lithium-Ion Concept: It's not so much a great design as a timely recognition of this car's inner character. In concept and look, this car restates the obvious, but in a good way. It makes you say, "But hasn't the Smart always been an electric car?"

 

 

   Venturi - Michelin Electrics: This is the promise of the future. The results are kind of funky, as the Eclectic car looks like an 1890s Paris taxi and the Astrolab seems like a solar-powered box, but at least the designers

here are playing with the idea than an electric car can create a different kind of vehicle architecture.  These cars don't look familiar, and that's exactly the point.

The Bad
2009 BMW 7 Series: BMW has removed all the Bangle-inspired styling flourishes from the 7 Series and has revealed the car beneath that Chris Bangle himself tried to warn us about. It now looks tall, narrow and dull, and the aggressive twin-kidney grille is a caricature of itself. BMW is getting conservative just as Mercedes style is catching fire.

 

BMW X1 Concept: Why is this any different than the X-3, which already has proven itself to

be a slow-seller in the marketplace?  In the future, small premium compacts like this will resemble either the Mini at one extreme or the Nissan Cube at the other, and instead this SUV concept is for old ladies, like a Honda CR-V.

 

Honda Insight: Honda is the most intrinsically green car company on Earth, so there must be some kind of desperate irony in the fact that the Insight world hybrid looks like a Toyota Prius. Soichiro Honda must be spinning in his grave to think his car company is copying Toyota.

 

Lexus LF-Xh: Just uninspired. It has no visual direction at all, as if it had been designed by

a committee.  The appeal of Lexus among luxury buyers is declining, and this brand must find a design direction quick, because the days of being sustained by the incredible marketing machine that is Toyota might be over.

Peugeot RC: This is a 2002 concept car adapted to a hybrid powertrain. Too much has happened in the last six years, so this aggressive GT is out of synch with the future. It shows that you can't just paste a hybrid powertrain into a car of the past and expect something to happen.

Pininfarina BO: The great appeal of the electric powertrain is that it gives you an opportunity to rethink a car's proportions and function. The BO just uses the design conventions of a car powered by an internal combustion engine, so it looks like a cheap economy car (although an Italian one, at least). Japanese electric cars might look like retro rice-cookers, but they're at least trying to be new. And given the choice between Be Zero or BO, which would you choose?

Renault Megane: Another disappointment, as the Megane has been a uniquely French interpretation of the C-class cars represented around the world by the Opel Astra and Volkswagen Golf and this successor is trying too hard to be normal. It should be more authentically French, like the innovative Renault Ondelios Concept, a people-carrier that is neither sedan nor minivan.

 

The Ugly
Lexus IS 250 Convertible: The idea of hardtop convertible -- a combination coupe and

convertible -- is where all the buzz is right now, and there are some really wonderful examples of executing it, like the BMW 3 Series convertible. The Lexus IS 250 Convertible is not one of them, a graceless disaster of proportion and unsuccessful packaging. Just because your badge says, "Lexus," it doesn't mean you have a right to be ugly. From a design perspective, this car is just irresponsible.

Mazda Kiyora Concept: Another freaky interpretation as Mazda struggles to find a new

design direction. It's like the Bangle flame theme gone mad, and the result is grotesque. This concept has an immature, unsophisticated look that says the designer hasn't studied cars and is proud of this fact. Even when the Japanese do industrial design rather than car design, the result has a discipline that this car lacks. Give up on this design direction; it's just getting worse.

Photos by manufacturers and Edmunds.com
1 - Unveiling of the Aston Martin One-77
2 - Citroen Hypnos
3 - Lamborghini Estoque
4 - Mercedes-Benz Fascination
5 - Mini Crossover
6 - Nissan Nuvu
7 - smart fortwo Lithium-Ion concept with Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche
8 - Venturi-Michelin Electric cars (right)
9 - electric taxicab
10 - 2009 BMW 7 Series
11 - BMW X1
12 - Honda Insight
13 - Lexus LF-Xh
14 - Pininfarina BO
15 - Renault Megane
16 - Lexus IS 250 Convertible
17 - Mazda Kiyora   

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