2014 Lamborghini Asterion LPI910-4 Concept Keeps Mum On Production

THAT'S MORE like it. No more spikey wedges aimed at nouveau riche with an Oedipus complex. Lamborghini is tapping into the Matt Monro-filled alpine hedonism of the Muira with the rather splendid and pleasingly counter-trend Asterion. Why counter-trend? Well look how high those headlamps are. A small detail perhaps, but read in line with the rest of the car one sees a more horizontal gesture, banishing (almost) the wedge to bedroom walls of 30 year olds living with their mothers. The car is still visually potent -this is a Lamborghini, after all -but there is now a gentlemanly gait to the Asterion; it is more laid back, more confident, and with 910PS one can understand why.

An electric motor in the Lamborghini Asterion is the main benefactor of this output, though the battery is not the only thing that makes it a hybrid. The name speaks of the unspeakable between an Astra and a Starion. Thankfully the nomenclature is as far as their genes spread (though it is conceivable that the Mitsubishi Starion, properly managed, could have been a contender in another life. Instead we got the Colt).

The Asterion marries a long wheelbase, big wheels, upright-ish screen and distinct bonnet.  I love those headlamps perched above the bonnet, and though the taillamps are a little tech-y for me, their broad badge-framing layout is certainly attractive.  I like the crest of the bodyside vent slightly over-reaching the core line, matching the cavity in the front fender, and the wheels are spectacular: just the right amount of detail to contrast the clean body. With such a simple design, it could have been easy to slip into banality, but these deft touches keep the car special.

Inside, things are simple-borderline-simplistic. A little too little. I get the suave businessman aesthetic with his select symbols of distinction, but looking at the interior I see the fuss-free Italian suit, not the nacre collar-bones (or should I say mother-of-pearl).

In the Asterion Lamborghini has produced their most believable and desirable concept yet. No word on when it might be made, but with body-side vents that large and such neatly integrated details it has clearly been created with production in mind. 

2013 Skoda Citigo Gives You Right To Brag

I BET you don’t really need that A-Class. The CLA is just a whim. An A3? Forget it, the Skoda Citigo has it licked. Unless you want to spend a lot of money trying to impress others, the diminutive box from Skoda does so much so well that it is hard to think ‘Yes, but want I really want to do is spend another 20k on a bit more go.’

That gulf between A3 and Citigo could buy a Rolls-Royce picnic hamper, or if put towards your mortgage would equate to a $20,000 saving in interest payments alone. You would reach that house-paid-off dinner party boast nearly three years sooner. Put that $20,000 towards a CLA and you’ll need another 10% to bring it in line with your expectations. You are literally better off in a Citigo.



'Go' is in fact the car’s weak card; much better at the Citi bit. I lived with one for a week, and found its sense of spontaneity put it on a par with a bicycle. It is just so easy to get in and go. Top marks too for seats and ride comfort; sub-zero for the stereo’s sound quality. The untrimmed boot-lip is easily scraped, but put these practicalities to one side: this is the closest I’ve come to the hedonism of my first car, a Peugeot 205. Resistance to onomatopoeia is futile. Wheee! As door mirrors skim tarmac. Whoosh! As you enjoy the only accelerative moment, between 30 and 40mph. Kerr-ching! As you walk away from BP, twenty quid covering the expense.

The Germans make it so easy to make the car you want. Seek the car that you need, however, and the Skoda does an awful lot awfully well. Long live the Citigo!

2014 Peugeot Quartz Concept Boasts Intergalactic Stance

ARE WE about to see the revival of Scrabble-themed concept cars from Peugeot? I certainly hope so. The high-scoring Oxia and Quasar were icons growing up, and who could forget the all-red interior and sliding cab screen and exposed mechanism of the Proxima. The Quartz is not as memorable as that, but it does have a striking volume: check out that slitty greenhouse, atop a hill of bodyside rooted by colossal wheels. If you ever wondered what your 208 would look like in a Beastie Boy's video, this is the car for you.

But with all the trumped-up Bremen-town-musician proportions, no doubt Peugeot designers will use favourable show feedback as leverage to achieve similar in production. Stop! Customers won’t be able to see out, it will be hard to park, and claustrophobic for children. There is a balance between muscular exterior and airy interior. Most cars get this right. If Peugeot go to this extreme, then the only means to one-upmanship is to drop the shoulder-line as low as you dare. We saw the Asterion lower its belt at the show: just think how old the Quartz would then look as others followed suit, maximizing glass area and airiness. 

There are still a few more tricky letters to play with, so I remain hopeful that any production preview might address these points. Qoros must be qicking themselves.

2013 Cadillac Elmiraj Concept At Home In the Desert

YOU HAVE to try harder when you play away from home: so seems to be the approach taken by Cadillac in creating the Elmiraj. Where European brands are cautiously  interpreting consumer trends (viz. the Citroen Cactus concept), Cadillac is sticking resolutely to building concepts from the vision of the designers. Despite sounding like a Dubaian hotel, the four-seat three-box package makes for  a striking first impression thanks to the classical proportions. But what makes it especially attractive is the scale: this is the first time down-sizing has been applied to the D-segment, and it leaves a lasting impression. Suddenly aggressive styling and in-your face grille with lashings of chrome do not seem so ostentatious. If there is a way to convert the currency of pre-crisis cars into more considerate propositions, size is surely it.

The result is a baby Cadillac Sixteen concept. The long nose, flat shoulder-line and vertical corners are all lifted from that seminal concept, while mixing in a mesh-derived grille and significant tuck in-front of the rear wheels. The tuck works well, lightening the flanks and emphasizing the rear track: this is clearly a rear-wheel drive car. The new grille is less convincing, the tooth-like mesh and re-proportioned Cadillac shield taking the face too close to Chevrolet. Pedestrians might have cause to complain too, with the snow-plough plan view.

The interior from Gael Buzyn is framed from the outside by a pillarless chrome trapezium, revealing an IP motif not seen before: a bold plenum within a shadow moat set inside leather. The shape itself is a distortion of the Cadillac shield, containing auxiliary controls, GUI and analogue clock behind the glass. It highlights both the uneasy rectangular touch-screen integration in production cars, plus how the impression of an interior is significantly formed by the air-vents. In dislodging them from their expected location, the Cadillac Elmiraj concept puts this high-value real estate to much better use. 

The Elmiraj will not reach Europe, or indeed production, but it is a sign that General Motors has not given up on the Continent. However, if the current economic stagnation continues, then the Middle East might not such a bad proposition.

2016 Mazda MX-5 Is A Tea-Cup Sized Tempest

SOME SAY that in the next 1000 years homo sapiens will split in two: homo pauperis, poor ordinary folk with bad teeth (a little like today’s English), and wealthy homo novus whose live-in surgeons will preserve a mannequinnesque physique. It sounds like Daily Mail hokum fishing for bikini-clad examples, but the suggestion is that within this divided world, there is hideous diversity among plebs and beautiful conformity among slebs.

The car world went through something similar in the Eighties. All sports cars looked like Ferraris, and the crappy things your Dad used to drive were flat-sided and trapezoidal. Today, the scene is somewhat different. While said father would have a hard time distinguishing in practical terms a Mazda6 from an E-Class parked on his drive-way, replace his Jaguar F-Type with a Toyota FT86 and the chances are he’ll notice. There is fantastic variety in sports cars, not least because the term is so vague. Front, mid, or rear engine, two seats or four, open or closed as long as it has two doors (sorry, CLS). The Merc SL, Audi TT, Porsche 918 all qualify. So do black-and-white Morgans and red, blood red, Ferraris.

The latest red sports car of that famous brand is the new Mazda MX-5, a car that has the same ‘baby Ferrari’ analogy trotted out whenever there’s a whiff of a face-lift or replacement. But hold your clichés: this is one slick machine. It is as though every crucial element for fun has been vacuum-packed, leaving wonderful curves and hollows sucked around the good bits. Katsushika Hokusai provides the most fitting metaphor for the bodyside, those shoulders a restless sea of crests, spooling over tiny wheels the size of a distant Mount Fuji. I love the gaunt channel in the rear of the door, dividing haunch from flowing fender. Those rear lamps are super-elemental, and the front has deft LEDs in the tear-ducts.  It promises fun.

Usually the ball is dropped when you open a door, but Mazda keeps running towards the touchline. Simple, low architecture extends the lightweight theme, fashioned so it won’t go out of it. That the design has improved so substantially, despite the substantial loss of 100kg is masterful indeed. Ferrari LaFerrari? Its just like a big MX-5.

2015 Opel Corsa Is Still An Opel Corsa

THE NEW Opel range now boasts two old Corsas: one disguised as an Adam, and one masquerading as the new Corsa. Powerful word, ‘new’. It persuades us to look past the familiar bodyside and me-too layout and makes us think, maybe it could be... Actually the new Corsa isn’t even an old Corsa. The old Corsa was the old Astra. The sharp, clean, two-box that preceded today’s Seat-alike and pre-empted the chisel-like Golfs now on the street.

That the new Corsa marries the architecture of the outgoing model with the styling of the Adam isn’t a bad thing. Mainly because you will pay less for it. Opel could have spent more to silence cynics, but the customer would rather save money and have only as many changes as the cash allows. Opel knows it, and they are carefully garnering a profit from up-cycling existing packages. 

The Adam-themed styling is most noticeable at the front and most useful at the rear, which I always found too generic. ‘We can’t stray into the bootlid, that costs too much’  plus ‘ We want it to look dynamic’ equated in the diamond-shaped fayre that has bestowed so many budget-conscious cars from Fiesta to, well, Corsa. Thankfully, some of those saved pennies have been spent on dragging the tail-lamps into the bootlid, lending some much needed width and getting the car in line with the Astra. 

Inside I was pleasantly surprised to see an overhaul of the IP. The perceived quality is quite high, and gone are the days of cutesy circular vents (that glowed in the dark, no less). No time for gimmicks: there is subtle driver-orientation and a more sturdy-looking fascia with big-car style air-vents. (You may mock, but those vents form a large part of one's impression of an interior.)

The new Corsa represents a smart move by Opel to stay competitive in the small car stakes. We look forward to seeing where they really have spent the money. Monza concept, where are you?

2014 Citroen DS Divine Concept Falls To Earth With A Bump

REMEMBER THOSE Christmas cards you made when young, sketched out in crayon, then, with a flourish of a glue stick, is dipped in saucer of glitter, shards of silver sticking wherever tack has prevailed. The DS Divine doesn’t stray too far from this approach, rather falling into the gee-gaw category. The shoulder-line and the rocker are edged in chrome, and crystalline surfaces abound in the interior. Why? Because otherwise you might notice it's a boggo five-door hatchback with an Audi front and Brera back. Citroen –nay, DS –say they are creating a brand for long term ascension. That means diversity that can later be traded upon when the bodystyle is ‘re-found’ and claimed to be a classic. 

Motor shows also mark the time to go fishing for twelve-year olds, who, in their awe of a bejeweled interior, promise themselves a DS when they are earning. In a conservative industry that jolts from quarter-to-quarter, such patience is surely a virtue. It is a concept that Porsche accidentally stumbled upon with the 911 (they planned to can it several times), and now car makers are keenly making sure that what you buy as an adult is a clear evolution of what you hankered after as a child. Thus every car has the potential to be an endeared oldtimer.  And every oldtimer will look the same as its descendants, or at least look the same as an Audi.