Geneva Auto Show '07: Saving the Planet One Batmobile At a Time

Driving through Switzerland makes you feel like a million bucks (the annual salary required for comfortable residency). In early March, the Alps are still covered in snow, but the sun’s warm enough to shelter a scribe savoring a steaming cup of coffee and slice of rueblitorte by the shores of Lake Geneva. The fresh air! The dictators’ money! The tidiness! And then it’s time to contemplate the effects of global warming and enter the hallowed halls of Geneva’s seventy-seventh International Auto Show.

The Toyota FT-HS Concept is a hybrid. OK, it’s a hybrid hybrid, a Synergy-driven car combining the blood-drawing creases of Ford’s old Edge design language and the wraparound glamour of the vaguely art deco cinematic Batmobile. As a Cadillac flack might say, it’s art and science fiction.

The FT-HS isn’t just another “gotta have one/ain’t gonna happen” pistonhead tease. The car raises an important question: why can't more cars have wheels that look like exotic flowers?

Keeping to the theme of keeping the planet cool (hot?) for humanity, the Honda FCX Concept is a confidently competent future barge. Or is that competently confident? In any case, the hyrdogen fuel cell powered FCX finally makes the creative leap from SUV nosecone (a la Civic) to whale mouth. Honda proves once again that they are the masters at blending high tech and high touch, what with an interactive floor that uses lighting to indicate changes in cabin temperature.

How come the French have enough time (or the inclination) to eat cheese before coffee AND after lunch? And how is it that Italians manage to convince everyone else to struggle to speak their native language, instead of them struggling with their English like everybody else? And can the British ever learn to get down with their bad selves?

The CX-F is Jaguar’s S-Type replacement concept (i.e. the ready to be gelded, denuded and watered down version). It’s swoopy, sporty and strong; with a hint of Quattroporte and a clean Lexus LF-A aftertaste. It’s also utterly serious minded, a slap in the face of pace and grace. I’ll take two (for obvious reasons).

Honda’s Small Hybrid Coupe breaks the usual Batman concept car template for a nostalgic trip to Tron. While the car’s design has nothing to do with Honda’s corporate image, it will do Honda’s corporate image no harm– if only because its rear window is an ode to the old CRX and its gigantic wheels relieve Honda tuners’ SUV wheel envy.

The strangely spaced Walter de’Silva says the new Audi A5 is one of his best designs. The Italian originator of the German brand’s big mouth bass look has devised a coupe that’s elegant, understated, grown-up yet young and thrusting. It’s the perfect Jaguar, best imbibed with a bold cab.

Maserati finally trades its dorky coupe for something altogether more desirable– in the same sense that Adriana Lima might make a nice bit of arm candy for the Oscars. The GranTourismo coupe is twice as sexy in the flesh as it is in the photos, in the same sense that Adriana Lima looks more fetching across a dinner table than in a catalogue.

Being within sniffing distance of the world’s best numbered bank accounts, the Geneva auto show is the spiritual home to small carmakers who brew that heady mix of sleek sheetmetal and monster engines. The Swedes at Koenigsegg threw their hand-built CCX-based CCGT (Competition Coupe GT) FIA-homologated GT1 racer into Geneva’s alphanumeric soup. True to the show’s theme, they also promised a bio-fuel powered CCXR. Make that the BFP-CCXR.

The Dutch-built Spyker C12 Zagato may forfeit the rocket-inspired name game, but the VW-engined coupe proves that scissor doors are still an excellent way to liberate tasteless enthusiasts from their drug money discretionary income. The Zagato takes Spyker’s nascent design language and throws it into the wood chipper. When a supercar starts to look like a TVR Chimaera– a car designed by the [then] company’s owner’s dog– there’s bound to be trouble down the mine.

Meanwhile, mine owners won’t mind the Bentley Brooklands. Oblivious to the whole planet saving thing, the German-owned English carmaker is emerging from their highly lucrative Phaeton phase to launch a more traditional gas-guzzling Bentley behemoth.

The Brooklands boasts “classic British proportions”– a claim which does nothing for the self-esteem of Britain’s female population. To propel this Balmoral-on-wheels, The Bentley Boyz pulled out all the organ stops. We’re talking a 530hp 6.75-litre V8 with so much torque the company feels compelled to list it in Newton meters (1050Nm). Very PC, I’m sure.

Back into the gloaming as a young girl strolls past the show without even glancing in its direction. What did the Swiss Miss miss? A show dedicated to environmental responsibility, stuffed fulll of toys. How great is that?