The mad and the bad - Geneva 2015
Extreme, leftfield, outrageous and just plain bizarre - the essential round-up of Geneva's maddest cars
Don't forget the other Koenigsegg...
Following its divine P4/5 of 2006, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus launched the new SCG003 in a real carbonfibre fest of a display. This rather fabulous animal is powered by an HPD Honda-derived 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo developed by Autotecnica Motori. Other powertrains are mooted, as the whole rear frame is designed to be exchangeable. Price? £1.6 million for the SCG003S (Stradale) road version, and a whopping £2.35 million for the SCG003C racer.
This is a Zenvo. It has 1,100hp
Minnow countries played big this year. Danish hypercar maker Zenvo turned up with two 1,104hp ST1s. Updates include a new seven-speed gearbox, claimed to be fastest-shifting single-clutch transmission in the world at 35 milliseconds between changes. Spain's Spania GTA Spano (got that?) has been tweaked, too. This titanium-and-carbon-fibre twin-turbo V10 hypercar has 925hp and a claimed V-max of 230mph.
Even Liechtenstein was represented by its very own electric hypercar. The Quant F is a battery car like no other, a huge - 5.26-metre long - four-seater. With 1,090hp to draw on, it can allegedly travel up to 500 miles on a single charge at speeds up to 190mph, and do 0-62 in 2.8 seconds. Eat my electric dust, Tesla P85D.
An autonomous racing car you say? Right...
Daftest car of the show by some margin was the ED Torq, whose unveiling was swamped by middle-aged men gawping at the implausibly long legs of a white jump-suited Italian model. As for the Torq, its odd windowless design is down to the fact that it drives itself... in competitive racing. Er, you what? Its electric powertrain punches out fully 1,328lb ft of torque (hence the name).
Every year, my favourite Swiss loon Franco Sbarro exhibits show cars created by his 'Espera Sbarro' design school students, with wildly varying degrees of artistic success. This year's effort, the Aria, is more attractive than normal, and being based on an Impreza it should actually perform, too. At the other extreme is the Triple, an aesthetically bereft three-seater designed to give two passengers a thrill ride around a track. Shame the thrill is tempered by the fact you look like you're stuck in an episode of Wacky Races. And as for Sbarro's execrable Maserati-based Grand Prix, I've posted a pic of the driver's seat, as I simply can't figure out how you could possibly sit in it.
Want your passenger to steer? Get a Rinspeed!
Largest ratio of stand to empty space went to mothballed German brand, Borgward, which turned up with a very large logo, a single 50-year old car and Sir Stirling Moss. I'm not sure anyone knew quite what was going on.
Best name of the show goes to a car called Deirdre. The Deirdre Aventor AW330 is an electric three-wheeled racing car made of recycled plastic (naturally), and has the distinction of being piloted by seven-time sidecar world champion Rolf Biland.
Light fantastic
Lightweight sports cars have not been forgotten. Great to see Radical at Geneva for the first time, showing a Swiss-registered RXC Turbo 500. This is the model in which Radical hopes to blitz its own Nurburgring lap record, currently held by the SR8 LM at 6min 48sec.
Because 6:48 round the 'ring is a bit tardy
The EDAG Light Cocoon was presented as "bionically optimised" - no, us neither - but the backlit light show playing on its Jack Wolfskin textile skin was kind of mesmeric. And cloth body panelling surely brings a new meaning to lightweight.
One of the most tasteful cars in this round-up is the Magna Mila Plus, a plug-in hybrid sports car with four-wheel drive and a two-seat cabin made of bioplastic (whatever that is). It's more theory than practice, however, as it's a non-running one-off, unless a manufacturer picks it up, which they won't. They never do.
Good taste was also evident in the Touring Superleggera Berlinetta Lusso, a lightly restyled Ferrari F12 that's actually going into production - just five examples will be made.
Are there any words?
New vacuums of taste sucked the air from traumatised visitors' lungs this year. Mansory was once again head and shoulders above - er, I mean below - everyone else in this department. Its Bentley GT Race looked ghastly in some kind of Spearmint Rhino paint effect, and not even the prospect of 1,001hp (yup) could tempt me to climb aboard. Mansory's AMG G63-based Sahara Edition was an 828hp camo-wrap of wrong. And its chromed golfing travesty, the Garia Prism, is claimed to be the world's fastest golf buggy (0-25mph in under two seconds) and can be yours for a mere £55,000.
Swiss tuner FAB Design wasn't far behind, with questionable interpretations of the McLaren 650S and Merc G-Wagen. Hamann's five-car display included a BMW M4 boosted to 517hp and wrapped in what appeared to be a layer of vomit. For me, though, it was Rolls-Royce that presented the tackiest car of the show: the Serenity with its beflowered silk interior. Ugh.
[The lead image is the EDAG Light Cocoon. Just thought you would like to know.]
 Spania GTA Spano |
 Quant-F |
 Sbarro Triple |
 Sbarro Aria |
 Deirdre Aventor AW330 |
 Phiaro P75 Cipher |
 Magna Mila Plus |
 Touring Berlinetta Lusso |
 Mansory Garia Prism |
 Hamann M4 |
 Sbarro GP |
 Borgward |
He did the same thing at the AM Sygnet launch.
Can anyone else think of any other examples of him pillaging his own dignity for cash?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht00JqyoTeM
As to the cars: I also really like the Zenvo. They're building an old-school supercar; no hybrid nonsense or 24th century tech, just s
tloads of power and outrageous looks.I never liked the Spano GTA and was genuinely surprised that they still exist. I thought they were vapourware?
ED immediately struck me as an unfortunate name for any car, made even worse by the missed opportunity of a joke about the "middle aged men".
This looks quite pleasing, to my eye. Sort of a mash-up between VW and McLaren styling cues and reminiscent of that beautiful VW mid-engined roadster concept from a few years ago.
It's taut but also curvy, as the best classic designs always were.
Leave it to Sbarro to design a car apparently for the anatomy of some undiscovered alien race. The drugs in Switzerland must be really good, or is it a lack of oxygen from the thin Alpine air? Either way, this is mental:
Finally, leave it to perhaps the best of the Italian Carrozzeria in the '60s to build a truly beautiful, modern Ferrari (something Ferrari, themselves, can't figure out how to do).
This is a truly beautiful machine:
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