Pre-Show
Back in Japan once more, on the agreement with my boss that I don’t go and partake in some rather illegal street racing. No, this time, it’s for the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, the motor show for any company with even the slightest interest in the huge Japanese Domestic Market.
The teasers and reveals have been in full swing, and with the show starting on Wednesday, there’s little else to do other than take a dive in and see what we can expect at this year’s show.
Baltazar have announced a history-packed display as well as a proper reveal of the updated 2018 Quark. More to follow. Airborne followed suit with a similar announcement of two all-new designs, with only one picture of a car to go on so far for details.
The very, very keen AL Autos have posted a large number of teasers through to my inbox, including one of a car call the “Anguis”. It looks very angry and sounds odd, no matter how you pronounce it.
Naturally, on home turf, Saminda poked their heads through the door once more with another concept. We’re still not even sure if they’ve actually released the C2KR, and what about that C5KR from a few months back? Still,
the rumour mill is firmly focused on this car being the reason the Saminda-Maesima sports car project fell through. Drama!
Merciel have teased a new sports coupe-sedan called the JR4. Nothing else to report now other than, like all performance cars these days, it’s blue. It also has a spoiler.
Bonham unveiled the new Fleming, and naturally the whole of SW1 London gasped in shock that they didn’t already have one on order. I don’t really need to report on this do I? It’s another V12 super GT car made in England. Of course it’s going to be good, you dim wit!
Maine launched two new cars, the Imperator and Scorcher. The American brand are updating their luxury Imperator sedan with “70s heritage”, including a big V8 engine choice and a healthy dose of new looks. It’s got just enough vulgarity to make you go “well it must be American”, but also doesn’t actually look that bad either. We can confirm that the entire UK fandom of Bruce Springsteen and Americana music are already asking when it’s coming to the UK.
As for the Scorcher, the new, narrow looks make it feel a bit mixed, though the back certainly has some flair. And of course, being an American supermini, the engine’s are way too big for their own good.
Speaking of American cars, Miller released a car that I’m betting on winning this year’s “Most Perplexing Automotive Ass” award outright. I mean seriously, what is going on at that rear end? It’s like a the original Renault Megane had a love child with some generic after-market lights from the early 00s. Called the J-Series, it’s a very weird looking car, made weirder still by the offering of a 9 speed auto box. Eh? And I’m sorry, but 2.1l of i4 engine should easily be able to make way more than 130 hp. I am thoroughly unconvinced by this whole car.
Hodan announced a new concept - the EV Concept - and a new, homologated version of the Rizun sports car. The EV is a really good looking electric sports coupe kinda-thing that promises the equivalent of 400 hp, though you’ll only get 100 km of driving when it in that power mode. Still, it should a very short lived 100 km.
The Rizun will now be entering into the European GT4 series from next year, with a tastefully homologated version of the car. The big rear wing really just completes the look perfectly.
A whole new company, Reactor Research Inc, have announced a sub-$20k nuclear fusion powered car. That’s right, even JET in Oxfordshire couldn’t have predicted this. A 570k-miles-per-recharge car with, apparently, “no maintainence” required for the micro-fusion engine. How does it work? No idea. The car it’ll be making it’s debut in, the F-One, is compact estate car, making it very accessible indeed. It seems like a miracle. It seems almost too good to be true…
Montes’ new mid-engine sports car, the RXS-6, has been revealed. The V6 powered relaunch of this carbon-fibre constructed machine looks pretty darn fine, with clean styling and some very non-Alfa tail lights that look sweet. More to follow.
Naturally, with the recent release of Gran Turismo Sport, there have been a few Vision GT cars pinned for the show. Kimura revealed a V10 powered, 711 hp, international-collaboration car that seems to be pinned as a major hint at what we can expect from the company’s sportier cars and especially their racing cars in the come years. Contendiente have given us the Esperanza Vision GT 2020, which certainly gets marks for being tasteful, purposeful and yellow. Better still, it’s powered by algae-produced gasoline, with hints that Conte will be pursuing this fuel source in the future.
Well then, it certainly seems the motoring world has learned from its catastrophic teaser period in the build up to the Frankfurt Auto Show, which is good. Roll on Wednesday!
-Gavin Anderson