Dori A Schmetterling
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It might interest some of you to read a well-known UK journalist's preview of the imminent Detroit Motor Show. Retro continues to be in.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22750-1973413,00.html
The article appears in today's Sunday Times, the UK's biggest-selling quality Sunday paper.
DAS
For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---
America rolls back the years
The Detroit motor show reveals US car makers, under siege from imports, bringing back old names, reports Ray Hutton
Chrysler's design for a new Dodge Challenger is a
lot like the old
American car makers are discovering that nothing sells like nostalgia. This year's Detroit motor show, the trendsetting equivalent of Paris Fashion Week, revives the greatest car names of the 1960s and 1970s. The big three - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - have opened their catalogues from years gone by and revived the glamour of films such as Bullitt and the hot summer nights of Bruce Springsteen lyrics.
At the show, which opens on Saturday, Ford will unveil the Shelby Mustang GT500 coupé and convertible. Both variants are throwbacks to the machines that made Ford famous on the track in the Trans-Am racing series.
General Motors is showing off a Chevy Camaro, one of the cars produced in the 1960s to rival the Mustang. It will be reborn with a 400bhp V8 engine pinched from GM's Corvette, although it won't be on sale for another three years at least.
Chrysler is unveiling a prototype of a Dodge Challenger, another rival to the Mustang, that is due to be in the showrooms in two years' time and is a dead ringer for its 1970 namesake.
With falling sales and consumers deserting traditional brands in favour of cheap imports from the Pacific rim, car makers hope that by reviving the names still immortalised in film and song they will re-establish themselves on the American cultural landscape and invigorate sales.
"We need to remind people of the cars that made us great in the first place and bring glamour back to the showrooms," said an American car executive.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s the Beach Boys wrote about fantasy Corvettes (In My Car) and Chevrolets (Cherry, Cherry Coupé) and Don McLean drove his Chevy to the levy (American Pie). Springsteen built a Challenger (The Promise) and drove a 69 Chevy (Racing in the Street) while Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally helped sell Fords to the masses. Today cars are still mentioned in songs more than any other product, according to Brandstand, a US marketing firm.
While they look much the same as their ancestors, these retro cars have much better performance, come with all mod cons and meet safety and exhaust emissions standards.
The new Shelby Mustang will be powered by a 450bhp version of the supercharged 5.4 litre V8 engine that powers the Ford GT. It takes its name from the tuned versions of the Mustang produced by Carroll Shelby, now 82, who devised the original Mustang GT500 in 1966.
Dodge is now a brand of DaimlerChrysler and the new Challenger will be built on a shortened Chrysler 300 chassis platform that includes Mercedes multi-link independent suspension. It is likely to cost about $35,000 (£20,000).
The car makers aren't doing this on a whim. By opening their back catalogues they hope to recover the slide in sales that sent them into the red last year. Chrysler has already proved that retro sells. In 2001 it introduced the popular PT Cruiser, with a style reminiscent of the 1930s.
Ford's facsimile of the 1967 fastback Mustang, fabled as the star of the great car chase in the Steve McQueen film Bullitt, is already selling well. So well in fact that Ford still can't make enough to meet demand. Some 165,000 were bought last year.
With prices starting at just $20,000 it is a snip, and imports are available in the UK for as little as £22,000. At the other end of the price scale is the £126,000 Ford GT, introduced 40 years after the original GT40 and feted as an instant classic on both sides of the Atlantic.
Some of the other retro designs will soon be on their way across the pond. The Dodge Caliber, a chunky hatchback designed to compete with the Focus and Astra, will be coming to Britain in July. It incorporates design elements from rough-and-tough Dodge trucks.
Could the vogue for retro styling lead to a reinvention of other classics? Get ready for a relaunched Pontiac Firebird or Plymouth Barracuda. The annual Detroit motor show is the most important in North America and for many car makers North America is the most important market in the world. No wonder, then, that the show is noted for its number of new production models and prophetic concept cars.
Other cars on show at Detroit for the first time include a four-seater Aston Martin, the Rapide. The concept car is a stretched DB9 with four doors and a possible rival to Porsche's forthcoming Panamera, though no decision has been made to produce it.
Mini will give a preview of its redesigned car and unveil a US version of the Traveller concept that was shown at the Frankfurt and Tokyo motor shows last autumn. Volvo, which teased audiences in Detroit last year with a photograph of its small C30 coupé, presents the real thing this time.
The Nissan Urge is a kind of stripped-down 350Z with the minimalist character of a Lotus Elise.
It still a concept but there are hopes it will progress to production as another relatively inexpensive sports two-seater.
More manufacturers are testing the American market with small cars, hoping to follow the fashion success of the Mini and Toyota's funky Scion xB, aimed at younger buyers.
Mazda is considering a little coupé derived from its Kabura concept. The Reflex is a Fiesta-sized concept car from Ford of America, while South Korea's most ambitious car maker is showing the shape of things to come with a neat hatchback called the Kia Soul.
Among bigger cars there are trends towards crossovers between SUVs and conventional estate cars, exemplified by the Buick Enclave, Ford Edge, Lincoln Aviator and Mazda CX-7.
Another theme of the show is petrol-electric hybrid power systems pioneered by the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight.
The North American International Auto Show at the Cobo Center, Detroit, opens to the public on Saturday and runs until January 22
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22750-1973413,00.html
The article appears in today's Sunday Times, the UK's biggest-selling quality Sunday paper.
DAS
For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---
America rolls back the years
The Detroit motor show reveals US car makers, under siege from imports, bringing back old names, reports Ray Hutton
Chrysler's design for a new Dodge Challenger is a
lot like the old
American car makers are discovering that nothing sells like nostalgia. This year's Detroit motor show, the trendsetting equivalent of Paris Fashion Week, revives the greatest car names of the 1960s and 1970s. The big three - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - have opened their catalogues from years gone by and revived the glamour of films such as Bullitt and the hot summer nights of Bruce Springsteen lyrics.
At the show, which opens on Saturday, Ford will unveil the Shelby Mustang GT500 coupé and convertible. Both variants are throwbacks to the machines that made Ford famous on the track in the Trans-Am racing series.
General Motors is showing off a Chevy Camaro, one of the cars produced in the 1960s to rival the Mustang. It will be reborn with a 400bhp V8 engine pinched from GM's Corvette, although it won't be on sale for another three years at least.
Chrysler is unveiling a prototype of a Dodge Challenger, another rival to the Mustang, that is due to be in the showrooms in two years' time and is a dead ringer for its 1970 namesake.
With falling sales and consumers deserting traditional brands in favour of cheap imports from the Pacific rim, car makers hope that by reviving the names still immortalised in film and song they will re-establish themselves on the American cultural landscape and invigorate sales.
"We need to remind people of the cars that made us great in the first place and bring glamour back to the showrooms," said an American car executive.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s the Beach Boys wrote about fantasy Corvettes (In My Car) and Chevrolets (Cherry, Cherry Coupé) and Don McLean drove his Chevy to the levy (American Pie). Springsteen built a Challenger (The Promise) and drove a 69 Chevy (Racing in the Street) while Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally helped sell Fords to the masses. Today cars are still mentioned in songs more than any other product, according to Brandstand, a US marketing firm.
While they look much the same as their ancestors, these retro cars have much better performance, come with all mod cons and meet safety and exhaust emissions standards.
The new Shelby Mustang will be powered by a 450bhp version of the supercharged 5.4 litre V8 engine that powers the Ford GT. It takes its name from the tuned versions of the Mustang produced by Carroll Shelby, now 82, who devised the original Mustang GT500 in 1966.
Dodge is now a brand of DaimlerChrysler and the new Challenger will be built on a shortened Chrysler 300 chassis platform that includes Mercedes multi-link independent suspension. It is likely to cost about $35,000 (£20,000).
The car makers aren't doing this on a whim. By opening their back catalogues they hope to recover the slide in sales that sent them into the red last year. Chrysler has already proved that retro sells. In 2001 it introduced the popular PT Cruiser, with a style reminiscent of the 1930s.
Ford's facsimile of the 1967 fastback Mustang, fabled as the star of the great car chase in the Steve McQueen film Bullitt, is already selling well. So well in fact that Ford still can't make enough to meet demand. Some 165,000 were bought last year.
With prices starting at just $20,000 it is a snip, and imports are available in the UK for as little as £22,000. At the other end of the price scale is the £126,000 Ford GT, introduced 40 years after the original GT40 and feted as an instant classic on both sides of the Atlantic.
Some of the other retro designs will soon be on their way across the pond. The Dodge Caliber, a chunky hatchback designed to compete with the Focus and Astra, will be coming to Britain in July. It incorporates design elements from rough-and-tough Dodge trucks.
Could the vogue for retro styling lead to a reinvention of other classics? Get ready for a relaunched Pontiac Firebird or Plymouth Barracuda. The annual Detroit motor show is the most important in North America and for many car makers North America is the most important market in the world. No wonder, then, that the show is noted for its number of new production models and prophetic concept cars.
Other cars on show at Detroit for the first time include a four-seater Aston Martin, the Rapide. The concept car is a stretched DB9 with four doors and a possible rival to Porsche's forthcoming Panamera, though no decision has been made to produce it.
Mini will give a preview of its redesigned car and unveil a US version of the Traveller concept that was shown at the Frankfurt and Tokyo motor shows last autumn. Volvo, which teased audiences in Detroit last year with a photograph of its small C30 coupé, presents the real thing this time.
The Nissan Urge is a kind of stripped-down 350Z with the minimalist character of a Lotus Elise.
It still a concept but there are hopes it will progress to production as another relatively inexpensive sports two-seater.
More manufacturers are testing the American market with small cars, hoping to follow the fashion success of the Mini and Toyota's funky Scion xB, aimed at younger buyers.
Mazda is considering a little coupé derived from its Kabura concept. The Reflex is a Fiesta-sized concept car from Ford of America, while South Korea's most ambitious car maker is showing the shape of things to come with a neat hatchback called the Kia Soul.
Among bigger cars there are trends towards crossovers between SUVs and conventional estate cars, exemplified by the Buick Enclave, Ford Edge, Lincoln Aviator and Mazda CX-7.
Another theme of the show is petrol-electric hybrid power systems pioneered by the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight.
The North American International Auto Show at the Cobo Center, Detroit, opens to the public on Saturday and runs until January 22
