Most Significant Debuts at Paris Auto Show

From fuel-efficiency for the masses to fabulous exotics for the few, the highlights from this year’s Paris show.

BY JARED GALL AND STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE DUSHANE, MATTHIAS KNOEDLER, AND THE MANUFACTURERS
October 2008

As the Michigan skies shed their summer blues and don the dreary gray they’ll wear for the next seven months, there’s one ray of light that pierces our seasonal depression: the beginning of auto-show season. It means a lot of extra work for us, but it’s not like we have anything to do other than hibernate and shovel the driveway.

The auto market is changing fast, and amid the glamour and promised speed of the headline-grabbing debuts are a number of new models that mean more to us, more to the market, and more to their parent companies. It might be because of an important new technology, a new styling direction, or evidence of change aboard the mothership, but following are the 10 most significant debuts of the first show of this auto-show season, the 2008 Paris show.
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Audi S4

The S4 is significant because of what’s under the hood: a smaller engine than the outgoing generation. Where a 4.2-liter V-8 used to reside, the 2010 S4 will make do with Audi’s first supercharged engine, a direct-injection 3.0-liter V-6. Horsepower is down compared to the V-8, from 340 to 333, but torque increases a small amount to 325 lb-ft, from 317. Cars can get cleaner and more efficient, but they don’t have to get slow.

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BMW Concept X1

BMW’s fourth SUV, the X1 is a concept in name only. We expect to see a production model very similar to this vehicle within two years. The shocking thing about the X1 is that it is an SUV that was not designed with the U.S. in mind and is currently only “under discussion” for the North American market. Also, the X1 represents the further downsizing of models from one of the globe’s most prominent premium brands, an important idea in this age of growing automotive conservatism.

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Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon

The CTS Sport Wagon could make wagons cool again. It’s a stunning vehicle, with gorgeous lines, exciting bulges, and a rear end that could steal the spotlight at a Maxim cover shoot. With a 304-hp V-6 and 25 cubic feet of storage behind the rear seats, the CTS Sport Wagon is powerful and practical, too, and it’s coming to the U.S. Once upon a time, wagons were the car of choice for American families. May everything old be new again.

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Chevrolet Cruze

Small cars are big business elsewhere in the world, and are shaping up to be an arena for tremendous growth in the U.S. Chevrolet’s Cruze, the replacement for the Cobalt, is not only a stylish small car from a company that has long lacked one, but it is one of GM’s first products to be built on a global platform, meaning the car we’ll buy in the U.S. will be the same car sold in Europe and around the world.

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Chevrolet Volt

Though the production-intent version of the Chevrolet Volt officially debuted at a Detroit event a couple of weeks ago, Paris marks the official auto-show debut of the groundbreaking extended-range electric vehicle (E-REV), which should travel up to 40 miles solely on batteries before its gas-powered generator kicks into recharge them. Chevrolet product planners assure us that the Jetsons-like interior and nifty lighting details will remain when sales begin in November of 2010.

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Ferrari California

Once Ferrari gets on board with new ideas in the sports-car world, we have no choice but to take those ideas seriously, and the California boasts two new-to-Ferrari features: a dual-clutch gearbox in the style of Volkswagen’s DSG and BMW’s M DCT, and a folding hardtop. It’s apparent in the styling of the California that folding a metal roof into your trunk isn’t easy or graceful, but we still can’t wait to get behind the wheel.

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Honda Insight

The Honda Insight badge returns next April not on another two-seat, four-wheeled shoe, but as a relatively handsome, five-seat Prius clone. The 2010 Insight will feature its own version of Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist powertrain, giving it fuel economy similar to that of Honda’s own Civic Hybrid. The biggest difference, then, will be lighter weight, fewer frills, and with an estimated price of under $20K, lower cost.

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Lamborghini Estoque

This front-engine, four-door raging bull is decidedly tamer in looks than Lambo’s other offerings, and with its four seats and luggage-friendly trunk, it’s decidedly more livable, too. The styling mixes ’70s muscle-car proportions with the demonic front and rear styling we’ve grown to love with recent Lambos. Uncertain is which engine would power the Estoque’s four wheels, but our money’s on some modified version of the Gallardo LP560-4’s 552-hp V-10.

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Mercedes-Benz ConceptFASCINATION

Although humidors and binoculars are not likely to be included on the next Mercedes-Benz E-class options list, the look of the ConceptFASCINATION will most likely be standard equipment. While still not as edgy as a Cadillac, this concept suggests that the more assertive styling and intricate detailing of the C-class will be making its way throughout the Mercedes lineup.

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Volkswagen Rabbit/Golf/GTI

The world is watching as VW launches the sixth generation of the car that carries on the original Beetle’s legacy of bringing affordable German transportation—and in the case of the GTI, performance—to the masses. The new Golf (sold as the Rabbit in the U.S.) is cleaner-looking, lower, sexier, better-equipped, and cheaper to build. Based on an early drive of the Golf in Germany, we expect nothing short of success for round six.