The word on the street (and by street I mean the passageways between the show stands at Geneva’s Palexpo hall) is that the European car industry is recovering some of its long-lost mojo. As sales in the Eurozone tick upwards with agonising slowness, there’s a sense in Geneva that confidence is in the air again.
That was most obviously the case on the various VW Group stands as Europe's largest car maker showed off a range of new models and concepts that dwarfed the efforts of others. Everything from a slinky new Skoda Coupe to the Lamborghini Huracan to a possible Nissan Juke rival from VW to a Golf GTI with a plugin hybrid drivetrain was on show - testament to the fact that Volkswagen spent a staggering €10.2 billion on research and development last year.
Across the hall a non-European brand was also rediscovering some long-lost brio as Honda gleefully showed off its new Civic Type-R concept. Bewinged and positively bulging with mechanical muscle, Honda is promising massive power (300hp has been spoken of) and serious driving fun. There is a hot hatch war brewing though Seat somewhat took the wind out of Honda's sails when it announced that its Leon Cupra was the first front-drive car to circulate the legendary Nurburgring racetrack in under 8mins. Honda had previously publicly said that it wanted to take that record with the hot Civic, but it's still good to see the Japanese firm finding some of its old fun-loving streak after too many years of earnest-but-dull models.
Elsewhere, Maserati and Alfa Romeo were out in force to try and dispel any whiffs of failure surrounding the Italian car industry. Parent company Fiat may still be struggling for sales (and could only manage a couple of new 500 minicar variants to show) but the slinky and sexy Maserati Alfieri and Alfa Romeo 4C Spider showed that gorgeous car design is alive, well and can be found at a Milan postal address. Maserati especially was bullishly confident about dramatic increases in its future sales, and if there is still more than a little turmoil surrounding Alfa Romeo's future, then at least distant cousins Ferrari were able to come out with an interesting problem - too much success. Ferrari president Luca Di Montezemolo pointed out that Ferrari will be restricting the number of cars it will build next year to fewer than 7,000, so as to preserve the brand's exclusivity. Ferrari was presenting an updated California 2+2 convertible at the show, the first road-going turbocharged Ferrari (with a new and highly efficient 3.8-litre turbo V8 engine) since the 1980s. Montezemolo was also dropping hints that the hybrid technology from the range-topping LaFerrari hypercar could also soon spread to the rest of the range.
Now that Fiat also fully owns Chrysler, you can officially say that the tiny Jeep Renegade is a sister car to both the California and the LaFerrari. Well, sort of. Jeep's smallest car since the original 1942 Willys has stirred up controversy with its Postman Pat styling but at least it's a micro-SUV with proper engineering ; Jeep will be selling it on the basis of proper four wheel drive and go-anywhere ability, in stark contrast to the mere posing of most of its rivals. It will also be a major pillar of Jeep's ambitious strategy to expand its sales to more than 1,000,000 units per year.
Also showing signs of recovery is the French car industry. Peugeot's 308 hatchback picked up the European Car Of The Year award yesterday, and on the show stands its sister company Citroen was showing off the striking (and strikingly affordable - potentially as cheap as €16,000 when it arrives here) C4 Cactus. Also in the cute-and-affordable bracket is Renault's new Twingo, making its debut at the show, with its Smart-derived rear-engined layout and funky styling. Renault says it wants the car to recapture some of the magic of the original Rneault 5 and on looks alone, it appears to do just that.
Mercedes’ tie-up with Renault is bearing fruit - Mercedes boss Dieter Zetsche confirmed at Geneva that the company delivered more cars to customers last year than ever before and that it’s well on its way to its desired target of being the globe’s No.1 premium brand by 2020. Care is needed though - almost all of the expansion in sales came from smaller models such as the A-Class and CLA. That’s great from the point of view of attarcting younger customers (Mercedes says the average age of its buyers has plummeted since the introduction of the CLA) but less so from a profitability point of view. Merc will be hoping that the new C-Class, making its European debut at the show, can bridge some of that gap. The plans behind the C-Class, said Dr Zetsche, is “to set a new industry benchmark. Comments so far suggest it is mission accomplished. Our ambitions are still more efficiency, more sportiness, more customers and no compromise on quality.” Mercedes was also launching its new S-Class Coupe and van-based V-Class MPV at the show.
Potentially more important than any of the cars themselves were launches of new in-car infotainment systems. Opel's OnStar and Apple's CarPlay may just seem like so much electronic gizmo-ness but they will in fact be crucial to attracting the kinds of customers that car makers are currnetly strugling to engage with Generation Y consumers who are far more wedded to their phones and tablets than to anything with wheels. For all the glamour, glitz and excitement that the 84th running of the Geneva Motor Show elicits from dyed-in-the-wool car nuts, it's these currently-uninterested customers that the industry needs to start engaging with. If not, there may not be an 85th, 86th or 87th Geneva Show...
There’s much, much more to come from Geneva, so keep an eye on irishtimes.com/motors for more from the Palexpo.