The best motor show of the year is coming up soon – the Geneva Motor Show. You’ll see a lot of cars from companies you recognise in your favourite motoring pages. There are a few companies you’re less likely to hear about, though. Small companies trying to sell themselves every bit as much as they try to sell dreams on wheels.
Who are they and what are they offering? Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones (to me, at least)…..
GTA Motor
GTA Motor is a Spanish company looking to build 99 supercars – exclusivity is everything – capable of reaching 100kph in under 3 seconds, and a top speed of 350km/h. The GTA Spano project is actually a few years old now. It has shown at Goodwood and 2013 will be GTA’s second year at Geneva.
It’s a handsome vehicle, for sure.
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Soleil Motors
Soleil is another fledgling supercar company, based in Milan, Italy. It’s production concept/model is called the Anadi but I don’t know if any have been built for real just yet. They seem to be similar to Spyker in philosophy, with an emphasis on luxury and execution rather than flat-out performance.
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Pariss Electric
Another exotic from another new company. Are you sensing a trend here? As the name implies, this is an electric vehicle and it even made its debut at it’s namesake motor show – Paris 2012. Pariss claim 100kW of power, a 125km range and a recharge time of just 5 hours for the French made batteries. The price is a very reasonable sounding 60,000 Euros and it’s scheduled for launch in the first half of this year.
Le Tesla?
This video is your first in-motion glimpse, presumably filmed in Paris last year. It shows the state of production readiness at the time – being driven at slow speed around a roundabout, in the rain, with no working windscreen wipers.
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Fornasari
Fornasari are a specialist carmaker founded in 1999 and based in Italy. They have a number of body styles already in use, particularly high-bodied vehicles intended for sports rallying. The cars mostly use GM V8 engines and rather wacky body styling in some instances.
I’m not sure what they’re showing at Geneva, but it might be the GiGi Concept, below. Again, bespoke leather and aluminium interiors that are reminiscent of Spyker’s work. Very nice.
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Exagon eGT
Laurent: Dis car haz six sides – front, derrire, left, right, top and bottom. We call it de Cube!
Jean-Paul: Nissan already use dis Cube name. Pigdogs! Hexagon also has le six sides.
Laurent: A-ha! Exagon, it is!
And so goes my broadly stereotyped tale of how the Exagon company got its name. It’s another French sports car and it’s another electric one, too. The Furtive eGT features two 142kW motors giving the equivalent of 400-odd horsepower and claimed acceleration of 0-100km/h in just 2.5 seconds. Range and Recharge aren’t discussed (yet).
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There are a number of equally small exhibitors doing smaller projects that don’t quite capture my imagination in the same way as these movers and shakers. They’re more in the frame of modifiers of existing vehicles or other small electric start-ups.
You can peruse the entire list of Geneva entrants here. There’s likely to still be a few names there that you haven’t heard of.
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Well I do like the GTA but mabey it’s because they plan on making 99 of them , just something about that rings a bell =)
The first Fornasari pictured looks like something Rinspeed would do to a Porsche Cayenne.
How many “exotic supercar” makers can the worlds rich people sustain? And is this it, so to say? For a new car company in the Western world there is only one way to go, and that is exotic, expensive supercars.
You’re right. A new company can’t compete with the Hyundai’s of this world, unless they’re massive to begin with.
And besides, supercars are a lot more fun
Saw the Furtive on the Paris show in 2012. Looked very impressive, they had a number of vehicle on display and even one parked outside, behind the exhibition hall.
I just wonder about the real-world potential of electric cars. There was another damning article about them on Reuters just today and it wasn’t pretty. Even the big players who have capital to invest are downsizing or abandoning their electric plans, with many moving to hydrogen. I tend to think the range issue is just too big for most people to make electric vehicles viable on a large scale.
I would say if you do it like Tesla, then you are on to something. I was reading an interview with Elon Musk and I sensed almost Koenigsegg-like dedication to the vehicle. And I think range anxiety is almost eliminated with 80kwh battery pack. And they do say that they are making a profit now.
Generally, I agree with you. I sensed an hesitation from all players, except maybe Renault, at the Paris show which wasn’t present at Beijing or Frankfurt the year before. Everyone is waiting for the result of Renault’s effort, a four model electic vehicle attack. So far, the Leaf and the Volt have shown limited success. Audi pulling the plug on the electric R8 is a good example of what you are saying.
I think in the end, Tesla shows what is possible and I think there are too many advantages of such vehicles to be ignored in the long term.