Page 159 - Bespoke Issue

Our annual pilgrimage to the Geneva motor show marks the start of the season, it’s usually the rst real ‘away’ trip before
the race seasons start and there’s an event every weekend somewhere. Although no longer the biggest of the motor shows, with Detroit and Frankfurt weighing in to equation, it is still the most respected. If you’re going to launch a car, you need to do it at Geneva.
We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, the opening press day and the quietest of them all. Our rst stop, conveniently situated near the top of the escalator was David Brown Automobiles to see the brand new Silverstone Edition (featured in this issue) as we’d only seen it being built. They also had a great pair on Mini Remastered cars on the stand and both these and Speedbacks were attracting a lot of attention. Moving on we visited W Motors the Middle Eastern hypercar company responsible for the insane Fany'r Supersport.
The Lamborghini stand had the Urus on display properly for the rst time, although we’d had a very good look at it outside the Starling Hotel next to Palexpo when we were dropping off issues of Paddock Life. I like the Urus and had been tempted to get an order in, until I discovered it only had
the V8 engine derived from the Audi range. I had been hoping and expecting that it would be a thoroughbred, lunatic charging bull packing the Aventador V12 (or the very least the Huracan V10) under its bonnet to match its fabulous looks. So maybe I’ll wait until that model appears. The new Huracan Performante Spyder looked like a serious weapon, but other than that not much new in the Bull ring. Although, Lamborghini’s hospitality was as excellent as ever as they treated us to a pasta lunch and fabulous red wine to wash it down.
Lamborghini also announced a new timepiece partnership with Roger Dubuis, of which they showed me two pieces the ‘entry level’ being the Excalibur Spider Pirelli Automatic Skeleton, with a strap that is made from actual used rubber from Pirelli F1 race tyres priced around €65,000 and the Excalibur Aventador S, which costs nearly as much as the car.
Aston Martin were showing the all new Vantage, which is a stunning looking machine, displayed alongside the new Vantage GT3 which is homologated for the Le Mans series and is the one to watch at this year’s 24. They also had the Lagonda Vision concept on the stand attracting a
lot of attention. We popped in to AEC to see the new model Dodge Ram, which has had a long overdue makeover. The Ram is one of the best ‘big trucks’ out there but needed a new look as its signature grille was looking dated. Job done, the refresh puts it back in the game. The other sexy offering on the Dodge stand was the Challenger Hellcat replacement, the Demon, can’t wait to get behind the wheel as the hellcat is one of the most insane cars we’ve had the pleasure of driving. A hint to what to expect is maybe how they displayed it on the stand – front wheels rising off the ground in power wheelie.
The Ferrari stand is always an oasis with a calm back of house bar with plenty of seating. Numerous Amalgam models of the range decorated the space, which wraps around the Ferrari Tailor Made studio allowing customers to individually specify every aspect of their cars. There were no ‘new’ models as such, but the latest 488 variation the ‘Pista’ was gorgeous, the rst model I’ve seen that would tempt back into having a new prancing horse in the garage. A quick glass of wine (it would be rude not to) before we moved on to Rolls Royce. With the launch of Phantom 8 last summer there wasn’t too much for them to shout about, so they didn’t,
understated and elegant as the brand should be, Rolls Royce used the space to show us some of the art variations available inside (yes behind glass) on the Phantom dashboards.
Jaguar Land Rover however did have some new toys for us, the ‘I-Pace’ all electric SUV was here as an actual model this year, but the star of the show was the Range Rover SV Coupé. I’d seen this back in the summer as a customer, but we were embargoed until Geneva. The Coupé actually takes the model back to its routes as Range Rover started as a two door. The proportion is such that it looks like a smaller car, but it is exactly the same. The differences are subtle, but it actually only shares two body panels with its four door brother, the bonnet and the lower tailgate, everything else is new. It boasts the largest wheels on any production model at 23 inches and uses a full-on 600hp SVR engine. The limited run of 1000 of these lovely Land Rovers will ensure it holds its prestige – I can’t wait to get mine.
In the same hall as JLR were small but important out t Manifattura Automobili Torino, run by Paolo Garella whom I had the absolute pleasure of meeting at the Apollo IE launch in Tuscany. Paolo
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