This past week has seen the Frankfurt Motor Show reveal several oddities, chief among them the Mercedes-Benz IAA concept car which is, for all intents and purposes, a shape-shifting automobile that is more like Captain Nemo’s weekend runabout and less of a car I’d actually want to drive.
The back end seems straight off the Nautilus’ original design sketches and its absurdly marine silhouette both thrills and terrifies in equal parts. And “shape-shifting” is not just a random adjective thrown in to increase the word count, this car actually changes shape on demand; and it has been billed as the most aerodynamic vehicle ever built.
Not so much the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. Just eye-balling this vehicle one can learn several things about it: it is not cheap, it does not look very aerodynamic, it won’t change shape (unless you crash it) and... it was at KICC. Yes, someone put an SLS AMG on display at the recent Total Motorshow to satisfy the dark desires of those in the petrolhead community who have the will but lack the way.
Oddly enough, unlike the IAA Fish-Car in Frankfurt, the local SLS was not displayed by Mercedes-Benz (or their licensee franchise CFAO DT Dobie), it was in a completely unrelated display terminal. The Mercedes stand had run-of-the-mill cars with normal shapes and normal power outputs for normal people.
Here is the thing about motorshows: most participants have themes that they try to highlight by means of a standout display object (such as the IAA). There are those who focus on green energy, others on performance, yet others on design language; on the whole most of them also display concept cars but all these things invariably add up to one thing: they point in the direction the companies or entities are heading or want to head. They are a projection of future things or manifestations of company policy.
The KMI Total Motorshow of 2015 could also be billed as the most petrolhead-friendly yet. The following is a run-down of what was there, and what probably wasn’t.