It is common knowledge that the rivalry between German car brands is omnipresent, and sometimes it goes so far as to spill over into TV commercials. Last time, Mercedes mischievously congratulated BMW on its 100th anniversary, but now Mercedes itself has become the target of a joke. Check out what Audi has done for him.
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Mazda caught the automotive world on the wrong foot when it unveiled the Mazda MX-5 RF in New York. The RF in the name stands for ``retractable fastback'', which is a designation for a coupé design with a hard folding roof. The folding system does not follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, but follows the path of the Porsche 911 Targa.
The harbingers of spring on the road are, in addition to motorbikes, also coupés. The new Audi R8 Spyder V10 is the best that this class currently has in stock. 3.6 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h, a maximum speed of 318 km/h, 540 horsepower are just the icing on the cake of the technical data of this striking coupe, which is being presented these days at the International Auto Show in New York.
The prestigious French watch brand Bell & Ross has satisfied extremely demanding watch lovers until now, but from now on it will also satisfy high-octane watchmakers, as it has produced a phenomenal study of a supercar. The concept sports car Aero GT Concept is clearly not driven by clockwork, but by a 4.2-liter bi-turbo V8 engine.
Audi brought two versions of the new generation of the A4 model to the Geneva Motor Show, the Audi S4 and S4 Avant, the sports version in sedan (S4) and station wagon (S4 Avant) versions, which actually sweated in the gym before the show, as they have a V6-turbo engine with 260 kW of power. They will be available to customers in the summer of 2016.
The BMW Vision Next 100 Concept is a visionary concept with which BMW honored the 100th anniversary of the company's existence. Instead of cake and nostalgic shots, they served a vision, an automated hybrid between a sports coupe and a limousine, which happily meets the demands and wishes of the driver.
The Toyota Setsuna is a concept car and an art project. The two-seater convertible mirrors the boat, but not only in shape. Most of the car is made of wood, specifically Japanese cedar (external panels) and birch (frame). It is powered by an electric motor.
After two concepts, Toyota presented the production Toyota C-HR in Geneva, its first hybrid crossover that maintains the sharp lines of the concept. It is based on Toyota's new TNGA platform, which is also based on the latest generation of Prius and will also be the basis of most future generations of Toyota vehicles. It is the second production hybrid crossover to debut in Geneva. The second is the Kia Niro, which is its main competitor alongside the Nissan Juke, Mazda CX-3, Honda H-RV, Fiat 500X and Opel Mokko.
Tires don't usually get much attention, especially at auto shows where cars reign supreme, but this year was different. Goodyear shocked the public with its bold vision of tires. The Goodyear Eagle-360 tire is round! The American tire brand is reinventing the tire with the spherical tire. It is based on 117 years of tire manufacturing experience and imitation of nature. And how does it hold up to the car? Goodyear prepared for this question as well.
Despite the fact that it is the first production car with a single body design and three different environmentally friendly drives (hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric or EV-drive), the Hyundai Ioniq remained relatively unnoticed in Geneva (unjustifiably) compared to the innovations with classic drives. The Ioniq is the harbinger of new times at Hyundai, and it is not just a gauntlet thrown at the Toyota Prius, as it heralds the further development of hybrid and also electric drives of the Korean brand.
In Geneva, Kia showed the Kia Niro model, its first hybrid crossover, an economical, sleek and mouse-quiet gasoline-electric SUV. It is built on the same ecological platform as the Hyundai Ioniq and is indeed Kia's dedicated hybrid. It is a global model that will attract a lot of interest also on the Slovenian market, where it will appear in the third quarter of 2016. It will be manufactured in Korea, and the design was contributed by Kia's design center in California and Namjanga.
Pininfarina brought the H2 Speed racing car concept to Geneva, which, as the name suggests, runs on fuel cells, while the Speed "trailer" betrays its racing character. The designers drew inspiration for the design from the past concept of the Ferrari Sigma racing car and added some futuristic features to it. They were supplied with a pair of electric motors by the GreenGT company, and the H2 Speed squeezes out 503 horses.