Fear and Loathing in Jeff's Shed

Comment: Steve Kealy

The motor industry is packed with clever, talented people -- gifted even. They design, engineer, build, market and sell more and better vehicles every year. All is revealed to the fanatical, enthusiastic, interested or merely mildly curious at a couple of motorshows each year. Yet at this year's Melbourne International Motor show, the message, for some exhibitors at least, seems to have got lost in its own envelope.

Take Australia's arm of the global colossus that is Toyota: surrounded by dancers on bendy sticks metres high, we were presented with another attempt to break the Falcadore domination of Australia's highways.

The Aurion (it means "tomorrow" in ancient Greek -- hardly an auspicious name, given the urgency of the Mediterranean way of life) is the successor to Avalon, the best unpopular car in history. It looks to be the sum of many parts -- the rump's Maxima-esque, the A-pillar is pure US Camry, the nose a bit Chrysler-ish and the profile's pure Accord V6.

Over at Hyundai, the model-count climbs. The new Accent’s all wheels and skirts, while the new Grandeur is more Audi than an Audi. Sadly (Accent SR aside), you can have most of  'em in any colour you like -- so long as it's grey. Of course, the salesman will say it's silver, but anyone who's driven in a Melbourne winter will know that silver is the real grey.

It might have been the lights, but I’m sure I counted at least five different tones of grey on the Hyundai stand. Much the same is true of the offerings from Honda -- though at least they’re all in a uniform shade. Of grey.

Down at Mitsubishi, the new Triton looks awfully like a Smart ForFour with a tray-back and big wheels. But how sad that life-prolonging Limited Editions of the time-worn and long-toothed Pajero are considered as headline news.

Ford seem determined to slap a turbocharger onto everything in sight -- now the hot-hatch Focus and Territory Toorak Tractor get blown. And this week's hot new features include Reversing cameras (what’s wrong with counting heads?), six-way power seats -- and power-adjustable pedals. Now that's a set of electric motors that’s not going to wear out anytime soon.

Holden's drop-dead gorgeous Efijy concept won't make it into production (no bureaucrat could allow anyone to have that much fun in a car) but Holden's red, white and blue roots are showing -- despite its moniker, the Efijy is pure Yankee Leadsled.

At least it has a name -- like every other Holden for years. Pity the poor S3X and T2X -- hand-me-down year-old concepts which sound more like an incomplete project designation or a TLA (three-letter acronym). Perhaps Holden's NMP (name-making person) has left the building.

German meister-motors from Audi and Mercedes-Benz have more computer-power than put men on the moon, the better part of a Friesian herd cover their seats and they have better sound-systems than the Opera House. They are also capable of exceeding Australia's pitiful speed limits two or three times over, in perfect safety.

Merc's latest S-Class of excess ramps up the gap between Business Class and Steerage. Meanwhile their brand-new executive take on the family people-mover, the R-Class, continues the company's attempts at world domination -- of the alphabet.

Staying with the hosts of the World game's World Cup, BMW offered more numbers than a train-timetable -- starting at 1.18, 1.20 and 1.30 to 3.20, running progressively faster right up to the 5.50 and 6.50 expresses and the executive classes at 7.50 and so on. When they get to 12.30, we can knock off for lunch.

Chrysler, poor cousin to Mercedes-Benz, has moved on from the quirky PT Cruiser and its Benz-in-a-cheap-dress, the Crossfire. The company's offerings include the big-outside, small-inside 1980s refugee Jeeps and the designed-by-a-committee-which-never-convened 300C.

Dodge made a return with six new models coming in the next three years -- trouble is, they're targeting rival models from stablemates Chrysler and Jeep...

Up at the rarefied end of the market, Rolls-Royce has heard that some customers don't like their compact Phantom, so has built a new model with an extra 10 inches (no metric here old boy!) -- all of it in the rear cabin. Fnarr fnarr... Naturally there's a choice of 45,000 variations of paint, timber, leather, wine-chillers, thermidors and any other gadgets you can dream up.

As RR is to BMW and Bentley is to VW, so is Maybach to Mercedes; just as RR customers wanted a full-size Phantom, Maybachers demanded more performance, so their smaller 57S now delivers 1000Nm, 450kW and 275 km/h from its 6-litre twin-turbo V12. Price? If you ask, you don't need to know -- just sign a blank cheque, we’ll do the rest…