LA MOTOR SHOW: Top seven cars of 2017
The most important cars in Tinsel Town included off-roaders, horsepower heroes and quirky EVsEven in winter the sun shines in Los Angeles, where car-makers from around the world flock to town for one final end-of-year bash to show off their latest toys at the LA auto show.
What started as a small and relatively insignificant motor show in the past has now turned into an event which automotive companies take more seriously than a call from the tax office.
Indeed global premieres of new models are now par for the course at the Californian show, and in the last couple of days we’ve seen debuts of the new Jeep Wrangler, BMW i8 Roadster, Saleen S1, Mazda6, Aria FXE, REDS EV, Mercedes-Benz CLS Coupe, Toyota FT-AC Concept and the Chevy Corvette ZR1 convertible, just to name a few.
But let's cut to the chase – here's our pick of the seven most important cars from the 2017 LA motor show.
One of the most iconic off-road vehicles ever made has finally scored a complete overhaul, but from some angles you wouldn’t know it.
Jeep designers approached the hard-core 4WD mud-slinger with an evolutionary -- not revolutionary -- mindset, but it works. It's got a lot more safety and technology features now, but disappointingly not Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB).
You can still pull it pieces, removing doors, roof and even the windscreen. The icing on the cake? A hybrid version is coming in 2020.
Chris Bangle, the controversial designer who once presided over all BMW designs, has teamed up with a Chinese car-maker to deploy the remarkable REDS EV.
Arguably the most deranged creation seen in Los Angeles this year – even eclipsing the getups worn by the radical dudes skateboarding near Santa Monica pier – it will come as no surprise to learn it points towards a future in which car design favours function over form.
Instead of a self-driving vehicle, this Chinese-only (for now) REDS EV is built by a company called REDSPACE and designed for commuters who spend most of their time stationary in traffic.
It's a pragmatic if tiny car, measuring just 2.97 metres long, but comes with a massive 17-inch infotainment screen to watch movies and a rear sofa/bench seat which also doubles as a baby change table.
Oh, and the driver's seat swivels 360 degrees so you can chat with passengers when traffic grinds to a halt. Welcome to the future, folks.
The third off-road SUV concept study from Toyota this year, the FT-AC or future Toyota Adventure Concept is more evidence the Japanese giant has moved on from its era of cardigan-wearing, pipe-and-slippers stereotypes.
The idea here is that everything Toyota has learned from the Prado and LandCruiser could be squished into a smaller and sexier form, with things like torque-vectoring AWD and four-wheel locking functionality expected to feature.
Oh, and the kids will love this: it's a got a retractable bike rack at the back and an inbuilt video cameras to record your mad bush-bashing skills.
4. Nissan Titan Star Wars The Last Jedi
“Set phasers to stun!”…Oh wait, wrong sci-fi show. Why is the Nissan Titan pickup important in Los Angeles? Two reasons: it's just cool and it gets non car-people interested.
Carefully styled to blend into the science-fiction world of Jedi Knights and Sith Lords, there are seven specially created cars coinciding with the launch of the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi movie.
Pretty much all of them are awful but they've dived so far off the deep end of the bad-taste scale they've somehow inverted and become cool.
The Nissan Titan AT-M6 pickup is probably the least offensive in a visual sense, while not even Jedi mind tricks can save the Nissan Altima Special Forces TIE fighter's appeal. Its spherical windscreen and trash-can hub caps are icing on the cake.
5. Aria FXE
The Aria FXE is one 857kW dream machine. Figuratively and literally. Aria is in the business of building custom cars for well-heeled clients, but the FXE is its first shot at a limited-run vehicle of its own design – and what a design it is.
With hints of the Ford GT and Lamborghini Aventador, this all-American weapon typifies the Los Angeles ethos of 'more is better'.
The carbon-fibre creation has a price tag of "if you have to ask you can't afford it" and a top speed of more than 330km/h. Power comes via a 6.2-litre supercharged V8 paired with an electric motor, the hybrid layout driving all four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch sequential gearbox.
The world premiere of the all-new Mercedes-Benz CLS Coupe is further evidence the German company isn't afraid to try new things. It may well be an oxymoron to call a four-door vehicle a coupe, but we'll let that slide because this design is in equal parts smooth sophistication and understated menace.
Boasting loads of technology, including new inline six-cylinder engines with clever 48-volt mild hybrid augmentation, the new CLS-Class borrows interior design and advanced driver tech from the E-Class, a car which virtually drives itself. It won't set the sales charts on fire, but it will influence how other upcoming Mercs are styled.
Take a BMW i8, hack the roof off and ‘voila’ – you have the ultimate cruiser for LA’s Mulholland Drive. This is a car which looks exotic and goes fast, but allows owners to maintain ‘cred’ with their muesli-munching tree-hugging mates as it is capable of running on pure electricity for around 50km. The roof opens in just 15 seconds at the touch of a button and, thanks to its savvy new design, it looks gorgeous roof on or off.
Powered by a modest 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine paired with an electric motor, the all-new i8 belts out a combined 275kW and is good for zero to 100km/h in 4.4sec. This one is important because it points to a future where frugal and fun can happily co-exist. And it's certainly sexy.
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