NEW YORK MOTOR SHOW: The Wrap

The 2012 New York Motor Show was a refreshing event with more world premieres than we were anticipating, but if we had to make a snap call on one car that stole the show, it was without doubt the SRT Viper.

There were plenty of hybrids, electric cars and tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, muesli-munching vehicles at the Jacob Javits Convention Centre in New York -- such as the new Infiniti LE electric car concept, and many of them were impressive feats of engineering -- but the highlight was a fire-breathing, carbon belching  8.4-litre V10-powered muscle car.

Upon closer inspection, it appears the new 2013 Viper was actually a zero emission vehicle. We checked the official CO2 emissions and fuel economy figures and they read "TBD". To be deleted?

Suffice to say, the 477kW rear-wheel drive Viper was not built to win economy tests - though it does have cruise control for the first time...

The quintessential American muscle car gets a new badge too -- SRT in lieu of Dodge -- and benefits from a handful of Italian components and design cues that Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne himself recommended. Good to see the side pipes are still there...

Another big reveal in New York was the Nissan Altima: an American manufactured and designed car that will be coming to Australia in late 2013 to take on the Toyota Camry.

As America's second best selling car, the Altima was a hugely important reveal... Well, we call it a reveal, but it was leaked a day ahead of its launch thanks to almost every major American automotive website jumping the gun. Dear Nissan, embargoes don’t work anymore...

The Hyundai exhibit produced a lot of excitement as the new third-generation Santa Fe broke cover, in two guises - regular and long wheel base. The new design is typical Hyundai (read: acceptable to almost every demographic) and it should be a massive seller both in the US and when it arrives in Oz. No witty banter here, just more solid product from one of the world's fastest growing automakers.

Jaguar surprised a few people by not only confirming its new compact sports car was almost ready to drop, the F-Type, but would also eschew the company's current naming convention. Spotty faced Jaguar marketing guru: "So we've got XK, XF, XJ and now X, um, F, err, F-Type!"

The good news is it's coming to Australia and it will be a more focussed sports car than the XK and will be more affordable, but not quite as affordable as a Porsche Boxster say Jag's top brass.

Between the Budweisers and sliders for lunch, we saw some interesting new cars from the luxury brands. And by interesting I mean boring. BMW took the wraps off the M6 Convertible and showed a very unexciting BMW X1 exclusive to America. It outputs 225kW.

Mercedes-Benz had a bit more razzle dazzle than its Bavarian rival with the all-new oversized GL-Class making its debut and... Wait, nope, that's pretty boring too.

At least Lexus managed to do something special with the launch of its new ES350 and ES300h hybrid cars, by unveiling them in the dark. Inside a giant glass sculpture. Neat! The new Lexus ES350 is designed to move the car away from its Toyota Camry roots, but it's unlikely to come to Oz so we don't really care either way.

Honda's American luxury brand, Acura, took the wraps off of its RLX Concept, which is a preview of the next generation Acura RL, which is badged as Honda Legend in Australia. Confused? Me too. But at least the concept car had LED headlights and shiny tin-foil wheels.

Ex-Holden chief Mark Reuss took the wraps off one of America's highest-selling large cars, the decidedly conservative Chevy Impala, but rest assured it won't be replacing the Commodore. Yet...

Two hidden gems of the show were the electric DeLorean - yours for only US $95,000, or about $462,000 in Australia currency - and the Terrafugia Transition flying car. They call it a flying car, but it's really a plane with folding wings. Didn't James Bond do that in the 80s?

Last but not least was the Bentley exhibit. But for the life of me I couldn't see the vehicle that attracted so much attention at Geneva a month prior - the dreadfully slab-sided EXP 9 F. Conspicuous by its absence, one would expect an SUV of such import to be very popular in the USA. One of the Bentley execs explained "We didn't think it appropriate".

On that account, Viper wins!

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