GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Top 12 world debuts

After a four-year hiatus prompted by the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the Geneva International Motor Show (GIMS) made a comeback in February this year, when one of the world’s best and longest running auto exhibitions was repositioned to make it viable in a rapidly changing automotive landscape.

However, the revival proved to be a false start as organisers this week announced the Geneva show would no longer take place, citing lack of interest from car-makers and competition from the Paris and Munich shows, which are favoured by their domestic auto industries in France and Germany respectively.

It’s a sad end for a show that dates back to 1905 and which enjoyed a special place on the automotive industry calendar, particularly as it had a reputation for being a prime venue where high-end car-makers unveiled their latest concepts and production vehicles.

Unlike the now-defunct Frankfurt motor show – which sprawled out over almost 100 acres – the Geneva show had a cosy and intimate atmosphere, and was favoured especially by ultra-premium and niche manufacturers such as Bugatti, Pagani and Koenigsegg, as this was a show where they felt they could talk directly to their cashed-up buyers.

Over the years, the Geneva motor show has thrown up a parade of debutants that left a profound imprint on the automotive arena, and many are nowadays highly sought-after as collectors’ cars.

Here are our top 12 milestone Geneva debuts.

The A6 1500 Gran Turismo was Maserati’s first production road car and the first chassis – wearing a Pininfarina-designed bodyshell – was one of the star debutants at the 1947 Geneva show.

This first prototype was a long-snouted berlinetta (two-seat coupe) with triple portholes on its fully integrated front wings, a tapered split-windscreen and futuristic hidden headlights.

The production version that followed was toned down stylistically to feature conventional headlights and a second side window was added. The A6 1500 was powered by a 1.5-litre inline-six that eked out 48kW, yielding a top speed ranging from 146 to 154km/h, depending on gearing and bodywork.

The curvaceous 356 was the first production car to wear Porsche badges and it proved to be a big hit, thanks to the nimble handling delivered by the car’s lightweight rear-engine format.

Production of the 356 started in 1948 at Gmund in Austria, but in 1950 the factory relocated to Zuffenhausen in Germany. Production of the 356 continued until April 1965, well after the 911 that replaced it made its September 1964 debut.

Built in hardtop and cabriolet configurations, the 356’s motive power came from a chattering air-cooled flat-four that started life as a 1.1-litre unit but was subsequently enlarged to 1.3 and then 1.6 litres.

Enzo Ferrari himself dubbed the Jaguar E-Type as “the most beautiful car in the world” and the swoopy Jag was a sensation at the 1961 Geneva show.

Legend has it the E-Type made a memorable journey from Coventry to Geneva for its world premiere. Bob Berry, Jaguar’s PR manager at the time, and Norman Dewis, Jaguar’s test and development engineer, allegedly drove two E-Types (a coupe and a convertible) overnight for over 1200km to ensure the cars arrived at the venue in time.

Both cars were requested to meet the incredible demand for test drives on the opening day of the show. The overnight schlep was worth it, as Jaguar apparently left Geneva with over 500 orders.

The gorgeous 230 SL roadster was introduced in 1963 with a distinctive concave roofline that earned it the ‘Pagoda’ nickname. The W113 featured a low waistline, large greenhouse windows, a removable hardtop and a new 2.3-litre six-pot engine with 110kW.

The debutant had big wheel-tracks to fill as the 230 SL replaced two vehicles at the same time: the 300 SL Roadster (W198) and the 190 SL (W121). The model range was later expanded to include more powerful 250 SL and 280 SL variants.

The ‘Pagoda’ was the first sports car to gain the safety benefits of front and rear crumple zones, while the suspension was firm yet almost atypically comfortable for a 1960s sports car.

The Miura was conceived by Lamborghini’s engineering team, which designed the car in its spare time against the wishes of company founder Ferruccio Lamborghini, who preferred powerful yet restrained grand tourers over the overtly sporting cars produced at the time by crosstown rival Ferrari.

However, when the development mule was revealed to Ferruccio, he greenlighted the car’s development. The Miura's rolling chassis was presented at the 1965 Turin motor show and the stunning P400 prototype debuted at the 1966 Geneva show.

It received rapturous receptions from showgoers and the motoring press alike, each impressed by Marcello Gandini’s sublime styling and the car’s revolutionary mid-mounted V12 layout, which set the template for almost all flagship Italian supercars that followed in its wake.

The Alfa Romeo Montreal was showcased in concept form at Expo 67 in Montreal, hence its moniker. However, the substantially different production car that followed made its world debut at the 1970 Geneva show.

Although sourcing its chassis and much of its running gear from the four-cylinder Giulia GTV (105 Series), the Montreal was given a significant performance boost via a dry-sumped, quad-cam 2.6-litre V8 that pushed out 147kW.

Stylistically, the eye-catching Montreal’s most striking feature was a front-end with four headlights partly covered by grilles that retracted when the lights were switched on. There was also a NACA duct on the bonnet, although its only purpose was to optically disguise the power bulge necessitated by the V8 engine.

Presented at the 1977 Geneva show, the 928 was Porsche’s first production V8 model and to date it remains the company’s only coupe powered by a front-mounted V8.

Porsche had conceived the 928 with the intention of replacing the 911 as a flagship model. Of course, we now know that the 911 marches on irrepressibly, while the 928 was discontinued after an 18-year production run.

Even so, the 928 was a fast and formidable grand tourer that combined the handling and engagement of a sports car with the ride, load space and comfort of a luxury car. It won the European Car of the Year award in 1978 and remains the only sports car to do so.

The boxy looking W140 may not have been the most stylish flagship sedan from Mercedes, but many regard it as the last true S-Class as the W220 that succeeded it was criticised for having inferior engineering and poor reliability in early vehicles.

In contrast, the W140 S-Class had a reputation for supreme build quality and almost bullet-proof reliability. It also debuted numerous safety innovations during its lifecycle, including Electronic Stability Program, Brake Assist System, Xenon High-intensity discharge headlights, side airbags and automatic windscreen wipers with rain sensors.

Despite being a technical masterpiece, the W140 S-Class was a slow seller, partly because its price was considerably higher than its W126 predecessor and also due to the influx of accomplished new Japanese premium limos such as the Lexus LS400.

The D2 (Typ 4D) generation Audi A8 was the embodiment of Volkswagen Group supremo Ferdinand Piech’s long-held desire to design and develop an aluminium-bodied flagship Audi sedan that would be substantially lighter than any other vehicles in its class.

The Audi Space Frame (ASF) concept was unveiled at the 1993 Frankfurt motor show (IAA) as a prototype in polished aluminium, with the production version debuting at the 1994 Geneva show.

The sedan was offered in standard and long-wheelbase (A8 L) formats, and the technically advanced newcomer was designed to usurp the Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7 Series that dominated the premium limo segment.

Noted as the first mass-market car with an aluminium chassis, all A8 models since the Typ 4D have used this construction method, co-developed with Alcoa and marketed as the “Audi Space Frame”.

Following in the slipstream of the legendary F40 was no easy feat, but Ferrari attempted to do so with the F50, unveiled at the 1995 Geneva show.

Where the F40 was propelled by a whooshing, huffing twin-turbo V8, the F50’s motive power was provided by a naturally-aspirated Tipo F130B 4.7-litre, 60-valve V12 developed from the 3.5-litre V12 used in the 1990 Ferrari 641 Formula 1 car.

With outputs of 382kW/471Nm and a dry weight of just 1230kg, the F50 was extremely rapid, but it couldn’t match its F40 predecessor for sheer drama. A total of 349 examples were made, with the last car rolling off the production line in July 1997.

Having re-entered the domain of road cars in 2011 with the MP4-12C, McLaren subsequently set its sights higher by developing a car that would reprise the spirit of the hallowed 1990s F1.

The production-spec P1 was unveiled at the 2013 Geneva show, where McLaren announced that the state-of-the-art hypercar would be limited to 375 units.

Although it employed the British company’s familiar 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8, power was ramped up to 542kW, with an electric motor kicking in an additional 132kW. The hybrid powertrain was good for combined outputs of 674kW and 900Nm, and the P1 sported a revolutionary aero package to keep it glued to the tarmac.

The P1’s exotic ingredients included bespoke Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tyres and specially-developed carbon-ceramic rotors plus brake callipers and pads from Akebono.

Bugatti had already comprehensively rewritten all the hypercar benchmarks with the ground-breaking Veyron, so the French marque needed something extra special as a follow-up.

The Chiron bowed in at the 2016 Geneva show and its beautiful, elaborately sculpted bodywork hinted at the menace that lurked within. As with the Veyron, motive power was provided by a quad-turbo 8.0-litre W16, but outputs were substantially ramped up to a stratospheric 1103kW and 1600Nm.

The new Bugatti made a mockery of physics, sprinting to 300km/h in 13.6sec and topping out an electronically governed 420km/h. Stopping power was just as superlative as the car braked from 400km/h to standstill in just 9.4sec.

A base price of 2.4m euros (substantially more for the limited-edition versions that followed later) proved no deterrent to its success as Bugatti has just concluded the 500-unit production run with the Chiron L’Ultime.

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