The hits and misses of the Frankfurt Motor Show

Surprising exactly no one, the most compelling theme of this year’s Frankfurt Auto Show was hybrids. Though not those of the pill-shaped, parsimonious variety: the ones that tickled our fancy were fancy, and/or fast. Two of these cars, tied in our estimation for handsome darlings of the show, existed solely in the realm of the imaginary, at least for now.

First among these, alphabetically, was the bee pollen-colored, box-flared, snorting-schnozzed Audi Quattro Concept. This muscle missile, which packed a twin-turbocharged V-8 and electric motor good in total for 690 hp, was a future-projected updating of the rally-homologated ür-Quattro of the 1980s, the squared-off vehicle that launched Audi’s oddball performance reputation. Handsome and hunky, if slightly too literal in its adherence to brand heritage, we could easily see this sitting somewhere high up in Audi’s range of handsomely hunky vehicles, and simultaneously bringing back some of the four-ringers’ squandered weirdness.

Straddling the number one spot, was the Volvo Coupe Concept, which also harkened back to a historical moment—that of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the 1980s. In this case, the Swedish oddballs were glancing over their brand identity shoulders at their first (and ostensibly only) sports car, the P1800, as well as their more formal Bertone-designed coupes, like the 262c and the 780. We see hints of the former in the slim-eyed headlamps and the rounded trailing edge of the rear fender, and vestiges of the latter in the chopped roof, which, like those boxy old two-doors, looks like a globally warmed chunk fell off a Nordic glacier and landed on its cranium. Under the concept’s bowed hood slept an imaginary supercharged and turbocharged four-cylinder engine which, when coupled with some vaporous electric motor, produced around 400 hypothetic hp. Volvo needs an excitement injection; this chimera could be it.

Back in reality, we had another pair of production-ready hybrids, both of which set intriguing precedents in their categories. But before we move on to those, we feel the need to note the Audi and the Volvo resembled, in a way that reflects the resurgent prescience of American design, the new Chevrolet Camaro. Which leads us to the somewhat confounding fact that Chevy revealed the 2014 Camaro — with a freshened and more enraged front fascia — in convertible form, at the Frankfurt show. Coincidence? We think not. Sensible? Also, no.

As for our favorites: After about 71 global concept reveals, BMW finally showed the production version of their super-hybrid, triple-motored, four-seat, pteronodoored i8 supercar, and, as we told you from the show floor, it looks like the future. And like $136,000 in fast, exotic, swoopy, efficient, and otherworldly money. Chalk that one up in the Bavarian win column.

Mercedes also showed a gasoline/battery hybrid version of their stellar new S-class. We’ve also alerted you to this vehicle’s magical powers, particularly its epochal autonomy from human control. These capabilities were on horrific display on stage at Frankfurt, when odobenidael Benz chairman Dieter Zetsche had the S-Class drive itself onto a stage without his input twice in two days, with no casualties among the assembled press. Electric power, highest mpg in the segment, twin-turbo V-6/battery combination, five-second 0-60, blah-blah-blah. All we could think about was a humorless, engineered, efficient, autonomous German walrus robot taking over the world.

In the department of vehicles that were not hybrids and/or didn’t resemble Camaros, there were only two positive standouts, and they were both — in direct antagonism to our rational-yet-vehement disdain for the segment —crossovers. Jaguar showed their first SUV (if you don’t count the X-type wagon or the Lynx Eventer, and we don’t): the C-X17. And, infuriatingly, it looked refined and cohesive and very much like a Jaguar, albeit one that had spent some time leaning on the nitrous tank. We foresee a brand-expanding hit, especially if it allows the big cat folks to build the planned 3-Series competitor with which this puffer shares its new aluminum-intensive platform.

Speaking of platform sharing, Mercedes showed the production-ready version of their cutest ute yet, the weensie GLA Class, which is based on their new entry-level CLA sedan, which is based on their European-only A-Class. Carrus — the jackal-headed, swimmer-bodied god of the automobile — may strike us down for saying this, but we were cruising this jacked-up five door, two-box trucklet in a serious way, though mainly because we were envisioning the inevitable GLA 45 AMG version.

Sadly, five miles away from all these winning stands and vehicles, sat the Volkswagen Group’s prodigious display. Discounting the aforementioned Audi Quattro, this stadium-sized hall was pretty much the antithesis of interesting, housing as it did, vehicles that were distinctly not hybrids, definitely not handsome crossovers, and lacked entirely any Camaro-inflection. Among the biggest losers here was the jacked-up, shovel-nosed Audi Nanuk truckxotic, which mimicked the (all-)terrain triumphantly trod by the Guigaro Parcour concept six months ago at Geneva.

But this rehash was nothing compared to the cynical and stale re-flashes that passed for new models at Volkswagen’s prestige brands: the all-black Bugatti Veyron “Legend” which was, as the singular descriptor implies, simply a black Veyron, upsold for an extra zillion; the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Squadra Corse, which was another desperate special edition of their entry-level mid-engined vehicle, last updated during the second presidential administration of Grover Cleveland; and the Bentley Continental GT V8 S, which promised to wring 21 horsepower, and a similar number of thousands of dollars, from the rich pockets of flying-B brand eight-cylinder shoppers. A combination of old cars and new swindling schemes? Perhaps this is the latest, or oldest, hybrid technology. Needs more Camaro.