FRA '07 - aus dem Autocar Website
Posted: 12 Sep 2007, 12:20
Frankfurt 07
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Easily Frankfurt ‘07’s most vibrant, most crowded, most youth-packed place was Hall 6, the place for Alfas, Lancias, Maseratis, Ferraris and Fiats. Supercars always draw crowds and celebrities (the preview day was predictably livened by visits from Michael Schumacher, who unveiled Ferrari’s achingly desirable 430 Scuderia, and Lewis Hamilton) but it was the amazing resuscitation and ascent into the fashion stratosphere of Fiat that really pulled in the punters.
The company’s mammoth stand features more Fiat 500s in more remarkable guises that one imagination could produce, including an extraordinary fairground-style ride that took place entirely inside a huge 500 replica, fully two storeys high. It’s amazing.
The only sour Italian note - and it wasn’t all-Italian - was struck at Audi-controlled Lamborghini, where the spectacularly ungainly Reventon (named for a famous bull who killed a matador in the 1940s) drew undiscerning crowds. The car is an ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive reskin of the already-glorious Murciélago, meant to recall the Countach. “Radically retro,†someone called it. We passed on.
In the midst of the Italian quarter’s noise and joyful mayhem stood the new Punto Abarth, a car whose bodily collection of scoops, wings, decals, cut-outs and black bits was so completely over the top that if it had come from anywhere else but Italy it would have been labelled OTT.
Actually, it looked wonderful. It stood for everything that has so far been achieved at Fiat, and showed, by its sheer desirability, how Europe can continue to succeed even against those who are more grindingly efficient at building good cars in huge numbers.
On this special day for cars in Frankfurt, optimism was everywhere. But it was the Italians, not for the first time, who were the leaders.
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Easily Frankfurt ‘07’s most vibrant, most crowded, most youth-packed place was Hall 6, the place for Alfas, Lancias, Maseratis, Ferraris and Fiats. Supercars always draw crowds and celebrities (the preview day was predictably livened by visits from Michael Schumacher, who unveiled Ferrari’s achingly desirable 430 Scuderia, and Lewis Hamilton) but it was the amazing resuscitation and ascent into the fashion stratosphere of Fiat that really pulled in the punters.
The company’s mammoth stand features more Fiat 500s in more remarkable guises that one imagination could produce, including an extraordinary fairground-style ride that took place entirely inside a huge 500 replica, fully two storeys high. It’s amazing.
The only sour Italian note - and it wasn’t all-Italian - was struck at Audi-controlled Lamborghini, where the spectacularly ungainly Reventon (named for a famous bull who killed a matador in the 1940s) drew undiscerning crowds. The car is an ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive reskin of the already-glorious Murciélago, meant to recall the Countach. “Radically retro,†someone called it. We passed on.
In the midst of the Italian quarter’s noise and joyful mayhem stood the new Punto Abarth, a car whose bodily collection of scoops, wings, decals, cut-outs and black bits was so completely over the top that if it had come from anywhere else but Italy it would have been labelled OTT.
Actually, it looked wonderful. It stood for everything that has so far been achieved at Fiat, and showed, by its sheer desirability, how Europe can continue to succeed even against those who are more grindingly efficient at building good cars in huge numbers.
On this special day for cars in Frankfurt, optimism was everywhere. But it was the Italians, not for the first time, who were the leaders.