Held every two years in September and purported to be the world’s largest, the 2019 Frankfurt Motorshow has plenty of exciting launches to enjoy.
With an eye and interest for the latest cars, our team member Neville Contractor shares what excited him.
The new Land Rover Defender
You have to feel for Land Rover. The new Defender is the most important launch ever for the Indian owned, but still very British firm.
It’s also one of the hardest cars in history to replace, for the original Defender is iconic and passionately ingrained into the heart of the country with a global and opinionated fanbase. And those opinions were very polarised and flying far and wide when the new Defender was unveiled.
The aesthetics must be the main issue, as Land Rover has left nothing to chance with the engineering. Out goes the dated ladder chassis, replaced with a monocoque. The claimed statistics hint at even greater off-road capability, yet the interior is far more comfortable and spacious. It’s a compact size too, shorter and narrower than the current SUV behemoths.
Rarely has the weight of expectation weighed down so heavily on a manufacturer. Quite simply, this car needs to succeed for Land Rover and indeed for Great Britain, so it’s been great to hear from a contact at a local Land Rover dealership, who told us that they have 35 orders already.
We at EFT Finance think it looks great and are looking forward to funding them.
Neville had a bit of fun building his own Land Rover. You can do the same on the Land Rover website.
Electric Vehicles
The ever-continuing trend of electrification is an intrinsic facet of the industry with most manufacturers preparing new models.
As electric cars become the norm, additional demand for electricity will increase massively. Will supply cope with demand?
BMW, who can reasonably claim credit for bringing electric cars into the mainstream, as much as Tesla with their I3 and I8, are predicting the same and might be on a similarly pioneering journey with their X5 based ‘i Hydrogen Next’.
Here is not the place to go into engineering details and a hydrogen infra structure is a long way off, but this technology could provide a much-needed alternative power source.
Mainstream electric cars are coming. BMW, MINI, Hyundai and Smart showed new models and the Honda E looked particularly stylish. Mercedes showed its new EQS, a fully electric large saloon and confirmed its production. The EQC full-sized SUV is also imminent. Volkswagon debuted its ID 3 hatchback and Porsche had its Taycan sports car. The internal combustion engine is still going strong, but never has it faced so much competition as now.
Car of the show
And finally, a slightly indulgent choice, but also echoed by the worlds press.
Alpina, a manufacturer and official purveyor of fast BMWs had somewhat of a coup when they showed their new B3 Touring.
Amazingly, it gets the new M3/M4 engine before either have been shown. It also has Alpina’s elegant body enhancements, a gorgeous and luxurious interior and a Touring (estate) shell.
Audi, Mercedes and even Porsche sell plenty of performance estate/fastbacks, yet BMW stubbornly avoid that market. Luckily Alpina don’t – the closest you’ll get to an M3 Touring and whilst it was close between this and the new Defender, the Alpina B3 Touring was our car of the show.