Frankfurt goes into overdrive

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Saturday, September 24, 2011

Travelling to the Frankfurt Motor Show last week from an Ireland in recession required suspension of disbelief — not least because of the buoyant rude health of the European motor industry.

There was a stark difference between what is going on in the trade here in Ireland right now and how the broader European market sees its immediate future.

Across the massive exhibition site, which houses eleven halls, each one of which was at least as big as Dublin’s RDS, the collective chutzpah of the European industry really had to be marvelled at.

And it was not just the amount of money that had so obviously been spent on the individual stands — the Audi pavilion alone apparently cost €10m to design and construct — it was the palpable confidence the individual companies exuded about the future of the industry as a whole which caught one’s attention.

The German companies — and their various off-shoots — simply oozed a sense of well-being; and the Volkswagen Group, even more so than BMW and Mercedes, displayed a level of optimism and assurance that was hard to credit for anyone coming from hair-shirt Ireland.

On the evening before the show opened to the press, the group hosted 2,500 motoring hacks from all over the world to display what it would be offering at this year’s event.

This extravaganza covered everything from the mundane to the extraordinary and featured representatives from each one of the VW Group’s subsidiaries, including VW itself, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini, as well as a range of existing and advanced technologies which the various brands either already employ or will do so in the near future.

Somewhat curiously, the centrepiece of this show was VW’s new ‘Up’ the new city car design which will be launched in Ireland in March with a targeted entry price of just €11,000.

VW’s new baby will offer three trim lines aimed at suiting all budgets and needs. Standard across the range will be a 1.0-litre 60 bhp petrol engine.

The ‘Up’ was also VW’s centrepiece at the opening of the show proper and drew amazing crowds for a machine that is expected to sell in its millions. VW also displayed the new Beetle, which is said to take its cues from the original 1938 version, albeit with a more masculine, sporty and bold design.

The all-new Beetle will have front-wheel drive, front engines, three doors and four seats and it will be launched in Ireland sometime in the first quarter of next year.

All told, VW had a dazzling 53 show cars, included among which were the Beetle R Concept, the Beetle Fender, the Polo R-Line, the Tiguan R-Line, the exclusive Golf Cabriolet and the Phaeton Exclusive, along with the sports model of the Polo R WRC.

Also on show was the cutesy NILS — a prototype electric two-seater not dissimilar to Messerschmidts and Heinkels of old.

Understandably, a lot of focus at the show was on a new generation of electric cars and VW were not found wanting in this regard and as was pointed out by Professor Martin Winterkorn, chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen AG, starting in 2013 the high-volume Golf and Jetta models of the Volkswagen brand are expected to dominate the hybrid and electric vehicle market.

Volkswagen has now established a clear launch schedule for its E-traction products.

“Volkswagen will be taking E-mobility to mass production. In 2011, we are expanding our test fleet by adding 500 Golfs with electric drive. A hybrid version of the Jetta for the US market follows in 2012.

“Starting in 2013, the E-UP goes into production. The goal is to become the market leader in E-mobility by the year 2018.

“We want to attain an electric vehicle market share of three percent within our entire range of products,” Winterkorn said.

Winterkorn also promised that VW would take the hybrid out of its niche status with high-volume models. In the future, he said, the heart of the brand will also be with electricity.”

Elsewhere in the VW Group, Audi had lots to display, particularly with its hardcore ‘S’ models and an interesting successor to the A2, which the company has confirmed will be all-electric.

One of the stars, however, was the new Skoda Mission L concept which will go into production and fit into the company’s range between the Fabia and the Octavia.

It is a spacious family hatchback and could see production as soon as 2013.

Another huge draw for the masses at the show was, undoubtedly, the new Porsche 911, which, despite being new from the ground up, still looks remarkably like each of the other versions of the cars which came before it.

The VW Group’s often outrageous exhibits were no more over-the-top than those of most of the other companies plying their wares in Frankfurt, but it was curious to juxtapose the incredibly upbeat and positive atmosphere at the show with the rather more downbeat and negative reality that exists across so many European economies right now.

But then that is the nature of the motoring beast and it always has been as the industry tries to breathe new energy into a flagging economic outlook.

This is an industry which, after all, has always sold as much fantasy as it has reality.