Back on May 6th we took a trip to the London Motor Show at Battersea Park. Now it’s all had time to settle down, we thought we would share our experience with you.
First impressions are that Battersea Park is a good venue for the show; there are good travel links to and from, though not very much parking. We drove along to the venue (well it is a car show) yet there is only a very small pay and display car park. We got lucky and managed to shove our T6 into a small hole. It may sound silly that there should be more parking for this event considering it is in central London, but it is a car show and many car enthusiasts will want to go along in their passion. We met one particular TVR enthusiast who had driven down from Blackpool in his TVR Tuscan!
The Friday was a good day to attend. With most people at work, there were a good number of people there, but not too many so you couldn’t get to the cars.
There were lot of good manufacturers at the event and a number of performance companies and dealers. Here are our favourites from the show:
Caterham Cars
Caterham were showing a range of their cars, not least the new 620s giving 310bhp from its supercharged engine, actually a softer version of the 620r. What caught our eye though was the option to hire a Caterham for just £175 a day! To us that sounds like a bargain! Should it be too painful to give it back 2 days will cost £325, but then why not go the whole hog and take it for a full weekend Friday to Monday for £450. They have lots of other track experiences too, take a look at: www.uk.caterhamcars.com/experience
The Vuhl 05 Looking Great
A Mexican road legal track car!!!? It has to be a joke right? Well not the Vuhl 05 at a power to weight ratio of 410bhp/tonne and figures of 0-60mph in 3.4 seconds. Using a 285bhp version of Ford’s four-cylinder 2.0-litre Eco-boost engine it produces 295bhp. It looks rather good too! It isn’t just a Mexican car though, its handling is optimised in the UK. Canada also produces the carbon fibre bodies, with final assembly in Mexico City. The London Motor Show marked the launch of a UK road legal car and you can have one for £60,000, but you are getting a unique and rather rare car in the UK. Bespoke Performance is the only licensed dealer. Take a look at www.bespokeperformance.co.uk
Aston Martin Vengeance by Kahn
Now this is a tricky one from Kahn the Automobile fashion house. Often declared as one of the most beautiful car brands Aston Martin has been given the Kahn treatment on what they believe is a better looking DB9. We are not sure on this, we think we would go with the original, but you make up your own mind. Named the Vengeance some of its features are a new grille, bumpers, bulges in doors, bonnet and roof. There a sculpted splitters and diffusers 20” roulette alloy wheels all styling changes. The only performance upgrade is a stainless steel Crosshair exhaust system.
Alfa Romeo 4c Spider
Alfa is back with a beauty, but what else would you expect. It is almost Ferrari-esque in its style and lines, certainly in red, it would be very similar. Whilst you might like to look at it as much as driving it, it is perhaps the most accomplished spider from Alfa. It is built in Modena with Alfa Engineering and Maserati manufacturing. It has a TCT twin dry semi-automatic clutch with launch control. The engine is just a 1750cc turbo charged solution, but what it delivers is much more then you would think. Key to this is its power to weight ratio, the chassis weighs just 73 kilograms! The overall weight of the car just 940 kilograms. It kicks out 239bhp and gets from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds.
So its beautiful, sexy, fast and ok it might be built in Italy and Alfa’s can be a bit temperamental, but what is the catch? Er, it will set you back £60,000!! That is a lot of money no matter how beautiful, but maybe you want to buy exclusivity, they will not be easy to come by with low build numbers, just 2,400 for Europe, Middle East and Asia per year.
Abarth 695 Biposto
On the same stand as the 4c Motorvillage Croydon also brought along the Abarth 695 Biposto what they bill as the “Worlds Smallest Supercar”, that may be a bit of a stretch, but it does look like an awful lot of fun!! It will do 0-62mph in 5.9 seconds and a top speed of 143mph all from a 1.4litre turbo charged engine. It weighs just 997kg and in a car that size, it is going to feel pretty mad, but the most fun will undoubtedly be the bends. You just get front seats though, with the back seats ripped out for a roll cage! The cost? Well it starts at £32,995, but if you want all the bells and whistles to make it a real track killer it will be more like £50k!!
Lamborghini Huracan Spyder
Looking different, but all the same so enticing in bright blue! Now available as a right hand drive.
Ferrari 488 Spyder
The 458 is one of our favourite cars, but the evolution of it to the 488 looks just as exciting and stylish.
Aston Martin
Lancaster brought along a range of Aston’s the pick being the Vantage GT8 truly inspired by the GTE race car. It has weight savings of 100kg from the original. It is wide bodied with carbon fibre front splitters, front and rear bumpers, fenders, side sills and rear diffuser. There will only be 150 made and one will set you back £165,000
TVR
Now everyone got very excited that TVR would unveil the new design of their sports car, which will be built in Ebbw Vale Wales.
The body design was kept hidden under a sheet. If you want to see what it looks like first you have to put down £5,000 deposit! This is for a car that is yet to be in production. As an official customer for the cost of £5,000 you get to be first to see the design at private viewings later in the year.
You may have noticed that Mensstuffapproved.com is a big fan of TVR, this is somewhat down to one of our directors who has had a number of them in the past. He loves them and cannot wait to get his hands of the new one, but in our view it seems a little odd that a sports car company should be raising funds through deposits? With the TVR name having such a turbulent history, we wonder if the new model will make it into production? We hope it does and what they are saying is encouraging. We will certainly have one sad director if it doesn’t!
The new TVR design under wraps
BMW
Of course BMW brought along a number of cars, we had two favourites. The M4 wearing the competition package, We think it looks mighty fine and man those rims are hot!! The package will cost you an extra £3,000, but it is not just looks it buys you. It pumps the BHP from 425 to 450bhp along with a recalibrated chassis.
Then of course there is the i8, we still cannot get enough of this car. A real hybrid supercar, “butterfly” doors and 0-62mph in 4.4 seconds and handling to match. We think it looks awesome too and with the official efficiency rating of 134.5mpg it is a trailblazer that has opened the car industries eyes to hybrid technology. £100,000 is a lot of money for a BMW, but it does sit very close to the performance of an R8.
Noble M600
By far our favourite of the show. Super Veloce Racing who are Noble’s official European distributor brought along a brand new specification M600 Carbon Sport Coupe. Finished in blood red, a dark maroon until light hits it turning it into a deep red. Powered by a Yamaha V8 4439cc twin turbo engine generating 662bhp with a top speed of 225mph, this is a serious supercar. £231,091.50 excluding VAT buys you this car built in England to your exact requirements and specifications. You can change or upgrade whatever you want!
Noble say the “M600 is for those who love to drive” they believe there are too many driver assists and electronics in modern day supercars, suggesting this detracts from real driver experience and enjoyment. The car is more analogue and uses engineering to create a true driving experience. For more information take a look at: www.svr.uk.com
Mitsuoka Viewt
This is a Japanese car based on the Nissan Micra! It looks like a Jaguar Mk2 that a child has drawn, well a child who cannot draw very well. It was by far the most ugly car at the show and possibly we have ever seen! Still if we are wrong and you like it they will go on sale in the UK at the beginning of 2017.
Mazda MX-5
This is what an affordable car should be. The newer version of one of the most successful cars in the UK now looks meaner and prettier at the same time. We think it looks just great and it hasn’t lost any of its driving charm. That was key to its predecessor, not blistering pace, but real driving fun, it is wind in your hair smiles for £19,245 for the entry level 1.5i SE-L. For that you get a beautiful exciting car 47mpg and 0-62mph in 8.3 seconds. I think we want one for the summer.
We really enjoyed the London Motor Show and believe it is a worthy edition to the motoring calendar. It is not too big so that you cannot see everything in a day, but not lacking in interest. For the first motoring show in London for 8 years it had some good exhibitors and was run well. It will be important that manufacturers support the show for 2017, without that support in may be difficult to continue to develop gong forward, but from what we saw the market and interest is there for the general public. We are certainly looking forward to 2017.
