International coalition
Cadillacs built in Sweden and sold in Bavaria. Chevrolets built in Korea and sold in Romania. The big bruiser Chrysler 300C built in Austria and sold wherever asphalt needs a good spanking.
Never mind the 200-mph Bugattis and stretch Rolls-Royces. The story of the 2005 centennial Geneva Auto Show (through Sunday) is one of vast global alliance-building as car companies go lean, cut development costs and reach out to new markets. Last week, to cite one example, production of the new Toyota Aygo minicar commenced in Kolin in the Czech Republic; the tiny town car is being built alongside the Citroen C1 and the Peugeot 107 and the threesome will vie for sales in the emergent Eastern European market.
GM, still the world’s largest car company, is starting an audacious program to make Cadillac a global luxury brand on the same footing as BMW and Mercedes. As a first salvo, GM unveiled the Cadillac BLS concept, a Europe-only, 3-series fighter to be built in Trollhatten, Sweden, alongside its Saab siblings. The Bertone-designed BLS -- 6 inches shorter than the CTS -- will be the first Cadillac available in Europe with a diesel engine (1.9 liters). GM also displayed its Matiz minicar to be built at the GM-Daewoo complex in South Korea and sold at more than 1,500 new Chevrolet (formerly Daewoo) dealerships across Europe.
Chrysler, meanwhile, will reenter the European market next year with a five-door crossover built in Illinois called the Dodge Caliber, seen here in near-production trim. The Caliber will be the platform mate of the next-generation Dodge Neon and Mitsubishi Lancer. The Chrysler 300C -- the brand’s best-selling nameplate in North America -- will be built for European consumption beginning in June at the Magna Steyr assembly plant in Graz, Austria.
It’s enough globalism to make your head spin. And yet, just as the automotive universe seemed to be reaching a kind of convergence -- where corporate nationality, country of origin and country of sale become irrelevant -- the free-falling dollar threatens to rip up the map again. U.S. currency fundamentals are not promising: as of December 2004, the United States had a $666.2 billion annual trade deficit and a budget deficit equaling 4.4% of gross domestic product, the highest among the G7 nations. The dollar’s sustained weakness is causing companies to scramble. BMW and Audi are looking to expand production in the United States to get around the lop-sided exchange rate. BMW will build the X6, a minivan-like crossover, in South Carolina, and Audi is considering a green-field plant to build the new Q7 SUV; neither vehicle was previewed in Geneva.
Most notably, Mercedes-Benz revealed at the Geneva show last week that it has suspended plans to bring the new B-class “sports tourer” to the United States because of the dollar’s weakness against the euro, now worth about $1.30. Eckhard Cordes, head of the Mercedes car group, told Automotive News: “We cannot make sufficient profit with this car in the United States.”
Last month the company all but shelved plans to bring the Smart brand to the United States; a final decision on Smart is expected in April.
The keenest loss for U.S. consumers is certainly the B-class, an evolution
of the premium small car A-class, popular in Europe for a decade. Not quite 14 feet long, taut and trig, the
five-seat compact wagon has amazing room inside and great views outside, and is loaded with unique features, including a quick-acting interior heater to rapidly warm up the cockpit on cold mornings. Already engineered to meet U.S. crash and emissions standards, the B-class could cost as much as $30,000 if sold in the United States at current exchange rates; even at that, it would have almost certainly been worth it to many California buyers who will migrate to the BMW 1-series and Audi’s A3.
Other trends from the Geneva Auto Show:
Alfa in U.S. driveways?
One company apparently unfazed by the dollar dilemma is Fiat Group, which has plenty of financial woes already. It is now all but official that the company’s Alfa Romeo brand -- beloved and bemoaned in equal measure -- will return to the U.S., though the timing is still being debated. In Geneva, Alfa Romeo unveiled the production version of the Brera 2+2 sport coupe, a stunning machine designed by Italdesign Giugiaro and based on a GM-Fiat shared platform (GM and Fiat have recently sundered their partnership in a deal costing GM $2 billion).
If and when the car comes to the United States, it will likely be powered by a GM-Holden V6. In a related development, Maserati will be repositioned within the Fiat Group. No longer the kid sister to Ferrari, Maserati will become the luxury nameplate over Lancia and Alfa Romeo. In America, it’s likely that Alfa and Maserati will share dealerships.
A ‘lounge on wheels’
But for every Eurocar we will see -- the A3, the 1-series -- many beautiful and desirable cars won’t make it to our shores. Citroen unveiled the spectacular C6, a long and rakish luxury saloon with a high-tech ambience the company calls “lounge on wheels.” With its longueur and pure, encapsulated styling, the C6 has a lot in common with the historic DS, including a hydro-pneumatic suspension.
Don’t look! ...
Sport compact enthusiasts should, at all costs, avoid pictures (like the one to the right) of the new, not-available-in-the-U.S. Honda Civic. This European-market five-door hatchback, shown in near-production form in Geneva, boils off all the small-car functionality from the previous design, leaving only a gorgeous streak of glass and steel, a flagrant, glowing arc from the front bumper to the rear. Awesome.
SAVvy at Ford
Ford also gene-spliced some sex appeal into functional cars with its minivan concept, the SAV. As slick and geometric as a Japanese hero robot, the five-seat “sport-activity vehicle” looks terrific and seems perfectly scaled for the American market, which I predict is on the verge of a mood swing regarding big vehicles. With gas prices predicted to increase to $3 per gallon in California, the domestic market is going to develop an appetite for vehicles like the Ford SAV.
Aston Martin move
Speaking of California, Geneva debutantes included the Beverly Hills-bound Aston Martin V8 Vantage, a Porsche-911-sized exotic powered by a 4.3-liter, 385-hp V8 and wrapped in a miniaturized version of the Vanquish’s sheet metal. Built in the new facility in Gaydon, England, the V8 Vantage will be the company’s volume seller, with about 3,000 units per year but, at around $110,000, will remain fairly exclusive.
Bold and not so bold
BMW took the wraps off its new 3-series -- the official car of Santa Monica -- and it’s a very strict design effort, with none of the flamboyant “flame surfacing” of the Z4 and 5-series; the face-lifted 7-series is also more conservative. Nearby on the BMW stand was the 130, a small hatch powered by an enormous engine, the 3.0-liter, inline six-cylinder producing 258 hp;
and the wicked-looking M6, the 6-series coupe with a big, 500-hp V10 stuffed under the hood.
Middle East Rolls
For the most exclusive zip codes, Bentley unveiled the production version of its Flying Spur, a version of the wonderful Continental GT with a second set of doors artfully grafted to its midships. As in the GT, a 6.0-liter, twin-turbo, 552-hp 12-cylinder motor powers the car to near 200 mph. And for those who found the Rolls-Royce Phantom lese majeste, the company unveiled the Phantom stretch, with rear doors nearly a foot longer than the standard Phantom. Finally, the car has the grandeur of the old Mulliner- and Hooper-bodied cars. Unfortunately, the $385,000 vehicle is being sold only in the Middle East and Asia. When the exchange rates start pricing out Rolls buyers, you know there is trouble ahead.
Automotive critic Dan Neil can be reached at dan.neil@latimes.com.
