So yeah i’m still gushing about my new car, every day I drive it, i love it even more. A couple of days ago, I realised that I hadn’t actually seen what the headlights and taillights looked like at night, so i got out of the car and looked. The attention to detail is beautiful. The headlights have LED lighting across the top, angling down—with bi-xenon primary headlights. The look is just evil! The taillights, are using piped LED tubes—which lead to quite a dramatic effect.
Well yes, this was the debut of IEDEI at a major auto show—I must thank JoshD from Quattroworld for setting me up with my media pass. Much appreciated indeed! at IEDEI you will not get photos of ‘every car’—-instead you will just get the ones i thought were interesting!
Some observations about the cars I saw at the Auto Show today:
A) I looked at and sat in A LOT of cars today and came up with a conclusion—–I like very few of them. I tried to only really take photos of the ones I either found interesting or appealing in some way.
B) The interior quality of most cars is quite frankly woeful. When I sat inside of a Boss 302 Mustang, I was quite frankly amazed at how badly made the interiors really are of these cars. I KNOW that this is not the point of them—and yes I know that none of this matters when one is aiming for lap times and stop light drag racing. However, IEDEI looks at the whole picture for inspiration—-and if a car has such a huge glaring gap in its merit, I simply cannot be bothered to care. After the show, i got into my Audi TT, and felt relieved to be in such a nice place! Not to say there were not nice interiors at the show, there were (Mercedes, Audi, GT-R, etc…) but most were lacking.
C) Surprises of the day? I sat in a Nissan GT-R for the first time in my life—–and you know what? I absolutely LOVED it. The interior felt like a true sports car, with amazingly high quality construction, fantastic seats, and the most amazing tactile paddle shifters I have ever felt on a car—–with raw brushed metal stalks. The car felt great to sit in—and to be honest I am compelled to take one for a test drive…soon hopefully!
D) the Kia Optima felt like an Audi—honestly the quality of their interior blew me away, and I think that Peter Schreyer (ex-Audi designer) has really upped Kia’s game when it comes to quality of product. I don’t care for Hyundai much—–but when i took a seat in the Kia Optima, it felt like an interior that was twice the price of the car. Nice one, Kia.
E) the Scion FR-S—-stunning.
F) VW Beetle: dissappointing. Terribly cheap and tacky interior. Not worth the hype.
some photos:
Fiat steering wheels:
Bentley random goods!
BMW 1-series M: just looked like a ‘modded’ 135i in person; a bit dissappointing to be honest. The interior, like the 135i, felt cheap and nasty. I really do like the 1-series as a car, however I think it never quite lives up to how much I want to like it. I’m sure it will still kick ass on a track though…
BMW M3 DTM: all types of wonderful.
Audi TT-RS – naturally better looking than the 1-series M, with a much MUCH nicer interior. Spoke with Johan De Nysschen (head of Audi Of America) about options and pricing. I was told the car will be about $60k in the US when it is launched this Autumn. 340hp version coming to the US, not the 360hp “plus” version as rumoured. This is the US-spec car.
the orgasm inducing Audi R8 GT: i couldn’t really get myself to leave sitting in this. So f*cking cool it pained me to leave it—-
the stunning Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in Gulf livery? Not sure I understand Mercedes & Gulf colours on the same car—–however I wasn’t arguing, as it looked splendid, although a little bit puzzling for sure!
Mercedes A-Class Concept: beautiful design, flows very well. striking concept features like the ‘inverted mesh grille’ are very cool. Slated for the US market in 2013—-if it looks anything like this, it will be so cool to see these on the street!
Nissan GT-R: dare i say i have been developing a great appreciation for the GT-R as a technological masterpiece; today my opinion of it greatly increased after I fell in love with the interior—–it felt like i belonged there. Yes I know it’s been around for a while, but I’ve only come to understand it. Respect.
Red Bull F1 Car it still annoys me that somehow Infiniti have blagged their way onto this car (probably by begging parent company Renault, who supply the Red Bull engines)—–however man these F1 cars are something else to see in person. So much detail.
Scion FR-S: This car is UNBELIEVABLY gorgeous—-so beautiful that I found myself shocked that Toyota has designed it. It takes many cues from the Audi quattro Sport concept, as well as one of the E-tron concepts—–but holy shit if Toyota/Scion can build this and price it at $25k as a small, RWD car which is under 3000 pounds—-this car is going to be massive! (note: this car was a mock up, with no working interior—-so i’m not holding my breath about this being the production design)
Saab Phoenix Concept – This was revealed at the Geneva Auto Show a few months back——I thought it looked like utter shit in those photos i saw of it then, BUT i will say the car looks MUCH better in person—-much lower and sleeker. In fact, while I was taking these photos, another person and I were having a conversation about how this car looks like crap in the camera, but much better in person—-very strange! Even still, it is NOT a pretty design, but I will say it is interesting. Yes, the rear lights look like a 90s Firebird, as my friend from Automobiliac.com mentioned…and next to the car in this photo is the designer Jason Castriota.
Volkswagen Golf R/”R20″– really liked the interior touches for this special edition AWD continuation of the Golf R series. Looked nice and aggressive in its classic R shade of blue as well!
Porsche GT3-R Hybrid – self explanatory cool, even as a hybrid!
I found myself accidentally in front of a Shelby GTS unveiling—–but the car bored me (looks like every other bloody Shelby tuned Mustang!), and the annoying automotive journalists irritated me even more. I have to say that auto journalists kinda suck—–pushy, a little impatient, and they take way too many photos of anything with wheels….as if they will never see it again if they don’t…
parallel parked, of course.
as an Audiphile, i have to admit this made me laugh a bit! however i am most definitely interested to see what is being released…as the “duo”. Seems like it will be a bicycle…supposed to debut this weekend at the Audi Collection.
http://www.audi-collection.com/duo
Automakers, of course have a history of making bicycles—–and Audi is no different. Here’s one of their previous bicycles called the ‘Audi Design Cross’….quite nice, although i’m not really a bicycle person—so i have no idea whether it is any good or not.
I drive a lot through New York City—-and everyday I find myself wondering HOW the potholes in the road just get bigger and bigger. They fix them, they come back. After several years of commuting by car through NYC city streets; I have learned areas where the road is worse than others, in my mental data bank of pothole summaries. That being said, there are always new surprises which bubble up.
So how are potholes made!?
“It’s hard to believe those chasms in the pavement aren’t the remnants of miniature explosions. Instead, they’re carved by plain old water. The process usually starts with one little crack that fills with H2O. When water freezes, it expands, and when the water inside the crack expands, it pushes the asphalt outward and upward—a lot like when you forget a soda in the freezer and return to find a frozen volcano bursting from the bottle. “
read the rest of this interesting article here:
Anatomy of a Pothole – U.S. Roads and Infrastructure – Popular Mechanics
After my trip to Italy, I found myself with a new appreciation for ‘small’ hatchbacks one can throw around into parking spots—-one of my favourite hatchbacks i saw in Italy was the Suzuki Swift Sport. Firstly, their interiors are very cool and little hot hatch-ish goodness—i like their boxy, functional lines, and they have a very planted look to them in person. I didn’t see many of these during my trip—-but the 2 or 3 of them I did see convinced me I liked them. Rumour has it that Suzuki will introduce this car to the US market this year—–hey Suzuki—-DO IT! pioneer the ‘new’ hot hatch movement in the states!
I just went to the UK Suzuki site, and found that this 125 HP, 2400 pounds….for 12,995 GBP. If they brought this car over here for $15k, it would be absolutely stellar……hey Suzuki…..DO IT!
btw, here’s the latest Suzuki Swift S-Concept presented in March at the Geneva Auto Show….a little ‘overdone’ in styling, but upgraded performance likely makes the upgrades worth it. Digging the functional and tidy interior as well.
I haven’t washed the TT in what feels like months. It had started to look like a Jackson Pollock painting—-so today, after hours of work this weekend—i decided to take the car in for a wash. I really don’t like washing my own car—it is a time consuming flush of an activity! So i’d much rather pay others to do it, which is exactly what I did at my local Brooklyn hand wash. I was joined by some interesting company.
(today i realised my car is quite low…as the R8 was almost the same height)
this commercial defines my NYC winter. superb! ……and the R8 is so f*cking cool.
This afternoon, at the uneasy time of 12:15am on a Saturday, I was joined by a couple mates (also from the automotive blogging world) to go see “Senna”, which is playing at the Village East Cinema in NYC. We entered the theatre right on time, and joked that we were wondering who the other 15-20 people were in the theatre; and WHY they were there! Could there be this many motorheads willing to make it to the theatre at that time on a Saturday? Apparently so.
The film was quite lovely; made like a documentary—spanning from the beginning of his career in karting til the obvious end of his career. Touching on his youth, but showing some very rare and moving film clips with scenes I had never seen before. As a kid growing up in Detroit, one of the events I annually attended with my father was the Detroit Grand Prix, where I remember there was a time when Senna would win every year. The first year I went, i remember Nelson Piquet winning. So naturally, my favourite 2 F1 drivers became Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.
(sorry, i took these pics with a mobile phone!)
I know that Senna was a character. He was competitive, full of personality, not afraid to speak his mind, and most of all a tremendous driver. This film essentially covered all of his positive attributes, and showed him in the light of a tribute. It was a fitting tribute. I had seen many clips of his races online, and a lot of this film I had seen in some form or another; but I have never seen any clips of driver’s meetings with the FIA directors, I had never seen some of the more candid interviews and conversations—–and maybe because I was too young—I never realised how much battling and political stuff was going on between Prost & Senna. Now it makes sense WHY i hated Prost as a kid—-because he was always batting with my favourite who was Senna.
I won’t tell you the full details of the film, because I feel you should watch it yourself. Seeing F1 in the movie theater was a pleasure, and although it seems like a collage of document film clips taken from many different sources; it was full of great commentary, great footage, and some truly moving moments. All in all, a great film; I am really glad someone made it (in this case, a gentleman named Asif Kapadia)—-you should all see it.
Senna is playing at the Village East Cinema in the East Village of NYC. (thanks to Xander for the tip!)
http://www.villageeastcinema.com/angelika_film.asp?hID=166&ID=fmj4747.79896806s137092v9.38
NYC winters are generally boring, cold, and without snow. This year is a beautiful concoction of endless snowfalls leading to a fantastic daily commute! Here’s a crappy cell phone photo to show my struggles of daily parallel parking in heavily restricted side streets of manhattan! I would have it no other way. Luckily when it snows here, all of the “alternate side rules” get suspended; which means open parking spots for me without some of the fights I have had with other drivers in the past….all part of my NYC experience.
(and yes, that is the IEDEI mobile)
IEDEI 
