After having some recent dramas with my motorcycle, and as a self-confessed fan of things that go fast, I decided to pop along to the Perth Motor Show. After finding that all eleven hundred and something or other new parking bays underneath the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre were full, I parked the bike some way up the street hidden sneakily between two Virago's where no one would look for something to steal.
So after navigating my way back to the convention centre, I coughed up for my student concession ticket (and who says university is worthless) and waddled on in.
After braving my way through the Kia and Hyundai stands that affronted me as soon as I walked in, I ended up in the midst of a large number of Honda's of various forms.
The Civic Hybrid looks like, well, a Civic, and although it goes completely against everything I was brought up to believe should be a car, I do have a strange affection towards the Accord Euro. Front wheel drive, little four cylinder engine, weighs almost a tonne and a half... can't really explain why I'd give it a second glance really, but I like it all the same. Anyhow, on to some pictures.
While Honda's creed may be The Power of Dreams, over at the Holden stand, they seem to be working more akin to The Power of Bling. Or at least that's the feeling you'd get after taking a look at their Torana TT36 concept car. Basically it looks like a hot pink Vectra on anabolic steroids, with a wacky white interior and (supposedly) a twin-turbo version of the Alloytec V6 that puts out two hundred and eighty kilowatts. Although for all you can see at the display, it may as well be drawn by a couple of hamsters in a spinning-wheel.
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This is the new Holden Tigra. 1.8 boring litres of front-wheel-driven, two seater "coupe cabriolet". A "coupe cabriolet" being the trendy way of referring to a hardtop convertible that retracts the roof without the driver or passenger having to induce a hernia. To the untrained eye, it could be mistaken for one of the upper-crust Mercedes-Benz SLK series automobiles, only with less features, less power, less handling, less class... in fact, less of just about everything except tacky front grilles. Essentially, it's a 2-seater Puegeot 206CC, only less, well, French. Of course this isn't the only new addition to the Holden stable, the recently remodelled Astra getting a new, sport model in the form of the SRi Turbo.
After being beaten up by twelve-year-olds as I tried to make use of the V8 Supercars games playing in the Holden area, I moved on to the Mitsubishi stand, where I was beaten up by eleven-year-olds when I tried to get a look in at the pair of Evolution VIII's they had hooked up to rally simulators. Bruised, bleeding and downtrodden, I decided to take a look at the cars instead.
Tending to my wounds and moving through the field of 4WD tanks and asthmatic front-wheel-drive shopping trolleys, I then came across the following abomination...
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This interesting piece of work is, as it turns out, the Mitsubishi Tarmac Spyder. What exactly that was, I had no idea. After looking around for information on the strange creature at the show, all I could ascertain was that it was a concept car with the power to attract strange blonde women in black dresses, who, also had no idea about what the car was or why in fact they were attracted to it. That was their story anyhow. Further research when I returned home helped me to discover that apparently under the exotic mess that I hesitate to call an automobile, is in fact the underpinnings of an Lancer Evolution 8, complete with three hundred and fifteen horsepower turbocharged motor, all-wheel-drive, active yaw control and a number of other acronyms I don't care to remember. The press release for the show also provided an additional two pictures of the Tarmac Spyder so that you can see that it looks just as disturbing in focus.
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After remembering how to operate a photographic device with the lens not directed at my crotch, I waddled over to the Ford stand.
While I'm not regularly a particular fan of vehicles from our friends in the United States, there's not a lot you can do to argue with a two-seater that looks this good, pushed along by a mid-mounted supercharged V8 belting out five hundred and fifty horsepower. Just remember where you parked it, this thing's low enough to trip over. The new incarnation of the Ford GT40. Pure horn.
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 Boxster. Now we're talking. |
Cayenne. Now we're not. |
911. Now we are again. |
 Gorgeous Italian styling. |
1200kg driven by a 3.6L, 400hp V8. |
And the most pansy gearshifter known to man. |
 Weighing in heavier at almost 1.8 tonne. |
But driven by a 5.7L, 540hp V12. |
But still with the girly gearshift. |
 I really dig the new Mini Coopers. |
 But that guage in the middle's got to go. |
 Maserati's 4.2L V8 Spyder makes 390hp. Not bad for $212,000. |
 Don't even say it. |
 Fully. |
 For the pillion seat maybe? |
