A Couple Of Gems From The Detroit Motor Show

­ The Detroit Motor Show

A Couple of Star Cars

‘HEY, Y’ALL here to write trash about our cars?” joked the border guard as a group of British journalists arrived at Detroit’s Wayne County airport.

A few years ago he might have been on the money. But not any more. As its annual motor show opened last week, it was obvious that Detroit wasn’t just on the up; it had got its sass back. Motor City hit rock bottom in 2013 when it declared bankruptcy after a string of car factory closures. Sales had collapsed and production had shifted to countries where labour was cheaper. Unemployment was on the up, and so was crime.

Now, after a record year of car sales in America, the city’s big manufacturers are bringing in more investment, and the annual motor show is once again hosting attention-grabbing launches by international brands.

The VLF Force 1 is a ‘raw sports car’


VLF Force 1
Price £186,000
Arriving April

Take one V10-powered Dodge Viper, strip it down, tune the engine further to produce 745bhp, fit racing suspension and a carbon-fibre body made by Henrik Fisker, a former BMW and Aston Martin designer, and you have Detroit’s newest supercar. The 218mph VLF Force 1 goes on sale this spring with left-hand drive only.
It was causing ructions even before its launch — Aston Martin was said to have claimed it looked too much like its own models. The VLF proved no shrinking violet at the show either, with all the razzmatazz you might expect of a fire-breathing monster. Fisker said that it represented “a raw sports car” when compared with the latest hybrids from Porsche and McLaren. “Why would you drive a plug-in hybrid supercar?” he said. “You can’t eat salad all the time; you want a steak once in a while. This is the steak. There’s not even a salad leaf under it.”

Fisker talks a good talk, but a recent venture of his, the Fisker Karma hybrid electric vehicle, ended in bankruptcy. Still, the showdown with established car makers is going to be raw, brutal and a lot of fun. 

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Lexus LC 500
Price £90,000 (estimated)
Arriving Spring 2017

When Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s chief executive, was told in 2011 that the 11-year dominance of America’s luxury car market by the Japanese manufacturer’s high-end brand, Lexus, was at an end, he knew what needed to be done.
The company had taken its eye off the ball, and BMW and Mercedes had powered ahead in the sales war. Lexus needed more than perfect shut lines on its panels, eerily quiet engines and shiny showrooms; it needed a car that would make drivers go weak at the knees. The LC 500 is that car.
The luxury 2+2 coupé is for anyone who has grown tired of hearing about the Porsche 911, or who feels Audis and Mercedes are becoming about as individual as a pair of Marks & Spencer socks.
The LC 500 looks different, and the technical ingredients sound inspiring. Of all the new cars to have been revealed at last week’s Detroit motor show, it appears to have created the most excitement across social media, reflecting the returning buzz in this once-broken city.

The Essentials

Lexus LC 500

Engine4969cc, V8

Power467bhp @ 7100rpm

Torque389 lb ft @ 4800rpm

Transmission10-speed automatic

Performance0-60mph: less than 4.5sec

Price£90,000 (estimated)

Release date

Spring 2017

Set to go on sale in Britain in 2017, the LC 500 will be a flagship high-performance car for Lexus. Its last notable model, the LFA, was so sensational, it prompted Jeremy Clarkson to take back everything bad he had said about Lexus cars — well, except when it came to the SC 430.
Yet the LFA cost £336,000 and only 500 were made. The LC 500, on the other hand, is expected to cost about £90,000 and supplies will be limited only by the rate at which the factory in Japan — the one that built the LFA — can make them.
On paper it’s hard to find fault with the car. The aluminium door panels are mounted on carbon-fibre frames and there’s an optional carbon-fibre roof. Its engine has been pulled back behind the front axle to improve weight distribution.
Unlike competitors, it doesn’t rely on turbochargers for power. Instead, the engine capacity supplies the performance: it’s a 5-litre V8 developing 467bhp.
This, combined with a 10-speed automatic transmission that sends power to the rear wheels, means it can accelerate from 0 to 60mph in less than 4.5 seconds, according to Lexus.
At the Detroit show, Toyoda admitted that for all their technical accomplishments, Lexus cars were seen as dull. “I was determined to make sure . . . that the words ‘boring’ and ‘Lexus’ never showed up in the same sentence again,” he said. The LC 500 is as good a start as any. James Mills



Lexus LC 500