1. Hyundai Kona EV
Sweetly styled crossover with full electric battery capacity. No precision offered over pricing or deliveries but journalists clambered over it and a later comment from the company suggests later this year. Ditto the new Santa Fe (well received) and 3rd generation fuel cell vehicle, the very pure, very promising Nexo.
2. Kia CEED SW
Shown here as the popular-in-the-UK estate car version of Kia’s CEED, this is the third generation of the model best known as a hatchback. It comes with a brand new 1.6-litre diesel engine with AdBlue treatment to reduce NOx emissions, and clever direct injection petrol engines in two states of tune. The hatchback will be available in the UK from August and the estate car from October.
3. Citroen Berlingo
The venerable Berlingo hits its third generation with new styling and new technology. Front end resembles the C3 Aircross SUV, which we like. The front overhang is shorter than last time, while as per the new Cactus the ‘air bumps’ have been located low at the sides. From the rear it’s business as usual, but inside you get an 8-inch screen and Android/Apple Car Play.
4. Lamborghini Urus
Whatever you think about the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini doing SUVs, they are doing them and Lamborghini got there first with this, a 3.6 second, 650hp monster powered by a twin-turbo V8. Yes, it’s four-wheel drive but you already guessed that. Expected to sell well, we’ll have to see if customers spec dull grey like the other one on Lamborghini’s stand (and it was dull), or nail their Lambo colours to the wall with yellow and orange and pea green, surely the point.
5. Volvo V60
A significant fillip for the traditional estate car, Volvo’s biggest problem might only be that customers will be torn between the larger V90 and one of the hugely acclaimed XC series SUVs. Anyway, you’ve got a year to decide because the V60 won’t be on the road before 2019. In the flesh, take note, it’s a big, long, family estate car: as big as any of the largest oldest Volvos. Interiors ape the V90 with chiseled beauty and Scando luxury and a whopping screen.
6. SEAT Ateca Cupra
Kicking off the ‘independent’ existence of SEAT’s Cupra brand, at least as a design cue, is the very popular Ateca crossover but now powered by the full-fat 300hp turbocharged four cylinder engine that is already familiar in the Golf R. So if you like crossovers here’s your Golf R on low-rise Spanish stilts. We predict great popularity for this model, not least because not everyone expected it.
7. BMW M8 Gran Coupe
BMW will officially launch its return to the Eight Series at Le Mans in June, but here it is anyway and in that sense Geneva was the de facto launch. A rather beautiful and muscular car, people liked the aggressive exhausts and what will be almost certainly a similar drivetrain to the M5, a turbocharged V8. But don’t expect it to be cheap when pricing is announced later this year.
8. Polestar 1
OK, this car was technically launched late last year, but Geneva was the European debut and we thought a suitable occasion to celebrate its beauty and, erm, 1000Nm of torque. To be seen as a halo car for the battery revolution, yet in fact a hybrid with a petrol engine as well, the Polestar 1 is the first car from Volvo’s ex-performance, now standalone brand (think Cupra, M division, AMG) and reminds us of the Bentley Continental R coupes of the 90s, in all senses a compliment. Like the Bentley, it’s a true 2+2 GT and costs too much (an estimated £115,000) Unlike the Bentley, it’s only available in left hand drive and will be limited to 500 a year worldwide.
9. Lexus UX 250h
A highly significant extension of parent Toyota’s prowess at hybrids, because let’s face it the UK loves Lexus luxury and this good looking crossover ploughs straight into the fray with a brand new 2 litre petrol engine hybrid that puts more oomph into the hybrid line-up so far and for too long dominated by the company’s stalwart 1.8 litre unit.
10. Morgan Aero GT
A wild bowing out for Morgan’s Aero 8, the Malvern-based company saying that this Aero GT derivative is the very last BMW-V8-engined version, in this instance to be made in an edition of just eight. Even if unobtainable it’s impressive and lovable, so we thought we’d mention it.
11. Jaguar i-Pace
Right here, right now, in the flesh and a bit of a star at the show. Despite being so widely trailed across the car press, it was a relief to have the electric i-Pace actually launched to the world. The chatter was that it is much better looking than the e-Pace, with a prettier nose, strangely more Jaguar-like. It’ll take the fight to Tesla that’s for sure, and it might also be JLR’s salvation from their over-reliance on diesel.
12. Toyota Auris
As significant as this launch is for Toyota, I suspect that not everyone will notice. Yes, it’s a big step away from the staidly designed outgoing model, but from across a crowded car park it’s still a reassuringly familiar silhouette, possibly too much so for some. Still, it’s visually more compelling than before and commends itself to people who love the reliability of Toyota, while the new 2-litre petrol engine, in hybrid guise, offers up a pretty juicy 180hp. That alone will widen the hybrid appeal.
13. Aston Martin Lagonda Vision Concept
Sticking it to Rolls Royce by suggesting that the cars aren’t very environmentally friendly, and that some customers want green luxury barges, the Aston Martin folks are reviving the Lagonda brand around monster electric power. It’s a concept car, but 2021 was touted as a production date, so it’s going to happen. Aston also have their eye on customers who by then will view Tesla as ‘ordinary’. There’s no doubting the radicalism of this decision by Aston, and in some ways it was the headline of the whole show at Geneva because is shows that at the highest level of luxury electrification is going to happen after all. For instance it made Bentley’s unveiling of a hybrid Bentayga look a bit tame.
14. Peugeot 508
No one could agree whether this was a really new car or a really big face lift, but it looks new and was billed as such, so here it is in its GT Line guise. Further proof that everyone is coalescing around Audi-A7-esque swoopy sharky (cross reference the Kia Stinger and the BMW M8 Gran Coupe). The differences are more evident inside.
15. Subaru Viziv
And again: those of us who loved and still love the Forester utility look of ten years ago had better clear it all away. Even the king of symmetrical all wheel drive is going massive and swoopy. The Viziv is a concept but it prefigures a fast estate car anticipated for around 2020, the Impreza WRX having been discontinued in 2007.
