Enviromental issues may have been to the fore at Detroit – but there was no shortage of high-performance coupe action on the show floor during media previews this week.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
And in some cases, manufacturers had managed to combine alternative powertrains with exciting-looking sports cars. Even Ferrari has gone green, showing a biofuel-capable version of its F430 Spider model.
Most notable was Fisker Automotive’s Karma plug-in hybrid sports car, a vehicle that’s bound to debunk the vision of hybrids as dull-but-worthy commuter boxes.
The $US80,000 Karma is capable of a 0-60mph time of just 5.8 seconds and a top speed of 125mph. But, according to CEO and designer Henrik Fisker, it is ‘greener’ than a Toyota Prius.
Fisker, who designed the BMW Z8 and Aston Martin DB9, said the car was “an environmentally friendly car without compromise” that would make ‘green’ seem sexy.
More conventional, but certainly sexy is the Lexus LF-A Roadster, a soft-top version of the coupe shown 12 months ago. With a 500bhp, front-mounted 5-litre V10 it’s nowhere near as green as the Fisker – but it would give Toyota’s luxury car division a genuine supercar flagship to reinforce its up-market credentials.
A less expensive, but no less important coupe is the Cadillac CTS Coupe, a surprise unveiling at the show. The angular-styled 3.6-litre V6-engined two-door might just be the car to kick-start Cadillac’s flagging European sales, giving the brand a genuine BMW M3/Audi S5 rival, though production is still a couple of years away.
Volkswagen calls its sleek, low-roof derivative of the Passat a Crossover Coupe, or CC. It bears the same relationship to the regular Passat as the Mercedes CLS does to the E-class. It’s a four-door coupe that carries a premium over the more conservative sedan.
