2015 North American International Auto Show Pictures


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The 2015 North American International Auto Show had a few interesting items. First, it seems that the Honda RA272 was the real thing and not a replica as one would expect. If Japanese Nostalgic Car is to be believed then the real car was shipped by mistake. I wonder how many people knew what they were looking at?

The 2017 Ford GT is as stunning in real life as one would expect. As you can see by the crowd, just getting near enough to take a picture was a challenge in itself. I'm not sure I'm very thrilled with the rear end; the pinched boot with thick buttresses just doesn't do the rest of the design justice. It seems very out of place.

Speaking of crowds, there was a large one around Local Motors. OK, now call me old fashioned, but the idea of a rapid prototyped (which has now been rebranded "3D printing" by the media) car body is just silly. They explain it takes over 48 hours to build one car body. And let me point out that the car is not printed, the body is. Then it needs to be smoothed and otherwise prepped before assembly. Now as a one off, this may be viable if someone is willing to foot the bill. But for even minimal production, surly a set of molds and then construction of fiberglass or carbon fibre is cheaper, faster and would yield a better result?! Of course then they couldn't bait the media with "We made a 3D printed car!".

One thing I wanted to see was the updated Volt, as well as the poorly named Bolt. In fact the Bolt is so hilariously mis-named that when I Google "chevy bolt", Google corrects it and searches for "chevy volt" instead. But, name aside the Bolt represents welcome direction, adding a little utility and (presumably) subtracting a little price. The new Volt was more of an evolution, with numerous small improvements to the platform.

A highlight of the show was the 2016 Miata. This was one of its first public outings so I was rather eager to get a good look at it. While cordoned off by a rope, it wasn't hard to look underneath, with the exception of the engine bay. Thankfully Mazda has stayed true to its roots with a lightweight basic roadster. While I am not too thrilled about the rear end, the car promises to be a proper successor to the original.

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