Carkichi’s (Somewhat Belated) 2010 Automotive Year in Review

 Porsche 918 Spyder - Geneva 2010 - The Concept Car of 2010?


Following the “Apocolypse Now” style proclamations of doom and gloom that sullied the years of ‘08 and ‘09 for many in the automotive industry, 2010 has represented something of a great leap forward for automotive kind - a leap forward perhaps even tinged with a hint of optimism.

Derelict Fisher Body Plant (Buick/Cadillac), Detroit (Photo: Sean Hemmerle)


Down and out, and with the death knoll seemingly sounding for Detroit’s Big Three in 2009, 2010 has seen emphatic comebacks from the brink for the Big Two, Ford and GM, at the very least. Both these motor industry leviathans have leveraged revitalised, timely and improved quality product lines to take advantage of the post-depression upturn in new vehicle demand, and, in so doing, are forecast to return ten-digit profits for 2010. It remains to be seen whether Chrysler can recover in quite so prodigious a manner as GM, after the two companies declared bankruptcy, scurrying cap in hand for multi-billion dollar bailouts from the Federal coffers. However, a raft of new and improved product in the pipeline augurs well for the rehabilitation of Chrysler in 2011, under the management of Sergio Marchionne and Fiat S.p.A.

Lamborghini Sesto Elemento @ VW Group Evening Paris 2010


The renewed sense of optimism was also clearly evident in 2010’s concept car output. After the motor industry’s collective loss of confidence in 2009 manifested itself in lightly embellished future production cars parading as “concepts” and the austerity enforced hibernation of anything remotely unorthodox, 2010 saw extravagant glamour restored to the global Auto Salon stage. Enthralling, often fantastical and always desirable, exotic concepts were omnipresent in 2010. This frenetic orgy of flamboyant concepts came to a notable crescendo at Paris in the autumn, with the debut of Lamborghini’s flyweight 999kg Sesto Elemento with its exposed mechanicals and exquisite use of carbon fibre and composites, Lotus’ concept car ejaculation in the form of the five Es - Elise, Esprit, Elan, Elite and Eterne (all admittedly looking like subtle variations on a single theme) and Audi’s evocative paean to the 30 year old Ur-Quattro, the Quattro concept. Elsewhere concepts such as Porsche’s 94mpg 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid and Jaguar’s C-X75 range extended electric vehicle paired exotic desirability and the lure of high performance with environmental credentials.- the Porsche by mating three electric motors producing a total of 218bhp with a 500bhp RS Spyder derived V8; the Jaguar by combining a 195bhp motor at each wheel with two 94bhp gas micro-turbines, which can be used either to extend the 68 mile EV range by replenishing the car’s batteries or to provide supplementary power directly to the motors for Vmax runs.

Jaguar C-X75 Range Extended EV - Paris 2010


The most seismic shift in 2010’s automotive landscape however came in the realm of the Electric Vehicle. 2010 will undoubtedly come to represent the most significant watershed in the wide scale acceptance and popularisation of private electric vehicles since the failure of GM’s EV1 project, for it was in the last month of 2010 that both Nissan and Chevrolet finally made the first two truly mass-produced and family-oriented electric cars available to the general public, and both at price points tantalisingly close to verging on the affordable. While the universal adoption of electricity as the automobile’s tipple of choice is still some way off, and while both members of the EV forward guard, the Leaf and Volt, each have their own particular compromised crosses to bear, the electric car’s ascendance is set only to continue in 2011 as more manufacturers jump on the EV band wagon and governments continue their EV subsidies in the face of spending cuts elsewhere.

Nissan's Leaf - European Car of the Year 2011


Optimism, the Big Detroit 3, Outlandish concepts and EVs. These are the themes that have come to dominate the wider automotive world in 2010, but what of the the themes and vehicles that have come to define Carkichi’s insignificantly small slice of the automotive pie over the course of the last year? Carkichi’s automotive worldview has also seen a number of tumultuous changes in 2010, as previously held notions of vehicular good taste were rent asunder and new and exciting automotive fetishes established in their place. A selection of the themes and vehicles that influenced Carkichi's 2010 will be covered in a series of forthcoming posts.