Mark’s Highlights
Detroit is Truck Country
While the Texas State Fair gets its fair share of truck debuts, nothing could have prepared us for the windfall of truck news from the Detroit Auto Show. The Motor City is officially truck country yet again with the introduction of no less than three new trucks along with a new concept from Hyundai and additional trims from General Motors.
First, the Raptor, with its new twin-scroll 3.5L EcoBoost V6 set hearts palpitating in Joe Louis Arena as it graced the stage ahead of the new GT350R and Ford GT. Not only will it be lighter, more powerful, and more capable than the old Raptor, it’s light years better looking as well.
On the flip side was Nissan, rolling out the all new Titan that we’re likely to have to stare at for the next 10 years given their typical truck development cycle. The 5.0L Cummins V8 turbodiesel full-size pickup was probably the biggest let down of the bunch, sporting a front end that looks like a reheated last-generation F-150. Well, if you can’t beat ’em, copy ’em!
And the biggest pickup surprise of the week was Hyundai. The Korean automaker has never built a pickup for the North American market and Hyundai realizes they lost out on a lot of potential sales growth this year because of it. How do they plan to fix it? Hopefully with the Santa Cruz Urban Crossover Truck shown on Monday in Detroit. While it is purely a concept, we really, really hope Hyundai decides to build it. And if you’re wondering just how big this trucklet is, the wheelbase is eerily similar to that of the Santa Fe XL.
Oh, and Ford had some other stuff, too.
The rumours swirled since the end of November to expect a new Ford GT in Detroit. But, given the magnitude of effort needed to bring a true supercar to market and our lack of available spy photos to support the rumour, there was no promise we were going to see a return of the Ferrari beater.
But, to our wonderful surprise, the Ford GT showed up in a big way following an additional iteration of the Ford Mustang GT350R.
Ford – you stole the show, well and truly. I will not forget this day for a very, very long time.
You can drive anything if you can imagine it (in a virtual world)
While the Detroit Auto Show might not be the best show to experience vehicles on the open road, a number of automakers and suppliers had driving simulators on hand to experience aspects of their products.
By far the coolest and most elaborate simulator was a Charger Hellcat hooked up to a screen mounted to a wall in front of the car. However, it wasn’t just the fact you sat in an actual car during the two lap virtual run but how Chrysler engineers set up the car to rumble and shake when running into grass, rubbing other cars, and smucking the wall.
Lexus debuted their #LEXUSRIFT simulator featuring the 3D Oculus Rift headset and a picture perfect render of the interior of an RC F. You didn’t end up paying that much attention to the sport coupe’s interior though. Once the starting light in the game turned from red to green, the Oculus headset provided a racing experience unlike anything I’ve ever experienced (and, to be honest, it made me a little queazy).
It wasn’t just racing featured on these simulators as parts supplier Aisin had a safety technology simulator in their booth for anyone looking to brush up on the latest in vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. Exciting, right? That must be why there was such a lack of people taking the opportunity to try it out — they died with excitement.
Volkswagen also had a simulator for the GTI, but showgoers were too enamoured with the Golf R to notice.
