This is the year the future arrived at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Yes, there are plenty of interesting and significant production debuts – Bentley’s new Continental GT, BMW’s new X3 and M5, Porsche’s new Cayenne, Hyundai’s small Kona crossover, and Ferrari’s Portofino, to name a few – but the buzz is all about hybrids and electric vehicles and autonomous driving. This is the Frankfurt show where Mercedes-Benz, the company that – with some justification – claims to have invented the automobile – announced it would soon be building an electric-powered one that didn’t have a steering wheel or pedals.
Loud, colorful, and with the swaggering might of the German auto industry on full display, Frankfurt 2017 is indeed an auto show to remember. Here are our picks of the best from the show floor.
Star of the Show: Mercedes-AMG Project ONE
There are faster hypercars. There are sexier hypercars. But there has never been a road-legal hypercar with an actual Formula 1 powertrain. Only Daimler, rich, powerful, and at the top of its game, could have the audacity – and the technical knowhow – to create a car like the Mercedes-AMG Project ONE. It shares most of its powerpack with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas grand prix racer that took Lewis Hamilton to victory in the 2015 Formula 1 World Driver’s Championship, and with more than 1000 hp on tap, it will be quicker than a Bugatti Chiron to 124 mph. The mere fact this car exists at all, complete with an airbag in the F1-style steering wheel and an air-conditioned cockpit, is cause for celebration. It’s the car at Frankfurt everyone wanted to see. –Angus MacKenzie
Star of the Show: Kia ProCeed Concept
As a child of the ‘60s, I’m exceptionally drawn to this car’s true four-door pillar-less door glass design. Sure, there is zero hope of providing adequate side-impact protection this way, but c’mon! Concept cars are supposed to be flights of fancy. I also love all the raw innovation in this design, from the “brightwork” surrounding the side glass that indeed glows with a remarkably uniform white LED light, to the seat fabric, which consists of 100 square meters (!) of black fabric that ends up looking a bit like shag carpet or something. This car is yet another milepost along the Korean automaker’s road from a “fast follower” copying designs and trends, to trend setter. We should be so lucky as to get anything nearing this car’s coolness on American roads in the near future. –Frank Markus
Star of the Show: Kia ProCeed Concept
The Kia Proceed is liquid lust in hot red. The four-door wagon concept looks like it is racing down the street even as it sits stationary on the stand. Unfortunately it will not be in motion on U.S. streets as this concept hints at the next generation of Kia’s Cee’d family for Europe. The look is clean, elegant, with beautiful proportions. The hood actually appears shorter than it is alongside the long body with no B pillar and the sharkfin trim at the C pillar. Inside, a tangle of shaved and unshaved ribbons on the seats: 100 square meters of black fabric in total. –Alisa Priddle
Best Gotcha: Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy
Jaguar says it’s planning a one-make race series for the forthcoming all-electric I-Pace, and to prove the point showed a concept of what the racecar would look like on its Frankfurt show stand. Except the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy isn’t exactly a concept. Keen-eyed showgoers comparing it with the I-Pace concept will notice the race car has different exterior mirrors, different side windows, and slightly different styling around the rear hatch. They’d also notice the creases in the bodywork aren’t quite as sharp as those on the white concept, and that a pair of wipers are nestled at the base of the windshield. Yep, hiding in plain sight on the Jaguar stand is the production version of the swoopy I-Pace. Strip away the rear wing, the side skirts, the race-face front fascia, and the racy wheels and tires, and you’ll see exactly what the twin-motor I-Pace with around 400 hp and an anticipated EPA-rated range of about 220 miles will look like when it launches in the second half of 2018. –Angus MacKenzie
Best Production Car: Bentley Continental GT
At last, Bentley’s gran turismo gets the extravagant proportions it deserves, courtesy of the new VW Group MSB architecture it shares with Porsche’s Panamera. MSB, which is VW Group’s front-engine, rear and all-wheel-drive architecture, has allowed Bentley design boss Stefan Sielaff and his team to place the front wheels ahead of the engine, giving the new Conti GT the extended dash-to-axle ratio that’s been a hallmark of great British sports and luxury cars since the 1920s. The new Conti GT looks lower, sleeker, and more luxurious than its pug-nosed predecessor, with crisply tailored surfaces. Inside is an interior that ups the Bentley ante for knurled metal, rich leather, and beautifully finished wood, and does it in a thoroughly contemporary manner. –Angus MacKenzie
Best Production Car: Land Rover Discovery SVX
This is the first Discovery to get Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations treatment. The SUV gets a version of Jaguar Land Rover’s 5.0-liter supercharged V-8 engine, tweaked to generate 517 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque. The SUV has an eight-speed automatic transmission and two-range transfer box. Not only will it be quick and powerful on the road, the SVO team gave it more ground clearance to go anywhere. The winch is standard and it will be hand-built at the SVO technical center with some unique body panels once it becomes available in 2018. –Alisa Priddle
Best Production Car: Ferrari Portofino
I never liked the California’s Nicki Minaj junk-in-the-trunk design, and the fact that this one’s basic hard points have changed so little and yet the overall look has transformed so thoroughly—and looks equally fabulous, hard-top up or down—is a real testament to the design geniuses now employed within Ferrari (not at go-to design house Pininfarina). The fact that its twin-turbo V-8 gets a 39-horse bump to within kissing distance of 600 hp is just icing on the Amaretti Cake. –Frank Markus
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