Geneve Salon De L'Auto 2012

The Giuliaro Italian design models

The Geneve Palexpo was the venue for the 62nd Geneva Car Show, one of the four major world exhibitions for new metal, motors, plastic (and not only on the car bodies), chrome and ventures into new green technology. The 'Terminator' himself made an appearance at the show to wave the flag for his new NGO environmental group R20. Big Arnie has established the headquarters of R20 at Versoix on the outskirts of Geneva with the assistance from the canton of two years free rent on the building they are based in.

Last Thursday, in addition to Arnie and 100,000 other individuals, Henry and I made the trip west with our cameras for a few hours of fun. I honestly couldn't remember when I'd last been to a car show. I'm pretty sure I have . When I was working for Esanda Finance back in the eighties I attended plenty of new car model releases. And I definitely remember going to the Murwillumbah Agricultural Show in 1969 to see the first Monaro hit the boards of the main Pavilion. So maybe I hadn't been to a real car show before and if that is the case the Geneve Salon De L'Auto was a good one to start with.



1969 Holden Monaro GTS

The Palexpo building hovers over the motorway to France beside the Geneve Aeroport. The building is a bit like Doctor Who's Tardis and way bigger inside than I ever could have imagined. As soon as you walk through one of the entry doors you are in the flow and with 100,000 people, flow it does.

Now I do like cars but my taste is in the more older style models. My dream car would have to be a 1957 Corvette Stingray followed closely by a HR Holden 186 ute and then a 1971 VW Beetle Superbug. If I had to go new metal, an Alfa Romeo Giulietta would suit me just fine. So probably a car show of the dimensions of Geneve was wasted a bit on my presence but I definitely enjoyed the wander and to fly the flag for my sons Cameron and Kris.

                        1957 Corvette Stingray

1967 HR Holden Utility

1971 VW Superbug

I found watching the salespeople (if that's what you call them at this level of $$$) interesting, with their silk suits and white gloves, ever so gently opening the doors and sitting on the leather interiors, having pretend conversations with their colleagues and the fashion models that periodically draped the cars or caressed the egos of wannabe buyers. And to see individuals and couples seriously fronting up to be the first person in their street to own a A$600,000 + dollar Bentley four wheel drive, Lamborghini Aventador J (at an easy A$3.0 M) or even one of the only two Nissan Infiniti Emerg- E concept electric sports cars to be released.

Lambo

Infiniti Emerg-E

My budget stretched to buying a ten dollar ham sandwich and a five dollar can of coke and I topped it off with a souvenir cap of the event for Cam, although the Bugatti Grand Vitesse would have been worthy of a test drive at 410 kph top speed and A$2.0 deducted from the bank balance.

So here are a few more pics from my day out ticking another box of Rob and Jodie's excellent European adventure.

Bugatti

Plastic bubble

Henry testing the renault Twizy

Nissan Invitation

Boys testing their skills in the RX5

Renault F1

Electric Merc

4004

Morgan

Morgan

Subaru