The Jeddah Luxury Car show opened at the Hilton Hotel on Monday night. If you want to preserve your moral integrity or your bank balance, then stay well away. It is full of temptation. This is the ultimate “Toys for Boys” show and for most of us, it is a case of the nose pressing on the windowpane of an expensive superstore. There are some truly awesome pieces of motoring machinery on show. It is hard to name the star of the show — there are just too many egregiously powerful and expensive bits of kit to select only one.
Maserati have their two new models on show — the updated Quattroporte and the GT models, sleek and stylishly Italian, just oozing smoothness and sophistication. At least they are useable as town cars. At the other end of the range is the Koenisegg CCXR and, to gladden the hearts of all those with super cars, it is the first green super car. Nice to know that you can travel at close to 400 kph and help save the planet.
The CCXR has a highly modified engine that can run on E85 and E100 Biofuel as well as normal 98 octane petrol (Europe). When run on regular petrol, the 4.7 liter twin-supercharged Koenigsegg engine delivers 806 Bhp. This rises to an astonishing 1018 Bhp when the car is run on E85 Biofuel. This is one of the cars not for shopping in. Makes one wonder then what the Bristol Fighter T might yield. It churns out 1012 horsepower on standard 98 octane fuel. I will mention that to Mr. Silverton who builds them. Unfortunately it is not at the show and probably never will be.
Then of course, on an unmarked stand, presumably because the car is so famous that naming it is superfluous, sits the new Bugatti Veryon. It is simply gorgeous to look at and entirely unattainable by normal mortals. Looking and fantasizing is, however, free of charge.
However, it is the cars you have probably never heard of that provide the real interest in the show.
Spyker and Wiseman as car producers are about as far from the Detroit Jellymold School of Design as it is possible to get. The Wiseman brothers produce a car that is beautifully crafted with just the instrumentation you need and no more and is in the tradition of the roadster. They are small, exceedingly powerful and made for the sheer joy of speed and motoring. Simple clean lines and exceptionally finished inside, they are wonderful things to behold.
The Spyker stand sets new standards of innovation in design, especially the interiors. Have a shufti at the interior of the Peking-Paris model — and wonder at the gear stick. I kid thee not!
Go to the show; wonder at the exotica but leave your family at home, guarding the credit cards.
