Geneva Motor Show 2017: all the news on the world’s most beautiful cars – The Verge

Volkswagen’s latest car looks like an Audi

2017-03-14T09:00:08-04:00

Volkswagen Arteon at the Geneva Motor Show 2017

Behold the Volkswagen Arteon, ostensibly an upgrade over the staid Passat - but let's be honest, a Passat has never looked this sharp and dashing. To my eyes, this new sporty sedan from VW shares more heritage with Audi's A5 Sportback (or its edgy R series) than Volkswagen's own lineup. Bearing the R-Line branding to signify its sportier aspirations, the Arteon is presented as a gran turismo that combines performance with comfort. But still, it's hard to get away from the notion that Volkswagen is going upmarket by borrowing heavily from one of the many brands in its stable.

The extended, contoured hood, long wheelbase, and lowered roofline …

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Behold the elegant simplicity of the Volvo XC60

2017-03-09T15:04:00-05:00

A few years ago, I drove a 2015 Volvo XC60 for a week. It was comfortable, stylish, and an all-around excellent SUV. About the only thing I didn't like about it was the infotainment system, which had changed little from when the XC60 was first introduced at the end of the Bush administration.

It certainly got the job done and, considering that the interior of the XC60 hadn't changed much for a few years, it was a testament to how good the car was when it was first designed.

A Volvo rep once told me that sales of the XC60 "kept the lights on" at Volvo, keeping the company in business long enough to develop and release the excellent XC90 SUV …

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Up close with Aston Martin’s Valkyrie, a hypercar fit for a Norse god

2017-03-09T14:43:59-05:00

On Monday, The Verge revealed the name of the Aston Martin-Red Bull collaborative hypercar, the Valkyrie. Cool name, cool car.

Now, our man at the Geneva Auto Show, Vlad Savov, has gotten up close and personal with this mythological machine, so we wanted to give you more pretty pictures. Because let's be honest: neither you nor I will ever get to drive this thing. The Valkyrie is one of those cars that will remain forever out of reach except for a select few. No more than 150 of these vehicles will ever be made, and they are all already sold out. This is literally as close as you'll ever get. Relish it.

The Valkyrie joins the British carma …

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Bentley challenges Tesla’s idea of electric luxury with a gorgeous new concept car

2017-03-09T11:38:52-05:00

Bentley wanted to bring a surprise to this year's Geneva Motor Show, and it certainly achieved its goal by unsheathing a snow-white, all-electric concept car this week: the EXP 12 Speed 6e. I was here in Geneva two years ago to photograph the EXP 10 Speed 6, the previous two-seater concept that helped Bentley gobble up attention and headlines at the show. There's a lot that the two concept cars share, mostly owing to Bentley's adherence to signature design touches, but the big difference is that the new one is a battery-powered electric beast of luxurious burden.

Tesla's sporty electrics have come to define the nascent category up to this p …

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The Geneva Motor Show has been overrun by red cars

2017-03-09T09:05:34-05:00

Audi at Geneva Motor Show 2017. | Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

Far be it from me to lay claim to an entire trend, but I did spend my last day at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show admiring two especially pretty red editions of popular cars: the Lamborghini Huracan and BMW's i8. I found both looked even more delightful with their rouge retouching, and it seems that the car world has agreed with my assessment wholeheartedly.

What was but a little blip on the color fashion map last year has exploded into an absolute deluge in 2017, with practically every car manufacturer introducing a new car in red. Don't believe me? Let's looks at the gorgeous, crimson evidence:

What could have prompted this collective enthusi …

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The Renault Trezor is the retro-future concept car of my childhood dreams

2017-03-08T10:34:43-05:00

I was on my way to photograph the new Lamborghini Huracán Performante when I had to stop, set aside the Lambo plans for a moment, and just feast my eyes on the Renault Trezor concept car. It's impossible to walk by it without being wowed and impressed by its design, which is equal parts Tim Burton-era Batmobile and 1940s touring car. The Trezor is long and low to the ground, and access to it happens by opening up the whole car - both driver and passenger have to hop in, since there are no actual doors to open. Oh, and there are hexagonal flaps on the front hood that lift up to assist cooling.

If I had to sketch you my dream car as a kid, it …

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If you’re going to use models to attract attention to your cars, here’s a good way to do it

2017-03-08T09:27:42-05:00

Liberty Walk at the Geneva Motor Show 2017 | Vlad Savov / The Verge

International Women's Day isn't being celebrated loudly (or at all) here at the Geneva Motor Show, but just as I was despairing at the old-fashioned use of attractive young women in short skirts as car decorations, I stumbled upon a ray of gender-balanced sunshine. Liberty Walk, a Japanese company that mods supercars to give them extra performance and even sharper looks, has come to Geneva with a pair of booth models to attract the attention of passers-by: one man and one woman. Both are clad in flamboyantly untraditional kimonos. Neither is playing the role of a sex object.

It's not often that you see a dude wearing orange and zebra-stripe …

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Watch the new Volvo XC60 survive some nasty crash tests

2017-03-07T18:31:02-05:00

The 2018 Volvo XC60 is the company's newest and safest offering. For a company with such a fanatical devotion to safety as Volvo, that's saying something.

Steering assist has been added to Volvo's City Safety system, allowing the XC60 to use its steering assist feature to help mitigate head-on and lane-changing collisions. It has available Pilot Assist - a feature somewhat similar to Tesla's Autopilot - which takes care of steering, acceleration, and braking on well-marked highways up to 80 mph, as long as the driver keeps their hand lightly on the wheel. And, when not decked out in crash test orange, it's also extremely handsome.

I have a …

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Ferrari 812 Superfast lives up to its name

2017-03-07T15:34:27-05:00

The Ferrari 812 Superfast is making it clear that speed is still a theme that's paramount to the luxury Italian automaker's DNA. Seeing Ferrari's fastest production car up close at the Geneva Motor Show in alarm-red Rosso Settanta hue is believing. All those luscious curves created at the Ferrari Styling Centre are not for looks - the design is part of the aerodynamic sauce that propels this supercar to its superfast name that harkens back to the namesake 1964 500 Superfast and the lore of the 1969 365 GTB4 Daytona. But there's no denying that those muscular haunches are menacing, even at a standstill under the staid convention center lights …

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Lamborghini’s Huracán Performante looks like a demon in Dreamsicle orange

2017-03-07T14:22:44-05:00

The Verge's man in Geneva, Vlad Savov, just had a very close encounter with a very beautiful car. This is Lamborghini's Huracán Performante, which looks exactly like the regular Huracán, which is to say it's stunningly gorgeous.

As we reported yesterday, the Performante is lighter and more powerful than the Huracán, making it one of the fastest production supercars in existence. This demon in Dreamsicle orange recently set a production car lap record of 6:52.01 around the Nürburgring's Nordschleife. That's fast.

Last year, Lamborghini gave us a Ferrari-red Huracán. Vlad called it "everything good and gorgeous about sports cars." It's hard …

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