CJ German road trip: Day 2, the IAA
Day two of our road trip trough Germany: the IAA.
8 ‘o clock, that’s how early the IAA/playgrounds open or should I say: killingfields?
We arrived earlier and found that everything had been coordinated with German precision, busses, directions and parking weres all executed with this care.
Skyscrapers rose above us and we were swallowed by the massive halls of the Messe in which the IAA is hosted.
BMW
BMW-group had us waiting for the Rolls Royce Dawn and the BMW M6 GT3, sadly the first presentation did not go as planned and the show had to be postponed. The presentation of the Rolls Royce Dawn had us drooling and with the masses swarming the press model, Ward and I got access to the customer car upstairs. Only a few seconds were needed to see that the company had succeeded and had not ‘overkilled’ the model. The head of the company confirmed that this was one of the hardest parts of the development, the find that right ‘Rolls Royce balance’.
Fiat Group
Italians remain Italians and that translates into stressed people and bad internet connections for this hall, that was until you got onto the stand. The Ferrari stand was peaceful and had us giggling when the roof of the new 488 Spyder refused to close. Alfa Romeo had us drooling over the new Giulia, that was until you got inside, the interior was clearly a few steps behind competition but that’s the hardest part of trying to fit in the premium segment. We quickly had our share of the crowd and continued onwards.
JLR
After enjoying some lasagne at Ferrari, Ward and I headed for the halls in which we could find the new F-Pace. Our partner requested some photos of the all new F-Pace and we delivered. We had hope to spend more ‘intimate’ time with this new car from Jaguar, but, as you can read here, the car was such a success it kept being swarmed. In the same halls we found tuners/carbonfiber-magicians, but we concluded that we would save this for today.
Volkswagen
We arrived in these halls after all the dust had cleared from the launch of various premieres. Some of them good and others just a overhyped release of a new chassis construction. The first ‘premiere’ was found at the Lamborghini stand in the form of the Huracán Spyder. We weren’t convinced by the car, seeing it in the flesh. The lines seemed to be broken and the use of materials for the engine cover had us thinking about cheap plastics. No remarks about the performance, as these remain nearly the same in comparison to its closed brother.
We continued 50 meters to the right and ended up looking at the new Bugatti Vision GT concept, on which you can find an article here.
Another 50 meters and we found ourselves looking the Bentley’s new Bentayga, two of em to be precise. One of them in the spec you might have seen in the press photos and one of them in bright orange with carbon accents? Yup, Bentley offers things like a carbon fiber rearspoiler, side skirts, mirrors caps and even the retractable side steps. Remarkable. The car does however feel and looks like a major success.
We walked onto the Volkswagen and Audi stands to look at the GTE Sport concept and the new S4. Both of them has us doubting, for some reason it seems that Volkswagen Group has lost its touch with these two brands. We will zoom in closer at Porsche’s Mission E Concept later on.
Hotel
We walked for 30 minutes to the shuttle busses, yeah that’s how long it takes, and meanwhile reminisced on the day. Ward and I were tired, but our lightweight gear and us looking like happy puppies in comparison to the more heavily equipped media-teams. We slept like rocks, IAA day two has begun. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for live content and interaction.
