2012 Chrysler Ypsilon

The Chrysler Ypsilon is not the right car to drive if you are a shy introvert. The car’s quirky styling and frankly odd looks, plus the fact that there are few of them about, combine to ensure that you will be looked at wherever you go. Italian cars are usually renowned for their beauty, but this one is a bit of an ugly duckling compared with the rest. It is certainly distinctive, though, with love-or-hate Marmite appeal. Everything about it is slightly wacky, from that bulbous note to those tail-lights shaped like big apostrophes, and that rather quaint two-tone paintwork. It is deceptive in its interior space, too. This is a tall, rather upright, modestly sized five-door hatchback that looks like a three-door, thanks to the rear ones having concealed handles. Its short length and tubby shape makes you think there won’t be much room inside, but it has very good headroom and it isn’t too bad for knee-room either. From the badges you might assume that this car is American, and hails from Detroit. That is evident from its Chrysler identity, right? Wrong, actually. It is made in Italy by the Fiat group, and sells in mainland Europe wearing Lancia badges. If this seems a somewhat unusual state of affairs, it is explained by Fiat having taken over Chrysler, and deciding to sell badge-engineered Lancias in the UK as if they are Chryslers. Blame ancient history, back last century when Lancias were rust-buckets, fell out of favour and were withdrawn from sale here. Hence the idiosyncratic decision to re-launch them on the British market for the 21st century disguised as something else.

2012 Chrysler Delta

The new Chrysler Delta, which is now on sale in the UK, is all about adding value to people's lives. It offers family saloon space in a compact hatchback body. It introduces executive car equipment to a wide market. It features sophisticated technologies that are entirely new to this size of car. And it presents all this at prices, starting at just £16,695 OTR, that equal or undercut many less gifted rivals. With its sophisticated appearance, sumptuous interior and four state-of-the-art engines, the Delta is an accomplished re-entry into the C segment for Chrysler. On sale here now, it provides the sort of interior space expected from a far larger vehicle. Yet a host of all-new electronic driver aids ensures that the Delta is satisfying to drive as well as being very comfortable for both front and rear seat passengers. Along with its smaller sister, the new Chrysler Ypsilon, Delta marks the resurgence of Chrysler Group LLC, which was formed in 2009 as a strategic alliance with Fiat. Chrysler's portfolio contains some of Europe's most recognisable vehicles, including the 300C saloon and top-selling Grand Voyager MPV. Now with the help of Fiat's experience and knowledge in the small and medium-sized car sectors, Chrysler can infuse compact, more environmentally friendly models with the luxurious character traits of its bigger cars. Chrysler brand director Nigel Land says: "People know us for large vehicles such as the Grand Voyager and 300C. We are transferring the values that lie behind those cars to the B and C segments. We are not going for high volumes. We want to be the choice for people who are seeking a credible alternative to traditional segment offerings.

2012 Chrysler 300 SRT8

If you ever wondered about the virtues of bailing out Chrysler, wonder no more. The 2012 300 SRT8 delivers the full-on German super-sedan experience, from stitched dash to clipped apex, at two-thirds the price. Can the SRT8s virtues outweigh the baggage of its branding? From the moment we saw the original Chrysler 300C, we loved the brash styling and no-excuses execution. It's just that there were so many buts. It's gorgeous but the exterior panel gaps are huge. It's spacious but the dashboard is Hertz-grade at best. It's fast but it isn't as composed as the competition. Forget the buts, with the exception of this one: The 300C is as good as the German competition... but it costs less. Way less. Good bones The new Chrysler 300 offers vastly improved interior quality, a tidier styling job that captures the bold appeal of the original but banishes the turret-top awkwardness, and a complete set of modern electronic features. 

The SRT8 is all of that, plus the heroic new 6.4L HEMI V-8, capable of propelling the Chrysler through the quarter mile in the twelves and all the way to a Berlinetta Boxer-challenging 175 mph. Did they fix the interior? Absolutely. Stitched leather dash, flat-bottomed satin-chrome steering wheel, upmarket gauges, and a 19-speaker harman/kardon sound system that saves weight while resolving the very mezzoforte of the coloratura soprano and blah blah blah. Finally, Chrysler's built a sedan that doesn't look best from fifty feet away. An intense session of nitpicking, held with an editor of a racing-oriented magazine, yielded one big criticism: The plastic sleeve under the shift gate looks mad cheap, yo. Not that the Germans are doing it much better, mind you. So if you want to wait for improvements to the 2013, definitely consider the idea that they might do something about that shift gate.

2012 Chrysler 300 Luxury Series

The K-car saved Chrysler the company. The K-car almost destroyed Chrysler the brand. Lee Iaccoca and his team spun nearly endless and very profitable iterations of the K platform and components including the company’s market segment creating minivans. Starting with the LeBaron in 1983, followed by the stretched wheelbase E Class, the company also began using the K-car underpinnings for it’s premium brand, Chrysler. Eventually almost every vehicle in the Chrysler showroom was based on the K-car. In the 1950s and 1960s, before Chrysler’s almost terminal decline in the late 1970s, Chrysler was indeed the company’s premium brand. Plymouth fought it out with Ford and Chevy, the other members of the “low priced three”, and Dodge took care of more middle class offerings. Those were Chrysler’s volume brands. Chryslers, on the other hand were bigger and more luxurious. They may have shared some engineering and components with the company’s more plebeian brands, but they had distinctive sheet metal and features and were marketed as luxury cars. Though the Chrysler K variants were not unattractive cars, and though they sold reasonably well there was no hiding their K-car heritage. For nearly a generation “Chrysler” meant a K-car with velour upholstery on the inside and fake wood on the outside.

2012 Cadillac SRX

The Cadillac SRX’s lead development engineer, Steve Kline, kicked off the debut of the 2012 Cadillac SRX by telling us, “If we’d told you back in 2009 that the SRX would move from number nine in the segment to number two behind the Lexus RX, you probably would have laughed.” Kline is right. C/D loved the previous, CTS-based SRX. Its rear-drive dynamics and interior packaging allowed it to win a comparison test and multiple 5Best Truck trophies but failed to endear it to customers. We would not have believed that a front-drive-based SRX would rocket up the sales charts, but that’s exactly what has happened. For 2012, the SRX gets a major powertrain upgrade that might grow sales even further. The standard 265-hp, 3.0-liter V-6 is dead. New customers should be relieved that they won’t have to spin their engine all the way to 5100 rpm just to access a limp 223 lb-ft of torque. Likewise, the 3.0-liter will be relieved that it has been relieved of the SRX’s 4500-pound curb weight. Cadillac stopped offering the SRX’s previously optional engine, a turbocharged 2.8-liter V-6, earlier this year. Few mourned the loss of the 300-hp, single-turbo six. Its eulogy was probably filled with references to turbo lag, nonlinear power delivery, and the engine’s Saab origins.

2012 Buick Verano

If you’ve been keeping up with the reading, then you’ve probably noticed that the old Buick is dead. GM’s 2009 quick-rinse bankruptcy purged the pipeline of  big softy sedans for Florida blue hairs who cruise with a permanently flashing turn signal. Today’s Buicks are smaller, firmer, and international in scope. With Pontiac, Saab, and Saturn gone from the fold, Buick finally has the elbowroom and resources it needs to thrive. Think of the Verano compact sedan,due in showrooms by the end of the year, as the new Buick’s poster child. Its mission is to take the pain out of small-car, high-efficiency driving.  And while it shares GM’s “global compact vehicle” (formerly known as Delta II) architecture with the Chevy Cruze and Volt, other than basic size, there’s no hint of family resemblance. Most of the exterior sheetmetal and chassis tuning came the long way through the GM hierarchy—from the Opel Astra.

2012 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse

A major auto show isn’t complete these days without the presence of the supremest of all supreme super cars: the Bugatti Veyron . So it’s no surprise that Bugatti has taken to the 2012 Geneva Motor Show to introduce yet another special iteration of the Veyron Grand Sport , this time called the Grand Sport Vitesse. In case you’re wondering, "Vitesse" translates to "speed" in our language. Suffice to say, there’s really just one description apt for the Grand Sport Vitesse: it’s the fastest serially produced convertible in history. It’s hard to believe Bugatti can keep raising the ante to ridiculous heights with the Veyron, but they always seem to get the job done. "Once again our engineers worked hard to demonstrate that Bugatti is able to constantly redefine the boundaries of what is technically feasible," said. Bugatti President Wolfgang Dürheimer. "We gave our all to transfer the achievements of the Super Sport over to the Grand Sport, thereby turning open-top driving itself into an extraordinary experience at high speed." Judging from what they’ve created, we’re guessing that Bugatti is quite pleased with how the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse turned out. UPDATE 10/05/2012: Bugatti has unveiled a very cool video presenting the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse in action.

2012 Brabus Ultimate 120

The 2012 Geneva Motor Show was a pretty busy show for Brabus, with them not only focusing on updates for high performance sports cars, but also for tiny models like the Smart Fortwo Cabrio. Their latest package is called the Brabus Ultimate 120 - and as its name suggests - it will increase the Fortwo’s output to a total of 120 HP. The car will be painted in an intense metallic red and will feature a pretty cool aerodynamic kit that includes new front spoiler, side sills, and Brabus Widestar fender flares in the front and back. It will sit on a new set of 18" "Platinum Edition" forged wheels combined with a height-adjustable Brabus coilover suspension kit. The interior was covered in Mastik leather with red contrasting seams that match the outer skin. Brabus also added a new set of Recaro Sportster seats wrapped in the finest Brabus leather and their seat shells are painted in the same color as the car’s exterior. Under the hood, the three-cylinder turbocharged engine has been tricked to deliver a total of 120 HP at 6,000 rpm and a peak torque of 118 lb-ft available between 2,250 and 3,750 rpm, unparalleled in this vehicle class. As a result, the new Ultimate 120 will sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just 8.9 seconds and will be capable of a top speed of 106 mph.

2012 Brabus smart fortwo electric drive

If given the choice, we'd grab the keys to an all-electric Smart ForTwo way before its gasoline-powered sibling, if for no other reason than it would mean we wouldn't have to put up with that horrid automated manual transmission. But such faint praise isn't really fair to the Brabus Electric Drive. After all, it's got 80 horsepower on tap, which is plenty for the little urban runabout, and its 100 pound-feet of torque ought to be available from zero rpm. Brabus has also seen fit to lower the Smart ED 10 millimeters closer to the pavement, which, along with the 16-inch front and 17-inch rear monoblock wheels, should improve the way it handles. Less convincing an upgrade is the onboard sound generator... though perhaps one strategically pulled fuse might make short work of that oversight. Feel free to peruse the press release below, but not before checking out our high-res image gallery of live photos from the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.