[mhh]

i'm still not sure on the looks, i'd like to see one in the flesh b4 praising it,

from the Carpoint pics, it sort of looks like a S2000 had group sex with the orig Gullwing and a Lexus SC400 thingy. 

A Dodge Nitro was also involved....

[mhh]

Room for a tennis court on the bonnet.

Perhaps a V16 is coming later?   It'll fit.  

[RMV]

I wish carmakers would stop trying to live in the past unless they can absolutely nail it (like Ford did with the GT).  An all-new, clean sheet, revolutionary design looking towards the future would have been a far more palatable flagship model than this pastiche.  The original gullwing owed nothing to anything that came before and became a legend.  Cars that are mere throwbacks or tributes to cars gone by can never, in my view, ever amount to anything special.  They just live in the shadows.

I'd rather an SL65 black (or whatever it's called) any day of the week.

[mondi]

.

[YSS]

.

love everything except the rear

[AshSimmonds]

"Porsche rival": http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/Mercedes-Benz-SLS/245082/

"Competes with Ferrari": http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/245083/

[M308]

Just read that pricing should be around the $450,000.

[jim501]

If they're any more I think they will struggle.

[993tits]

love everything except the rear

I agree with Yasser!

[AshSimmonds]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/columnists/jamesmay/6840537/Car-design-seems-stuck-in-reverse.html

Car design seems stuck in reverse
By James May

Retro-styled cars were a bit of a novelty when they started appearing, but the weight of heritage is affecting artistry.


The original Gullwing had gullwing doors for sound structural reasons, whereas now they seem to be there for nostalgia

I have long been familiar with the Trevi Fountain. As a boy, I inherited an LP record of Respighi's Fountains of Rome (not recommended), the sleeve of which depicted the great Rococo colossus, along with the word STEREO writ larger than the names of any of the artists involved in its performance.

I've also been to look at it several times since, but not recently; at least not until this weekend when, in one of those "when in Rome" moments, in Rome, I had another look.
 
It's pretty horrible, to be honest.

Historically, the fountain is of great significance, being situated at the terminus of the Roman Aqua Virgo aqueduct, and Anita Ekberg fell in it once. But, as an artwork, it's a bit camp.

Oceanus, in the centre, is positively mincing and the whole thing looks like a really bad rockery from an American resort hotel. "Even the palace in the background blends perfectly with the composition," trumpets the accompanying tourist blurb.

This is true. The palace is pretty horrible as well.

I'm not so good on art, but I know that by the time Trevi was completed in 1762 (like many things in Italy, it was delayed by a couple of centuries) the baroque had got a bit out of hand; too many absurd postures, too much ornamentation, far too many sea shells.

Eventually, someone sitting on a step with the cacophonous water feature in view, eating his usual Marcus 'n' Spartacus sandwich for lunch, stood up and said: "Hang on, this fountain is ridiculous."

Everybody already thought so and once someone had said it the sentiment spread rapidly, and before we knew it we had neoclassicism and a bit more restraint. Good.

I mention all this because I believe we have reached a similar position with respect to retro car design. This, ahem, movement started innocently enough about the time I started writing about cars. I remember being quite pleased when a grille was added to the otherwise rather bland Rover 800, God rest its bones, and Fiat revived its old badge styles.

Pretty soon, the buzzword in new-car blurb was "heritage" and everyone was plundering the company filing cabinet for styling cues from great cars. Except Morgan, which discovered the filing cabinet was full of cars it was still making. But then we had the MINI, and then the Ford Mustang.

Now we have the Fiat 500. I remember a time, before the advent of the mobile, when one could buy a novelty telephone shaped a bit like a car. Now you can buy a novelty car shaped a bit like an old telephone. I think this has gone too far.

I think this timid hankering for the past is holding us back. Two cars have recently fortified me in this view. One is the new Bentley Mulsanne. I think this car looks quite good, even if it does now look a bit like one of those fake Bentleys built by Japanese specialists around the underpinnings of a Nissan Micra.

But I can also sense that the designers were hamstrung by some requirement to invoke the great Bentleys of old and the coachwork of Mulliner. I sense it in the accompanying explanation, which bangs on about what W O would have done.

W O Bentley would not have looked to the past, I am sure. Neither would Enzo Ferrari, who famously threw everything away. The Ferrari California looks slightly clumsy for a number of reasons, but partly because his progressive outlook is no longer with us.

Another car that troubles me is the Mercedes SLS. It is intended to celebrate the original Gullwing, but that car had gullwing doors for sound structural reasons, whereas now they seem to be there for nostalgia.

This car, too, looks a bit fussy and in some ways cautious, as does the Alfa Mito while we're at it. I fear we are approaching a high baroque of car design.

The weight of heritage is beginning to pinion the hands of artistry. Old cars are great, because they tell us where we've come from and remind us not to go there again.

But they are not really an inspiration. My Triumph 2000 was, like the Nazis, a warning from history.

It's time to be modern. Apart from anything else, if we aren't modern now, there won't be any history in the future. A happy Christmas one and all. Marley is dead.