Axon's Automotive Anorak: The weird and the wonderful of Geneva

As well as shiny new mass-produced machines and mouth-watering supercars though, the Swiss motor show can always be relied upon to provide a sprinkling of the more unusual and bizarre side of the automotive industry, with this year not disappointing when it came to a choice of oddball cars. Here’s a quick round-up of some of the best, and worst!

Corbellati Missile

One of the boldest claims made at the 2018 Geneva Salon was by start-up Italian hypercar maker Corbellati. It’s very unfinished Missile prototype, presented in its rough aluminium coachwork, is claimed to be able to achieve a ‘guaranteed’ 500 km/h (c. 310 mph), without the assistance of any spoilers or other sophisticated aerodynamic aids! Power comes from an unspecified 9-litre twin-turbo V8, developing a claimed 1,800+ bhp. With styling resembling an early 1980s kit car, mated to an ambitiously high price tag, we suspect the final production Missile won’t be seen anytime soon.

Icona Nucleus

The Italian-Chinese styling house Icona displayed two vehicles at Geneva; a pleasant electric city car called the Neo, plus a monstrously-huge (and hideous) autonomous Nucleus electric six-seater, resembling a giant cottage loaf, with no windows at all on one side, plus a ‘wet bar’ for the unfortunate passengers to get merrily drunk, one assumes, to try and erase all memories of the embarrassing vehicle they are autonomously travelling in!

FOMM 1.0

The Japanese-developed and Taiwanese-built FOMM (First One Mile Mobility) 1.0 is a two-seater electric city car intended to take you from your regular every-day transport, into the city centre of the last mile or so of your journey. FOMM also displayed a pleasing electric sports Barchetta concept, which hopefully will make it into production, based on the very pleasing reception the car achieved at Geneva.

Mansory Bugatti Veyron

Considerably less agreeable than the FOMM sports prototype was the Swiss tuner Mansory’s customization of a Bugatti Veyron. With marble-inspired coachwork (with all of the visual appeal of a recycling tip), the Veyron’s main body panels were replaced by all-new carbon fibre wings, front valence, and so on, rather than being wrapped, with such a tasteless outcome that some members of the media could be heard laughing at the Veyron as they rubbed their eyes in utter shock and disbelief. By comparison, the other Mansory modified Ferraris, McLarens, Bentleys and Rolls-Royce models on display were almost tasteful!

Sbarro 4 x 4 x 2

For the last 50 years, Italian-born, Swiss-adopted Franco Sbarro has always pulled-off a Geneva show stopper with his wild and imaginative car creations. In addition to a pair of agreeable single-seater racing concepts, this year Sbarro revealed his 4 x 4 x 2 SUV, a purposeful off-roader with a pair of deployable centre wheels for use if and when the going gets really tough off-road.

Eadon Green Zeclat

Last year new Yorkshire-based car maker Eadon Green stunned the Geneva Salon crowds with its large retro-style Black Cuillin V12 grand tourer, inspired by the elegant, sweeping French grand routier tourers of the 1930s, as offered by Delage, Delahaye, Talbot-Lago, and others. This year, Eadon Green returned to the Swiss Pal Expo venue with another surprise, the Zeclat, a stylish, scaled-down sportier version of the BMW V12-based Black Cuillin, based around the mechanicals and central tub frame of the current Chevrolet Corvette C7 targa, in its Z51 specification form. The Zeclat looks to be a more commercially sound proposition than the more imposing Black Cuillin, and we certainly look forward to seeing one or two on the road, and at Goodwood, in years to come.

Rinspeed Snap

Swiss tuner Rinspeed was back at the Geneva Salon for the 40^th occasion this year, showing its mild (by Rinspeed standards!) Snap concept, a self-driving electric future vision offering a variety of modular body styles than can simply be ‘snapped’ on and off the Snap’s flat chassis, enabling the vehicle to be used as a taxi, delivery van, and so on. The Geneva concept included portable strawberry plants, plus a Snap taxi cabin cover with frosted glass.

Renault EZ-GO Robo Taxi 

The main news on the busy Renault stand was its EZ-GO robot taxi concept, an unusual autonomous electric conveyance, designed to transport its ‘ride-sharing’ passengers to the very centre of a smart, connected city. Don’t expect to find one for sale at your local Renault dealership anytime soon…