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British MotorShow 2000 Roundup.
by Alex Michalas
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This year marked our first ever visit to the British Motorshow and we have been left absolutely excited by it! The strength of the
Birmingham-based show does not lay in new model world debuts from major manufacturers – you would be much better off if you visited Geneva, Paris or Frankfurt shows for those. What the British Motorshow does provide to
its visitors, though, is a big number of very interesting world debuts of crazy and not-so-crazy sportscars from an ever-growing number of British specialist low–volume manufacturers. And it is these manufacturers that
give the show a unique color and really make it a must-visit event. So, if we are talking about British manufacturers we just have to start from Lotus, despite the fact that it is actually owned by the Malaysian Proton company. The new
Elise II that was making its world
debut was definitely one of the stars of the show. What's more interesting is that, in private talks we had with Lotus officials, we learned that there are serious plans of a further expansion in the US market. This
expansion should see the upcoming M250 model and perhaps even the Elise II join the Esprit, which is now the only Lotus car officially sold in the US. We will of course keep you updated on any developments on this. Then there was TVR! The makers of
probably the best British muscle cars made a big impression in their home show. The all-new, Tuscan based,
TVR
Tamora was on display as were all of the company's current cars. TVR sells 1700 cars per year these days which easily give it the title of the biggest 100%
British manufacturer! In our talks with TVR people we really got to appreciate the company's uniqueness in managing to turn out a healthy profit by producing a small number of very desirable cars. We also got to know
that there are currently no official export plans for outside Britain and, in fact, such plans are very unlikely for the future as well. Making TVRs available to the US would mean such compromises as
airbags and ABS having to be fitted to make the cars comply with US laws – something that would clearly make them lose their hardcore appeal. As many people have asked us whether it is actually
possible to privately import a TVR to the US, the answer is that yes, this is possible and TVR actually have quite a few customers in the US – just email us here for more info on this.What else did we see? Lots and lots more actually! There was Trident's new Icini, Jensen's CV-8, Ascari's KZ-1 and AC showcased a new version of the Cobra that it claims is the fastest accelerating
car in the world! Two more cars that stood out from the crowd were the Spyker C8 Spyder – a real supercar from Holland and a crazy 4-wheel rocket from the small Grinall company named Scorpion IV. Caterham, the makers of probably the most well known back to basics sportscars in the world were
also there with a slightly changed version of the 7 – which is of course a copy of the classic 1958 Lotus 7 model! Getting into the 7 was a very interesting task indeed. You really feel like wearing the car not
sitting in it…This probably wraps it up as far as the real FantasyCars we got to see go but there was more than that as, again, like in the Paris Motorshow two weeks ago, the whole automotive world was there. So we
are going to point out the most interesting real–world models we saw:
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