The Geneva Motor Show celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024 and hosted its 91st edition. And yet the show has never been smaller in recent decades than this year. The figures document this "downsizing" impressively: 168,000 visitors, 37 exhibitors and 157 exhibited vehicles. By way of comparison: in 1950, shortly after the war, 385 exhibitors were present in Geneva. And as early as 1980, 534,349 visitors made the pilgrimage to the Motor Show.
It was certainly not due to a lack of space or the willpower of the people in Geneva, no, the manufacturers, especially our Europeans, simply didn't want much more. Only Renault showed courage and took on the Chinese, who jumped into the gap.
Big brands only at the classic car exhibition
It should come as no surprise that the German automotive industry is in trouble if it no longer stands by its history, its current products or its future visions. The whole thing is just sad. The cancellation at short notice in 2020 due to coronavirus and the subsequent years of the pandemic put the entire organization under massive pressure, as it was not possible to hold the event in the following two years either.
2023 saw a flare-up in Qatar, where cars were exhibited under the name "GIMS". There were big plans for the current year, but they became smaller and smaller. And so the really big stage became a 1:43 scale trade fair.
All the major brands such as VW, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Ford and Toyota no longer wanted to use the platform on Lake Geneva. Even exotics such as Ferrari, Bugatti, Maserati and Porsche stayed away from the show; their logos were only still to be found in the classic car exhibition.
Only Renault/Dacia from Europe
The largest stand came from Renault with the new presentation of the Renault 5 electrique and was the only one reminiscent of times gone by.
Apart from the French, who still had Dacia in their luggage, only MG, who presented the Model 3, BYD, who are launching sales in Switzerland this summer together with the Emil Frey Group, and the US brand Lucid were represented in a reasonably professional manner.
Kimera presented the new edition of its Evo 037, which now comes with 600 hp and all-wheel drive as the Evo 38. Kimera also had the entire Lancia guard in Martini livery standing at attention around the newcomer. From the LC1 and 2, Beta Montecarlo Turbo to all the Integrales, including the Group B monster Delta S4, they were all there. Worth seeing!
A sad sight
Peter Ruch wrote in the Automobil-Revue, which just a few years ago produced a whole special newspaper for the show:
"As good as the Renault Group is at playing the big stage all by itself, the rest of the show is a sad sight. Hall 4 covers about a third of the space of earlier years, plus a small part of Hall 2 on the upper floor with a very generously designed exhibition of about 40 classic cars. This raises the question of whether the increased admission price of CHF 25 can be justified. "
The big stage has become a small theater, because even Paris, Brussels and the IAA in Munich are only a shadow of their former selves.
Does the future belong to the Chinese?
MG will tackle the Swiss market this year, followed by BYD. A brand that hardly anyone in this country knows yet. BYD was a battery manufacturer and now naturally welcomes the political pressure for the oh-so-clean e-cars. The Tages Anzeiger newspaper reported:
"BYD will soon be opening a plant in Hungary to avoid the expensive import duties. If you also consider the technological backlogs of brands such as VW and Mercedes, for example in autonomous driving, you come to the conclusion: the future sounds Chinese. "
And we allow all this to happen without any declaration of war ...
Michele Jauch-Paganetti, BYD's Chief Interior Designer, said in the Tagesanzeiger newspaper, after initially not wanting to comment much on BYD's attack on the proud European car manufacturers: "It won't be easy for the Europeans. "
Edmund Chi, who worked at the BYD stand, told the Tagi:
"It will probably take some time for the prejudices against Chinese cars to disappear from European minds. "
Maybe, but the prices make it easy to forget a lot of things.
After all, attractive classics from all over the world
For the 100th anniversary celebrations, however, there was an attractive special exhibition of vehicles from the past century. The vehicle brands that were sought in vain downstairs in the "current" hall were at least on display upstairs in the cars put together by Jean-Pierre Mitard's "Classic Gallery".
From the Ferrari F40 to the Porsche 959 to the Renault 16 or VW Beetle, pretty much everything was represented. There were also two Bugatti Royale, a Coupé de Ville by Binder and the roadster once driven by fashion designer Esders to admire.
The Renault Espace ll F1, a particularly rare "compact van", was also on display. Gérard Ducarouge packed pure F1 technology with the V10 mid-engine from Renault under the body of the Espace ll Renault. The engine used by Williams in 1993 produced 810 hp from 3.5 liters and accelerated the van to 100 km/h in under three seconds. One of the cars is on display in the Matra Museum, the other, an exhibit, was on show in Geneva.
Ford showed that even a family car can now be a little faster with the SuperVan 4.2 at the "Thirty Bathurst 500" in Australia one day before the opening of the Motor Show on February 25, 2024. The Ford pulverized the new lap record that Jules Gounon had set in the Mercedes GT3 a few days earlier on February 17, 2024 with 1:56.605.
Romain Dumas conjured up a time of 1:56.3247 on the 6.2-kilometre uphill and downhill track in the Ford van, which is over 300 km/h fast but weighs 1.8 tons.
Well, there were still a few things worth seeing at the Salönchen. If you would like to smile a little more, please refer to the picture story about the Geneva Motor Show .
