Category: Concept Cars

The video stories at VehicleVoice are exclusive and revealing. We interview top executives, review cars with honest, no-nonsense opinion, and share our thoughts on how the auto industry continues to evolve.

I found this especially disheartening, because the vehicle looked so great. A forward-looking design that keeps real truck cues. Not another tall wagon!

Mitsubishi showed its RA Concept at the North American International Auto Show. The RA is a two-seat diesel powered sports car with styling cues that telegraph shapes to come from Mitsubishi.

Lincoln MKT best concept at 2008 North American International Auto Show

In January 2009, Mercedes-Benz adds a new small SUV to the lineup. In January 2008, the Vision GLK FREESIDE gives us a very clear indication of the new model's looks and features.

Remember the Aspire? Well, Ford is getting back into the U.S. small-car game, this time with a concept that suggests a far more agreeable entry, and one potentially better-named as well. The 2008 Detroit auto show is home the third iteration of Verve concept, previewing a vehicle destined to be available for the U.S. 2010 model year.

The World Has Caught Up to Saab…Or So Saab Hopes
For years and years, Saab has been struggling to find a happy medium between maintaining its unique and renowned character and possessing enough mainstream virtues to appeal to an audience big enough to sustain profitable volumes. It’s lucky for them that consumer values may be shifting in ways that make traditional Saab values suddenly more relevant.
What has made a vehicle uniquely a Saab? This has generally meant unique (and sometimes quirky) style, rejection of excess, and small displacement engines with high output, often through turbocharging. Consistent with these values, Saab has rejected many attributes that were up till recently a given for success, such as big and beefy engines and SUV bodystyles (on both those counts, we’ll forget the Saab Bravada…er 9-7X ever existed).
Today, however, those Saab values might be a little more relevant. Ford and others are touting small [...]

LRX Demonstrates Atomization of the SUV Market
Not all that long ago, we (and most other pundits) would have prescribed a pretty failsafe formula for how to create a successful SUV. Make it big, make it really upright, and give it plenty of power, OPEC be damned. Sure, everyone knows now that fuel prices are high, driving demand for more efficient means of transportation, but there are plenty of other factors driving the atomization of the once cookie-cutter SUV market.
Whatever you want to call them – body-on-frame utility vehicles, crossovers, car-based utilities, whatever – SUVs as a genre have matured to the point where there is plenty of space and demand for unique niches within the larger segment. In fact, consistent with the greater overall consumer demand we see nowadays for tailored, unique products that fit every taste (how many ways can you have your Starbucks?), the SUV segment is quickly becoming [...]

Nissan tries another not-minivan minivan with the 2008 FORUM concept, on display at the 2008 North American International Auto Show.

Toyota revealed their new ‘Advanced Breakthrough Aero Truck’ (or A-BAT for short) at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. It’s not a smaller Tacoma. Think of it more like a small Toyota Ridgeline. It’s based on a unitized platform and swallows an inline 4 cylinder engine with Toyota’s Synergy Hybrid Drive.