Gadgetory

the scenic car tech team sees a lot of concept cars on the International Auto Show circuit and to be honest a lot of them bore me nowhere are there more pipe dreams and BS that's never heard of again but a few standout as important fascinating and actually going to change the market I'm Brian Cooley with my top five favorite concept cars from recent international auto shows number five the new concept Subaru WRX now the WRX is Subarus hero car without it they really wouldn't have less street cred they'd have none at least not until the BRZ earns its legendary stripes so the WRX concept that came out of the 2013 New York Auto Show has a distinctive and appropriate new style that's important to notice in other words it looks badass and not in that sort of hotly homely way that the current WRX does sorry owners no details have been confirmed about its future powertrain but they're not gonna stray far from the boxer turbo all-wheel drive combo of the current car number for the Lexus LF c see the lf-cc makes my list because it could redefine a big piece of what you think when I say Lexus without being utterly unlikely for that company to get its head around it was lost at the 2012 Paris Show it's got this high-strung two and a half liter turbo four-cylinder engine plugged into the most popular hybrid system in the world Toyotas LED headlights nestled behind the best iteration yet of that Lexus spindle grille and a center console with a huge vertical main LCD screen really anchors the inside you would laugh at that feature if it weren't for the Tesla Model S already doing it so this is a car to watch number three Porsches Panamera sport Turismo concept now if Porsche calls this Panamera concept the sports car of tomorrow where does that leave the 911 let's not think about that instead let's focus on this Panamera concepts but the most hideous part of the current car Porsche did what they should have done in the first place and made it this is also envisioned as a lithium-ion plug-in hybrid lashed to a three liter supercharged v6 which is sort of what they do now in their hybrids LED headlights up front and the taillights are ripped off from the latest 911 Outback finally it's not a pain to look at the number two car on my list is not a car at all it's a truck the Ford Atlas concept it's clearly an accurate weather vane of where the next f-series is gonna land when it arrived at the Detroit Auto Show the 2013 in January we noted how Ford plans to keep moving v8 out of the spotlight that was once considered the third rail of pickup truck design but now Ford's turbo v6 trucks handily outsell their v8 the Atlas envisions that kind of efficient power with active body aerodynamics like this cool louvered grill the power ladder brace in the back probably not going to production but in a round view camera system very likely will theirs trailer backup assist to help you kind of make sense of that backward world of backing a trailer up and turning the opposite way that you think you should that always throws me and there's also tech to coordinate the hitch with the actual pickup on the back on the screen display so you can line things up when you're hitching up by yourself keeps you from looking like a fool my number-one concept car in recent times is the Nissan Terra the Terra SUV is way out there it's a real concept car in case you didn't notice suicide doors and fuel cell power and that face give it away but what made a lasting impression on me at the 2012 Paris show was how the Terra envisions some bold but believable trends like the idea that a tablet docked inside becomes the instrument panel the navigation and the entertainment system it's even the way you unlock and start the car putting electric motors at each of the four wheels is also an idea whose time has likely come offering this highly addressable powertrain and a reduction of weight and mechanical complexity now they just gotta throw out that sheet metal and start again if you want to stay on top of all the new concept cars coming out of the big world auto shows you want to be checking in at cars dot cnet.com I'm Brian Cooley thanks for watching you