Gadgetory

everybody welcome to the show floor of the 2014 new york international auto show things are kind of winding down you so we thought we'd take a few minutes and give you some of our favorites I'm Tim Stevens I'm Wayne Cunningham and I'm antuan goodwin and so what's a while extravagan Antoine what was your car of the show this year well mazda made a big deal about the 25th anniversary of the miata and well known that the mazda miata is my favorite car so obviously that's going to be my pick and in their booth it was pretty awesome they had 25 925 20th anniversary 12 classic still a lot of meiotic Miata yeah they had the number 14 number 15 and number 16 Miatas the three diatas that were actually at the debut at the 1989 Chicago show the actual ones that were on the stage then they had the 25th anniversary of the current generation of a Miata that's a special edition especial because it's got like a derailleur scheme it's got yes basically SOS great package so red Miata but they're only making a hundred of them for the North American cuz there's never been a red Miata before well yeah the really cool thing though was there a skyactiv chassis and that is a preview of the fourth-generation reality which we should be seeing announced any month now and it showed a lot of really cool things about how the next one's going to be smaller it's going to be lighter and it's going to move the engine further back into the vehicle so you can improve the balance and dynamics I'm really excited about getting a chance to look at and drive their next one I saw that chassis and I was thinking that it Mazda forget something to forget to bring something to the show don't forget one of the wheels was on backwards and so the text made a big show of it today flipping the wheel around so the trades were facing the right direction but I mean it's just a preview someone's getting fired back in back in last HQ so uh that's kind of the similar thing that Subaru did for the appraiser launched a little while ago they showed the chassis obsession for a long time they show the Chancellor with like a clear body sitting on top of it before they finally unveiled the body and everybody kind of groaned hopefully the reaction will be a little bit more positive I mean the me I'd have been getting bigger yeah here's an heavier so for them to get back to what they are projecting to be the original weight of the first generation Miata it's going to be a good thing for the vehicle is going to help it be more efficient and more fun to drive but with a lot more power how much power to the original Miata have the original you go ahead Thunder hundred right yeah it does under a hundred horsepower and yeah they're the point now where they're about 170 underneath I'll be nice upgrade yeah sure we don't lose power in the next generation well we're seeing a lot of automakers this year debuting cards with less power than the 2014 model year but then also saying hey we're late our car is also a couple hundred pounds lighter so you're getting about the same performance but more efficiency have a forced-induction uh that we're going to see that they're probably going to be a four-cylinder naturally aspirated just like every motto worth its salt has ever been with the exception of the mazdaspeed which was the turbocharged man than me production yeah they have the engine on that chassis I was checking that out earlier I couldn't tell if I was good i think it's gonna be direct injection from what i was looking seen on the head on there it's kinda hard to tell with that type of game that have a format but you know that might be something in front of the whole skyactiv technology yeah the whole skyactiv thing is direct injection lighter weight component less friction so pretty much all of the changes that we've been seeing on the mazda3 on the new mazda6 we're going to see those on a different scale and mazda miata i'm excited i'm excited too i'm more excited about the Alfa Romeo 4c they had that car on the show floor and normally be thinking out for ramaiya there they're not in the US but I've been seeing this car and european auto shows for the last couple years and it's beautiful and the fact that it's here means is their way of saying hey we're gonna sell it here in fact that will come out in June and it's a stunning looking car its carbon they use carbon fiber throughout carbon fibre tub no carbon fiber you know yeah spoiler all sorts of you know components in there so lightweight actually the european version is under 2,000 pounds this one's going to be 12 2,200 pounds for the US market which is just so light for a car these guys are heavier so we're heavier bad yeah I think its first Americans uh you know I think it's the safety equipment actually that goes into it you know required airbags isn't all the kind of stuff they want to fit into it to not only make it fit us regulations but also make it desirable for people or so they don't think they're gonna get in a death trap things that I thought that was more desirable is that when it debuted actually they had those multi-segment sort of insect I headlights the ones that are on the show floor here have more traditional looking headlights that actually don't look at bat and it's good to see that alpha looked at the sort of like that people did when the 4c first debuted is that you know what we're going to give you a choice of having some more standard looking light from this really good-looking part yeah it's a great car and I love that it's just a little simple to seat rear-engine car you know not a lot of complexity to it you know it's it's been knocked a little bit forward simplicity I think the limited interior and everything else is it feels a lot like a lotus I think in a lot of ways but I think that's a great thing and you know it's always been said that if you were a true car guy you have to own an ALPHAN someone your career so this could be the one yeah it could be the one yeah it certainly could be and i'm definitely eager to see how it does here in the US i hope that they find success I got to be honest though I don't know don't know how much faith I'm gonna put in there making big big sales here in the US well one thing that might hurt amongst the the real car guys who are all like into manual transmissions now is it's not going to come with a manual it's only going to come with a I think the six-speed dual-clutch transmission so paddle shifters you know I mean probably better performance than a manual but I mean everybody now is all about the the three pedals the older I get the more than my left knee starts to bother me the more I I become accustomed to the double clutch think so maybe work out okay yeah yeah i sat in the car and it was it was a tight fit but it was a you know felt like it'd be fun on the track but our helmets in there yeah I think there's enough room yeah I think it depends on how tall you are yeah I was usually there's definitely that too what's interesting is to see them coming if they're coming back into the US market coming with a sports car a small simple sports car instead of something with more a more of a broad appeal yeah something like julieta or one of their the set lomito something that they could fill for you know not a lot of money that you can get actually out on the road and get more people seeing the badge instead they're going with sort of exclusive exotic small sports car aspirational product yeah although it might be the herald for a lot of alpha males to follow that's kind of idea they want to reintroduce the brand to the US so maybe we'll see the Mito which I would like to see that car too because that's actually a pretty quick nice-looking little compact inexpensive so Jim you know even cook weariness but so what's your favorite yeah everyone last because I can't really make up my mind i'm still going back and forth you but we're sitting in the GM booth so i guess i should go on the gym way i guess i'm going to go with the corvette zo6 convertible which which was unveiled here it's you know not a lot different from the normal 06 but that's a good thing you know normally with a convertible they lap the roof off then they had to put in a bunch of extra structural stuff and then they make 200 pounds added weight for the motor for the convertible they're saying this will not be that much heavier than the normal is yo 6 which is good still 625 horsepower from the ridiculous supercharged v8 they did finally give us a formal 0-60 time a 3.5 seconds which is pretty ridiculous and it's the fastest car around their test track that they've ever made so it seems like it'll be no compromise convertible and of course the normal corvette is got the target ops you can pop that off but it's probably be even better for cruising but and even more headroom if you're a little bit taller like me and you need to go to the track in the wear a helmet yeah I like the targa top on the coupe version the convertible I was reading about that they said that the the body is so stiff the chassis is so stiff that yeah they didn't need to make many structural changes to do the convertible and that's really amazing and I could believe it having driven the standard Corvette I mean that body is so stiff it just handles so perfectly so well it's it's like nothing's going on you know mess it up yeah yeah the other car that I was really seriously considering was Aston Martin the the Vantage GT which is their low cost 99 thousand-dollar v8 version of the car stripped down interior very fast it's got paint schemes inspired by their Lamar racers which is a little bit loud for the road but pretty cool but the way i think that the Corvette's going to make some ways I'm here to see what the sales foot is between convertible and then a normal coupe and the sill split between the 06 the normal car to they haven't given us or pricey I'm in 06 though which is a little bit curious give us every other spec we can we can want all right so I guess we'll wrap things up here from New York I hope you enjoyed our coverage this year definitely check out our gallery of all the cars here on the show floor and let us know what you thought of our coverage and we'll be back from the next auto show where the next lecture we go on a pair of snacks we are going to Paris yes that is in October October so a little early October of the summer off and then head to Paris so make sure your passports are in order folks and we'll see you out there Paris again I'm Tim Stevens I'm antuan goodwin and I'm wind getting it and we're here in New York thanks again everybody look great that's pretty