Some cars were the stuff of dreams but others were closer to nightmares
The 2015 Los Angeles auto show hosted a broad array of vehicles that were the stuff of dreams. There were, however, some aberrations and downright oddities mixed in with the glitz and glamour and a few that could be described only as nightmares. Here are some cars that we found to be... outside the norms.
Not surprisingly, given its location next door to Hollywood, there were plenty of cars with connections to movies at the LA show. This Fiat 500 rolling clone of a Stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars: The Force Awakens was one of the more unfortunate examples.
Balancing things out at the other end of the taste scale was this Aston Martin DB9 Bond Edition, one of 150 special DB9s built to celebrate the brand's long association with James Bond and the release of the latest Bond flick, Spectre.
Back to the bizarre, Hot Wheels imagined what Darth Vader's wheels would look like and built the car full-size. Repellent as it looks, one can only imagine how appealing it will be to its target audience in miniature form.
It's not unusual to see a variety of sport utes modified for serious off-roading in southern California but a Kia Forte Koup? Whatever prompted Kia to turn one into this Mud Bogger is a mystery beyond our comprehension – apart from the fact it was created for the SEMA show in Las Vegas where the simply absurd is mundane.
The poster car for the question "Why!" among production vehicles has to be this Range Rover Evoque Convertible. Nissan already proved it's an empty concept with its drop-top Murano. Then again, anything with a Land Rover badge seems to sell these days, especially in Los Angeles.
While open-top four-door convertible touring cars were de rigeur in the Classic era, the Kennedy era Continentals were the last of the type to be produced in the U.S. Kia revisited the idea with a concept version of its mid-size Optima sedan, which took to the form well but has no practical future. Like the Forte Koup Mud Bogger, it was shown first at SEMA.
Volkswagen, on the other hand, will produce Dune versions of its Beetle in both coupe and convertible form. Don't get excited about the promises its extra ground clearance and flared fenders make, however. Despite those pretensions of off-road capability it's not a four-wheel-driver; just the same old front-wheel-drive Beetle, albeit with a 210-horsepower, turbocharged 2.0-litre gasoline engine.
Not surprisingly, given the recent brouhaha over cheating on emissions tests, diesels were conspicuously absent from the row of engines displayed on VW's stand in LA.
Toyota's Scion division, which was created to attract a younger crowd to the company's offerings, is in dire need of an excitement injection. The bizarre lines of this C-HR SUV concept may be just far enough out there to do the trick.
Back to the movies,Toyota leveraged its connection with the Back to the Future franchise – Marty McFly drove a jacked up Toyota pickup at the end – by trimming out a 2016 Tacoma to look like a modern version of the original.
Stretching that connection even further, a Toyota Mirai fuel cell car was reworked with gull-wing doors to resemble Doc Brown's time-traveling DeLorean (or not!). As if the Mirai needed any help to look bizarre.
Toyota's took a real look into the future with this two-year-old FV2 concept, now on a world tour. The FV2 (short for Fun Vehicle 2) is said to exemplify the company's “fun-to-drive” philosophy and enhance the relationship between a vehicle and its driver, nurturing “aspects of trust and understanding, similar to those a rider will have with a horse.” OK?
To illustrate its approach to "driving" an autonomous vehicle, Volvo didn't bother to bring a car – just this driver's cockpit. Concept 26, as it's called, is named for the 26 minutes the company says is the average commute time, and it demonstrates how the steering wheel retracts into the instrument panel to free up space when autonomous mode is selected.
The bumph about Audi's e-Tron Quattro SUV concept was all about its all-electric powertrain, which would make it a direct competitor for Tesla's much-hyped Model X. Just as significant, however, may be it styling with contoured fender-lines and a new grille that could signal a coming change in Audi's now long-in-the-tooth design idiom.
Several automakers displayed historic models, like this original Honda Civic, alongside their latest fare, perhaps to demonstrate how far they've come or to remind us of how they established their reputation in the first place.
It wasn't on the Mazda stand but this Cosmo coupe, tucked away among a collection of customs and hot rods, represented the Japanese brand's rotary-engined roots.
This 1968 Stradale on the Alfa Romeo stand provided a welcome glimpse into the quadrafoglio brand's history.
Pretty models gracing the new car models were once the norm at auto shows but that practice has been largely abandoned, at least in North America. Not so in Europe and, true to its Italian roots, Alfa flouted PC convention to show off its new Giulia sedan.
Hyundai is not involved in World Endurance Racing but its designers must dream of being so for they created this Vision GT concept for the Gran Turismo 6 PlayStation game.
Honda's 2&4 concept is, in effect, a four-wheeled motorcycle with a 15,000-rpm V-4 engine right out of the company's MotoGP racing bike. Don't ask about the side-impact protection.
The roots of hot-rodding grow deep in Southern California, but who'd have guessed they'd encompass the once-stodgy Lexus brand. There was a whole collection of customized Lexi inside one of the entrances to the show.
There was also this Calico Surfer, a tribute to George Barris, King of the Kustomizers, who died earlier this year. Barris built the car in the 1960s for the publisher of a surfing magazine. It was one of hundreds of customs he and his brother created, including the original Batmobile and the Monkeemobile.
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