The 2016 Geneva Motor Show is kicking off this week, giving us an early look at many of the new cars coming soon to showrooms and collectors’ basements near you. As always, I’ll bring you a mostly factual recap of the auto show’s biggest reveals in the Hooniverse News this Friday – but today, we’re not too concerned about the press releases.
This is the part where some of the brilliant minds behind Hooniverse get together and make fun of carefully evaluate the new cars at the Geneva Motor Show. We were all too lazy to catch the flight to Switzerland and instead have chosen to judge all the new cars from the comfort of our own keyboards, just as Comcast and Al Gore intended. Click past the jump to see what we have to say and feel free to join in on the conversation yourself.

Bugatti Chiron

Hate on me all you want, but I kinda dig this. I’ll probably never see one and I sure as hell wouldn’t buy it even if I had money, but the 12 year old in me just loves looking at it. I have a feeling the Chiron will still look good ten years from now even after they’ve released the Chiron Grand Super Sport Vitesse Pur Sang Noir Lewis Hamilton Edition, a one-of-five model only available to leaders of OPEC nations who sponsor an F1 driver and host a Grand Prix. It has unique paint.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
What, did they hire Donald Drumpf to write their PR copy? “The Chiron is the world’s most powerful, fastest, most luxurious and most exclusive production super sports car. With the Chiron, Bugatti has made the best even better.” Will the Chiron be available exclusively at The Sharper Image?
What I don’t understand about cars like this is, if you’re gonna spend US$2.6 million on a status symbol, why not buy something you could actually use? A helicopter, for example. Personally, I’d set up a Portillo’s franchise near my home in Florida so I could get my fix of Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches anytime I wanted, rather than buy an angried-up Veyron with Acura headlights.
-Alan Cesar
 
Twelve year old kids who like car will go ga-ga over this. A really rich kid heading off to college somewhere will get one to have something to drive around in. Some talentless guy who happened to get on TV at the right time will get one. Some really really rich old guy who doesn’t really know what it is will get one because he needs to have whatever fastest/greatest/newest is. It will appear in rap videos, rented for filming. Some B-list celebrity will dramatically wreck one. Some blonde big-boobed bimbo “reality TV star” will reveal her snatch to the world while attempting to gracefully get out of it.
The rest of us will see it at car shows, on British motoring shows, and on magazine covers. If you’re reading this, chances are you won’t care.
-Kamil Kaluski
 
It’s an engineering exercise and it’s a fun one at that. The Veyron wowed the world when it first arrived, but now we have vehicles from Dodge that will cross the 200mph mark. The Chiron needs to be more than the Veyron, and we will all have to wait to see if that’s the case. No, we won’t get to drive one, we’ll barely ever get to see one, and the pricetag is hard to comprehend unless you can actually afford to buy whole countries, nevermind fleets of cars. Still, I’m happy to live in a world where cars like this exist.
-Jeff Glucker
 
Great, a new car for non-car-people to say is their dream car on Facebook! #GarageGoals
–Bradley Brownell
 
The Chiron has slowly grown on me. I really think it is a great evolution of the shape of the game-changing Veyron. I see a dash of Audi thrown into the design in places, with the anthropomorphic squinty headlights and heavy brow. On the one hand, there’s the question of whether something that costs so much is relatable or even relevant to the rest of us. At a certain point, the numbers become meaningless. It’s the Nigel Tufnel amplifier of super duper hyper cars. At the same time, is it really a bad thing that Bugatti is still pushing the top speed envelope after all these years.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 

Aston Martin DB11

Aston Martin has been making some wild designs lately after at least a decade of making all their cars look the same, but this is the first mass-produced model to have any sort of complete redesign since… well, the DB11’s predecessor. It looks great to my eyes but the floating C-pillar treatment is the only thing I feel is out of place. I didn’t particular care for that design trend when Nissan started using it and I don’t particularly care for it on the DB11. Besides me being picky, I love what they’ve done to it. That twin-turbocharged V12 sounds like a monster, too. [Video source: Jalopnik]
-Greg Kachadurian
 
Jeff Glucker will probably drive one in a few months. He will make an excellent video of it: it will be deep, thought provoking, informative, and entertaining. He will explain the human connection to the car, he will tell you about the parts bin engineering and how that doesn’t matter because the car has soul, and how it’s a proper GT car. He will love it and he will make you love it. A dozen years later some wanker blogger will buy and tell you how it sucks in the snow.
–Kamil Kaluski
 
Aaaand Kamil just ruined it.
-Greg Kachadurian
 
Kamil couldn’t ruin this no matter how hard he tried. The DB11 appears to be a glorious way to welcome the brand into its “second century”, and will be the vehicle that brings the car to a place where the rest of the lineup already should have been. The interior design looks excellent, and since the electronics are done by Daimler it means it will all work and work well. Yes… I’ll probably drive one in the near future, so hang tight for a video on this one folks.
–Jeff Glucker
 
I know that many of you drool over Astons, but despite being an all new design, this one just doesn’t look different enough to me. The floating roof is something that in most cases I can’t stand the appearance of, but I will say that it works on this car. It kind of seems like a more subtle form of the contrasting roof paint that they had on the Vantage N430, without the gaudy yellow sections. There are some interesting touches of Vulcan in the design, but it just doesn’t quite look like it wants to kill me enough yet.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 
This is my response to every different Aston.
-An unidentified hoon. Probably Tim.
 

Koenigsegg Regera

I already mocked ostentatious car purchases with the Bugatti. This is the Geneva show, and I spent all my ammunition far too soon. I think I have to sit on my hands for much of the rest of this or risk repeating myself.
-Alan Cesar
 
As amazing as the Chiron is, I think the Regera is even more astounding. More power, less weight, a hybrid powertrain, and a whole host of amazing bits of engineering that you could spend weeks studying this thing. One of my favorite stats? 0-248 mph in 20 seconds.
…fuck me.
-Jeff Glucker
 
A year after its first debut as a concept, the Regera is still the most ridiculous car on the planet in production form. Some ridiculously complex engineering yields some ridiculously fast results. 1,500+ horsepower, no gearbox, and acceleration times that nothing can match. This is one of those cars that I’m very glad exists just because we all need something to look up to every once in a while.
-Greg Kachadurian
 
Almost the same power as the Chiron but with better power to weight. This is the one that you buy when you win the mega lotto and want to scare yourself on a long empty runway. It seems like less of a car that one would brag about and more of a car that you’d buy to actually drive.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 

Lamborghini Centenario LP770-4

It’s so gaudy and ostentatious that not even Mansory wants to touch it.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
Limited-edition Lambo’s don’t do much for me… but I do enjoy seeing this brand get better with every “normal” model it puts out.
–Jeff Glucker
 
Being a lifetime fan of Lamborghini, I feel like I should be boiling over in excitement for the Centenario. However, with Ferruccio Lamborghini having historically started out building cars that were a bit more fast road GT cruisers, significantly more subtle than what Lamborghini builds today, it seems like his 100th birthday would have been a great opportunity to build some form of the Asterion concept.
Even if perhaps the hybrid technology wasn’t ready for production (if it’s even still headed for production), they could have just built it with a V8 or V10. Something stunningly beautiful that would have looked back at the past, and then later added hybrid as a higher trim level, to bring it into the future (now I sound like a brochure).
But instead, it’s another special edition. A special edition that isn’t really better looking than the car its based on. It’s not a bad car really, it just feels like a wasted opportunity to make something really special. I’m sure the looks will grow on me, but at the same time, it falls short of what could have been.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 

Porsche 911 R

Of course the livery is a throwback to some previous 911, because all 911 buyers are nostalgia- and pedigree-philes. But the double red stripes spaced far apart don’t look good on a tarted-up Beetle from 1967, and they don’t look good on this one either. I do appreciate that their press release clarifies “R for Racing,” or I’d have never figured that out.
-Alan Cesar
 
I can hear Bradley touching himself all the way from here… (The car does seem pretty amazing though).
-Jeff Glucker
 
Jeff, you couldn’t be more wrong. I HATE THIS CAR! The original 911R from 1968 was a pure racing car that was stripped of everything that wasn’t essential to driving. It was basically a high-output engine with a seat and a steering wheel. Weight was saved wherever possible, including lightweight exterior hinges for the decklid, thin fiberglass lids reinforced with balsa wood, and perspex windows all around. They were pure and unadulterated.
This abomination is a soft-core GT3 RS. Yeah, it’s got an amazing engine, and yes, I’m happy it is available with a stick, but it ruins my view of what Porsche stands for as a brand. This doesn’t fit, and it doesn’t feel right. I’m sure it’s a lot of fun to drive, but it isn’t deserving of the 911R name. With this car, Porsche stuck the GT3 RS engine in the back of a Carrera S chassis, and charged an extra ten grand for the privilege. It’s got a power driven spoiler and rear wheel steer. It has a cushier suspension, and narrower tires than the GT3 RS. A true successor to the 911R should not weigh over 3000 pounds. The original 911R was terrible as a street car, and this thing was conceived entirely for the street. If they had called it a 911 GT3 Komfort, I’d probably be okay with it, but a ‘pure driving experience’ this is not. Porsche, build whatever stupid thing you think rich dicks will buy, but don’t ruin the ideals of the original 911R!
It’s limited to 991 units worldwide, and Porsche will only sell these to people who have already bought a 918 Spyder, so I guess the point is moot anyway. Collectors will squirrel them away, never to be seen, and in 20 years one will cross an auction stage with 12 miles on the odometer and someone will bid half a million dollars on it. With this car, Porsche has lost their way.
–Bradley Brownell
 
Now Bradley knows how BMW enthusiasts feel.
-Greg Kachadurian
 

Abarth 124 Spider

More variants on a good platform is a good thing. That means it makes business sense for Mazda to keep it alive and keep developing it.
-Tim Odell
 
The MX-5 looks better I think… still the idea of the turbo 4 here is rather enticing. Plus I’d hope that Abarth stiffens up the roll bars.
–Jeff Glucker
 
GIMME GIMME GIMME!
–Bradley Brownell
 
This is the Jerry Seinfeld of cars, how can anyone not like it!? I personally found myself drooling over the Rally version.
-Kamil Kaluski
 
With owning a Miata, it seems like I should be more excited over this. It’s a nice variant on the new MX-5, but I still prefer the Mazda. I’ll be curious to see what parts interchange between the two in the future.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 
It’s a Spider with 6 percent more power and everything else turned up exactly one click. This doesn’t excite me any more than the original concept (which I do like). If we’re going to see a Spider/Miata special edition, I’d like to see it done in the spirit of Mazdaspeed or the historical Abarth: Something closer to the 300-horse rally car concept.
-Alan Cesar
 

Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport

It’s a Corvette Z06 minus the motor and I think that’s exactly what Chevy needed to fill the void in the C7 lineup. A little more power than the Stingray but a hell of a lot more grip is exactly the kind of C7 I would want in my garage.
-Greg Kachadurian
 
Because there’s no such thing as splitting the market too finely.
-Alan Cesar
 
Were I in the ‘Vette market, I’d absolutely get the Z06. A Grand Sport, however, does have a nice nod to past Corvettes, even if there will never be a Corvette as great as the original Grand Sport.
–Jeff Glucker
 
Jeff’s good at spending hypothetical dollars. The Grand Sport has the first several grand you’d throw at a Vette if you were serious about tracking it already built in. Power is irrelevant, handling and brakes are everything.
-Tim Odell
 
I’m with Tim, power is nothing without control and Jeff is the resident mo’ powah guy. But really, no, this Vette isn’t splitting the market too thinly, it’s providing buyers what they want. If you want to see thinly split markets, just look at the three dozen variations of the Porsche 911. Speaking of the 911, are people that all these years bought a 911 and not a Vette because of seats, dash, radio, and other bullshit, now buying Corvettes? Because they should.
-Kamil Kaluski
 
This might be the ideal Corvette. All of the cornering ability without any of the pesky supercharger overheating nonsense. Simple. Back to basics. I love it.
–Bradley Brownell
 

Morgan EV3

I don’t hate it nearly as much as I thought I would. It’s the perfect fusion of old school British goodness with modern science and engineering. Surely it won’t be as fun as having the V-Twin sitting up front, but I still love everything about this.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
I love how Morgan managed to make the oddball 3 Wheeler even more ridiculous. I LOVE the singular offset headlight, and I have no clue why. I still prefer the gas-drinking version, of course, but this is an EV I’d be more than happy to park in my garage.
-Jeff Glucker
 
This is the perfect vehicle for my commute. Alas, the price negates that.
-Tim Odell
 
Everything that is terrible about the 3-wheeler, without the best part (the sound!).
–Bradley Brownell
 
This is probably the first electric car that I’ve been legitimately excited about since the Tesla Roadster. Who knows when or if I’ll see it, I’m just glad that it exists.
-Bryce Womeldurf
 
You love the offset headlight (objectively everyone, not just Jeff) for the same reason you love Marilyn Monroe’s mole: Asymmetry is beautiful. I’m also totally crazy about that feature, and the brass fins. It’s full of English nautical flair.
I think this looks much better than the original version—I always thought the V-twin looked ungainly and weird hanging off the nose like that. The instant, electric torque in that little thing has got to make it a riot to drive. Not that anyone buys these things for actual daily use, but I would be more concerned about other cars seeing you now that they can’t hear you.
If it flops, the prince of darkness jokes are ready.
-Alan Cesar
 

Spyker C8 Preliator

Spyker was never the most popular or the most relevant marque even back when they were at full capacity, but I am so glad to see them back. Their cars are rolling works of art inside and out and they deserve to sell every car they can make. There’s nothing else quite as gorgeous as a Spyker. Just seeing one is a wonderful experience.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
Huh… they still make things. Neat.
–Jeff Glucker
 
That glass roof looks pretty cool.
-Alan Cesar
 
Man, if they sell enough of these, I hope they get back into Formula 1…
Repeat after me, “Nulla Tenaci, Invia Est Via”.
–Bradley Brownell
 

Alfa Romeo Disco Volante Spider Touring

Sure, it’s exclusive, but it’s still not as rare as a pair of side seals for the rear main bearing cap on a Subaru Justy.
-Alan Cesar
 
I do not care for this. I think I remember enjoying  a prior version. But for some reason I can’t care about this one at all.
–Jeff Glucker
 
In Aston Martin language, Volante means convertible. Most Italian convertibles are called Spiders. Most cars labeled as Touring are wagons. So what you have here is an Alfa Romeo Disco Convertible Convertible Wagon. Brilliant. Also I’m with Jeff in that I don’t find this very appealing.
-Greg Kachadurian
 
[Before you read Bradley’s comment, start playing this. – Ed]
Disco Volante – Flying Saucer
Flying Saucer – Aliens
Aliens – Area 51
Area 51 – Nevada
Nevada – Reno
Reno – I live there…
This car is destined for me?
The truth is out there.
–Bradley Brownell
 

Maserati Levante

*sigh*. You know, everyone is making a luxury SUV now. Jaguar has, Bentley has, and Lamborghini and many more soon will. I’ve seen the Jaguar P-Face and the Bentley Bent-a-guy in person and I thought they both looked pretty damn nice. I’m still not super thrilled they built them, but at least they got something going for them. This doesn’t look nice. At all. It has nothing good going for it except for the thousands of wannabe ballers and Plastic Surgery of the Month Club members lining up to buy one.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
It was hilarious finding Chrysler 200 parts-bin steering wheel buttons in a Maserati sports car some years back. Some of that is inevitable when you’re a big-volume carmaker trying to make money on limited-production vehicles. I didn’t expect that to carry over to FCA slapping a trident on the Grand Cherokee.
-Alan Cesar
 
I’ve come to accept a world with performance luxury SUVs, and I’m finally making peace with that. So a Maserati entry is fine with me now… Granted, the average buyer will never get their Levante dirty, but I smile for that 3% of the ownership that enjoys slinging a little mud in their Maserati. Please tell me someone out there will do that… Anyone? Regardless, no one will ever out Range Rover Range Rover, even though Bentley is trying it’s damndest.
–Jeff Glucker
 
This is so perfect! Look at the angry front end! Perfect! I am sure the exhaust will be equally loud and obnoxious. And that too, will be perfect. That’s right, perfect! Perfect for the guy with who wants to show how much money he has by buying/leasing this versus a Range Rover Sport, because he thinks he has taste, too. And it’s angry because he’s likely to be driving it aggressively, because he’s angry. And rich, because he can afford a $700/month lease AND YOU CANNOT. Which is to say, this is another Maserati, which will be bought by typical Maserati owners, the most obnoxious people on earth.  
–Kamil Kaluski
 

Honda Civic Hatchback Prototype

Honda made a smaller, somehow uglier Crosstour. The main advantage of a hatchback is the extra vertical space for storing stuff. A hatchback, ideally, is basically a short wagon. This is not that, and it’s less useful for the compromise.
-Alan Cesar
 
I can’t hate on this at all. When I was in elementary school and starting to get more serious about the car scene, I started out as a big fan of tuners. Blame F&F and Need for Speed Underground for that. If this had come out back when I was still subscribed to Super Street, I would have gone (even more) nuts. This thing is just so cool. Also I guess this means 3-door hatches aren’t coming back.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
I’m in the process of writing my review of the new Honda Civic sedan, the one with the turbo engine. While I had my time with it, I kept thinking to myself how cool it would be if it had a hatch. Yes, really. Slowly, Honda is coming back. That is to say, I am in no hurry to sell my Integra.
–Kamil Kaluski
 

Ford Fiesta ST200

A more-expensive Fiesta ST doesn’t need more power. It needs a different chassis. It’s a great little car and very chuckable, but it has numb steering and understeer. The platform is limited by the twist-beam layout of the rear suspension. A better Fiesta ST is the Focus ST.
-Alan Cesar
 
False. The Fiesta ST chassis is sublime. It has understeer because it’s almost illegal to have oversteer in this country. I prefer the Fiesta to the Focus, mostly based on chassis dynamics actually, and the only reason I would pick the Focus is for the more room it affords inside.
–Jeff Glucker
 
It’s not the Fiesta RS we deserve, but it’s the 200 hp Fiesta ST we need right now. They say it’s European only but we’ll see how long that lasts.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
 

Mercedes-Benz C-Class Cabriolet

This must have been the most boring press conference ever. All of the journalists in attendance probably thought they knew exactly what the car would look like long before the sheets were pulled off and they were all right. MB has become so predictable with this new generation lineup. They started with a gorgeous S-Class showing off the new design language and has ended with them going “we could do something different for the C-Class and all the other cars we make, but that’s too hard”. I used to think BMW was the most boring car company to write about (minus some of the M car stuff), but now I’m convinced it’s actually Mercedes-Benz.
–Greg Kachadurian
 
E-class, upcoming S-class, SLK, SL, and now the C-class. There will also be a AMG GT Cabrio, because rich people who live in warm places will buy them. And now there is the C-class cabrio for the young daughters of rich people who live in warm places. It actually makes sense. It will undoubtedly come in many flavors, including two AMG models.
–Kamil Kaluski
 

Toyota C-HR

Did Toyota really need a Nissan Juke competitor? Really? If Toyota wasn’t killing Scion at the end of the year, this car would have been labeled as such. That really would have killed the brand. But then again, us millennials have weird buying behaviors.
–Greg Kachadurian
 

Volkswagen Phideon

It’s like a Phaeton, but it isn’t. And it’s only for China. You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly, VW. Bravo!
-Greg Kachadurian
 
What’s a Phideon? It might be a wider, longer Passat. It might be a refreshed Phaeton. It might take its name from some obscure nomadic tribe. (False. It “phonetically and symbolically evokes Fides.”) What I do know for sure is that it’s not the best death metal opening act in the universe.
-Alan Cesar
 

Audi Q2

All the styling features on this thing look weird and enormous.
-Alan Cesar
 
Every time I do the Hooniverse News auto show recap I always have to pick a few cars to ignore for the sake of brevity. Audi hasn’t made this week’s decision very hard.
-Greg Kachadurian
 
“Hi, yes, I want an SUV. But I want a really tiny one. No, smaller. Really small. So small that I can only fit one passenger comfortably. The rear seat is for Fluffy. Trunk space, yes, my gym bag must fit. And I want it to handle like a car and get really good gas mileage because the environment is important to me. AWD? What’s no? No, I don’t need AWD in my SUV, just cupholders big enough for a Venti latte and a my Sigg waterbottle”
Why don’t they just make a Golf 4×4, which would be way cooler?
–Kamil Kaluski