By Nauman Farooq
The auto industry is a roller coaster, with plenty of ups and downs. Just take auto shows as an example. Less than a decade ago, these shows were bigger and offered much more variety. Nowadays, due to the weakened economy, many car companies have become very selective about which auto shows to take part in.
2011 Scion tC
As an example of these budget cuts, Ferrari and Maserati decided to skip the 2010 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS), which is strange because one would think Manhattan, N.Y. would be the ideal place to market high end exotics.
One could say the absence of such car companies would be the “Worst” part of this show, but then there was one car present there that I am sure many would wish wasn’t there at all.
I am talking about the 2011 Scion tC coupe. Scion (which is a division of Toyota) likes to say the 2011 tC is an all-new car, but the fact its wheelbase is exactly the same as the last tC, says that this is mostly just a re-skin.
At least the old tC was good looking. The new tC looks like it wasn’t styled to attract young people, but instead to attract those of retirement age, which is strange because Scion is a brand that was created to cater after the first time car buyers.
Making matters worse, the new tC is powered by the same engine you’ll find in a Toyota Camry, one of the most boring cars on the planet. It has a 2.5-liter; four-cylinder engine which produces 180 hp. Power goes to the front wheels via a six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic gearbox.
Toyota plans to launch the Scion brand into Canada later this year, so unfortunately our roads will one day be filled with these ugly duckling coupes.
Personally, I’d prefer to see our roads filled with the latest (and “Best”) version of the Lamborghini Murcielago. It’s called the LP 670-4 SV, and it is the last version of the Murcielago (a replacement model is coming next year).
SV, which stands for Super Veloce (Super Fast in plain English), features a 6.5-liter, V12 that produces 670 hp and 487 lb/ft of torque. Power is sent to all-wheels via a six-speed paddle shift gearbox they call E-gear. As you’d imagine, its performance numbers are quite stunning. 0-100 km/h is dealt with in 3.2 seconds, while top speed is 342 km/h.
However, there are two big reasons why you won’t see many Murcielago SV’s running around town. First is due to its limited production numbers, since Lamborghini is only producing 350 SV’s, out of which Canada may get around 5 cars. And secondly, with a price tag of about $525,000 it certainly isn’t cheap either.
However, if I could have driven any car out of this years NYIAS, it would have had to be this one.
