Best of Geneva

The stylish Mégane Coupé Concept from Renault was one of the best cars at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show. Powered by a 200hp (147kW) 2.0 Turbo petrol engine, and a manual six-speed gearbox, which drives the Mégane Coupé Concept from 0 to 100kph in just 7.2 seconds. Despite this the new car promises an economical fuel consumption of just 6.5 litres/100km (emission on 154g of CO2/km).

The two-part doors deploy gracefully and elegantly in an independent movement like dragonfly wings. The independent, asymmetric front seats, which rise up from the sills, seem to float in midair. Some other cars noticed at the show:

Freep
BY MARK PHELAN

Tata Motors

Indian automaker Tata basked in unaccustomed attention. Tata has been a regular at the Geneva auto show since it introduced its first car, the Indica, in a lightly attended news conference in 1998. It moved to center stage in 2008, setting tongues wagging with its $2,500 Nano minicar and spurring speculation about its imminent acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

The Nano is a sensation, drawing curious visits from the leaders of General Motors, Nissan-Renault, BMW and Fiat.

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner, a 6-foot-4 former basketball player, towered over the 5-foot-3-inch Nano as he and Ravi Kant, managing director, spoke.

Renault Mégane coupe concept
Low and sleek, the concept looks a lot like the production model Renault plans to introduce at the Paris auto show in October. The concept drew admiring attention from other automakers' designers. The production model will lose the concept's elaborate two-piece gull-wing (more like dragonfly-wing, really) doors, but the clean and attractive body and haute-moderne interior are a welcome return to form by Renault's stylists.

Hyundai i-Mode concept

Hyundai's nifty i-Mode concept is a six-seat "monocab" or "one-box," the descriptive term Europeans use for vehicles that don't have an obvious hood or trunk. It's also the Korean automaker's most appealing concept vehicle in some time, sort of a good-looking take on the same idea as the Pontiac Aztek. Power comes from a new 2.2-liter turbodiesel that produces a serious 340 pound-feet of torque -- 20 more than the 4.6-liter V8 in a Mustang GT.