Highlights from the Australian International Motor Show

The Australian International Motor Show was in full swing today, with many of the cars appearing hot off their debut at the recent Paris show. The local industry was in full force with the unveiling of the performance based Aurion concept from Toyota, while General Motors Holden was proud to announce the introduction of the Hummer brand locally as well as its own performance sedan in the form of the Grange from performance division HSV. Arch rival Ford released the Force luxury sports sedans and Mitsubishi had another, you guessed it, performance based sedan in the form of the 380 – a mirror image of our Gallant.

International heroes included the hot looking Audi R8, the stunning Ferrari 599 GTB, Volvo C30, Volkswagen Eos plus previous concept cars from Mazda, Saab and Nissan including the Aero X and Kabura.

One of our Australian contacts managed to attend the show and was able to get in touch with key people from Maserati and BMW including controversial designer Chris Bangle. The recently promoted BMW designer was very tight-lipped, but he did mention that a small roadster was well underway. When asked if this was in fact the Z2, he wasn’t willing to budge but did however suggest that anything was possible. On the other hand, a representative from Maserati was very open about the upcoming GT Coupe and Spyder. Our contact received information that the cars would be appearing down under in the second half of next year and will feature styling very close to the Quattroporte sedan. This means that the US and Europe may see the new two-doors a lot sooner than previously reported.

Click ahead for our full image gallery of the show.