2015 Chicago Auto Show: Orange You Glad About This Trend

From the 74-horsepower Mitsubishi Mirage to the two-million-dollar, 1600 horsepower Bugatti Veyron Grant Sport Vitesse, there’s a car for everyone. Especially if you want it in the color of a traffic cone.

By Whet Moser

February 13, 2015, 5:32 pm

The Volkswagen R-Line RAUH-Welt Beetle. Zweite entwicklung! Photo: Whet Moser

The 2015 Chicago Auto Show opens its doors Saturday morning at 9 a.m. There's a lot to see, from the terrifying Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat to the sculptural Mitsubishi GC-PHEV to the hilariously self-indulgent Range Rover Autobiography. And you will see lots of orange, as if this year's trend is to camouflage one's self while speeding through a work zone. But among the garish hunting tones—Magma Orange, Orange Fire Pearl, Tangerine Orange Pearl—are some appealing designs.

**Rhymes With Orange:** No idea. Maybe the NHTSA is running some kind of safety study on us in 2015. (Top, left to right: Dodge Dart; Toyota Prius c; Subaru XV Crosstrek. Middle: Toyota TRD Pro; Jeep Renegade; Ford Mustang. Bottom: Honda Civic; Aston Martin Vantage "S" Roadster; Ford Fiesta.)Photos: Whet Moser

**Most Frank Gehry-ish SUV:** One of the dilemmas of car design is how to make electric cars, which are still a new thing, look "electric." They've tried making them look like Blu-Ray players; they've tried making them look like household appliances. Mitsubishi, with the Concept GC-PHEV (a plug-in hybrid), they're trying a car that looks like the Millennium Park bandshell.Photos: Whet Moser

**Best Car for a “Back to the Future” Sequel:** I mean, Doc Brown's car was basically a hybrid. (You can tell that the $136,500 2014 BMW i8 is a hybrid because of the blue detailing, the semiofficial color of hybrid cars.)Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Pretentious Branding:** The i8 comes with the standard Mega World package. For an additional $2,000, you can get the Giga World package; for $3,000, the Tera World package, or for $10,000, the Pure Impulse World package. If you get through that with a straight face, it also comes in "Protonic Blue" and "Sophisto Grey." Grey with an "e," please.Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Prairie-Style Racing Stripes:** This Volkswagen Beetle R-Line is a collaboration with rallycross driver Tanner Foust and "famed Porsche tuners RAUH-Welt Begriff." "Zweite Entwicklung" means something like "second development" but sounds much cooler in German.Photo: Whet Moser

**The Most 2015 Car of 2015:** This is the Mazda CX-3 "compact crossover." It's an SUV; it's a sedan; it's a wagon; it's got rugged off-road detailing on the bottom with some sports-car lines on the top. If you took every car at the Chicago Auto Show and put it in a blender, this is what would come out.Photo: Whet Moser

**The Most 2015 Car of 2015, cont'd:** And from the front, the CX-3 is totally a sedan. We'll lick this crossover fad yet.Photo: Whet Moser

**Car that Made Me Feel the Oldest, Runner-Up:** A simple, unfussy, charming design; a great color; and it's from 1990. It's actually the 14th Mazda Miata ever produced, and was on display at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show. If you want the latest Miata, you'll get this...Photo: Whet Moser

**Car that Made Me Feel the Oldest:** Or something like it; it's a 2016 concept. And much less adorable than the original Miata, as the wheel of time spins us towards mid-life-crisis cars.Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Use of Grayscale:** You don't need orange. You don't even need 8-bit grayscale. (Kia K900, $54,500)Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Jacket:** This has nothing to do with the auto show, but it is awesome.Photo: Whet Moser

**Worst Name, Second Runner-Up:** The 2015 Jaguar XF Portfolio ($57,175), if you're less into cars called Hellcat or Rubicon or Viper and want to send more of a mid-cap index fund vibe.Photo: Whet Moser

**Worst Car Name, Runner-Up:** "Can I interest you in an Evoque?" "No thank you, I don't like vodka."Photo: Whet Moser

**Worst Car Name:** Rejected names for the $137,645 Range Rover Autobiography: the Humblebrag; the Selfie; the Narcissist. Yes, the interior is orange.Photos: Whet Moser

**Best Name:** The Bentley "Flying Spur," $222,300, 0-60 in 4.3 seconds, is called the "Flying Spur," because Bentley has no interest in your cutesy-poo misspellings and car names that sound like prescription drugs.Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Hostile:** The base-model F-250 Super Duty costs $63,360, but for an additional $22,464 the "Black Ops" custom conversion will get you "custom painted 'Black Ops' effects," "stealth black 20" 'Black Ops' wheels," "American flag patches in headrests," and your neighbors will never ever bother you or not look at the ground in your presence.Photos: Whet Moser

**Most Everything Car:** The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse has the most horsepower of any car at the show (1,200), the highest top speed (255mph), the lowest 0-62 mph time (2.6 seconds, and that's to 100 KILOMETERS PER HOUR, so there), and the highest price ($2,625,000).Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Colorway:** Not all the orange was excessive; this is the "urban" (read: "not obnoxious") Jeep Renegade Trailhawk in anvil gray and Omaha orange.Photo: Whet Moser

**Worst Colorway:** The Scion tC Release Series 9.0 ($23,000, only 2,000 units, as it's something of an acquired taste) comes in two-tone black and "magma" orange, though it's closer to sherbet.Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Attractive Car You Can't Buy:** Lovely, isn't it? Long, sculpted, kind of sexy. And from a Buick, no less. Of course, the Avenir is a concept, "a test vehicle to explore new styling and advanced technology that may transfer to future production models." Buick: We Wouldn't Want to Alarm You.Photo: Whet Moser

**Car That Looks Most Like a Hovercraft:** The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat ($59,995) has a ludicrous 707 horsepower. It's the most powerful American production car ever made. Jalopnik warns that you will probably kill yourself driving it and that it is good for burnouts (the car maneuver, not the personality).Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Alternative to the Hellcat:** The Dodge Challenger similarly does a nice adaptation of 1970s muscle car looks, does a respectable 0-60 in six seconds, and is much less likely to kill you.Photo: Whet Moser

**Least Worst Crossover, Runner-Up:** After hours of being exhausted by "aggressively styled" pseudo-offroad vehicles with "purposeful" interiors and "kinetic design," the 2016 Fiat 500X (Trekking Plus model: $27,100), which is pretty much the opposite of those things, was something of a relief.Photo: Whet Moser

**Least Worst Crossover:** I didn't have a light meter handy, but the unspellable 2015 Volkswagen Touareg TDI ($56,670) actually seems to absorb light rather than bounce it madly around off a look-at-me grill.Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Domestic Supercar:** I'll let the pros take it: "visual titillation"; "half-prototype/half-GT chimera"; "If Steven Spielberg’s Duel were remade by Michael Bay, it’s the noise the film’s menacing Peterbilt would make at rest." If that is comprehensible to you, you may like the 2017 Ford GT.Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Detail:** Mostly I liked the taillights on the GT, which look like a mortar gun crossed with an electric stovetop.Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Hubcaps:** I love it. It reminds me of a Kitchen-Aid mixer. I mean that as the highest of compliments.Photo: Whet Moser

**Most 'Saved By the Bell' Car:** I'm glad people still make pink cars. I'm also glad that someone has basicall rebooted the Geo Metro: the Mitsubishi Mirage has a 1.2-liter engine with 74 (!) horsepower that gets a combined 40mpg and comes with the option of a manual transmission. You, gentle reader, may not be the target audience, but you may have a child whom you want to give double-figure horsepower or more than $13,000 worth of car.Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Pixar-ish Car:** The 2015 Ford Fiesta ($21,435) makes a statement, which is "take me to your leader."Photo: Whet Moser

**Most Progressive Police Car Detailing:** The Itasca Police Department's Subaru STI emphasizes speed and empathy.Photo: Whet Moser

**Best Compromise with Human Incompetence:** Somewhere, a detail-oriented designer at Kia has observed people flailing with seat buttons and placed an idiot-proof solution on the door.Photo: Whet Moser

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