2011 Frankfurt Autoshow

2011 IAA- the Frankfurt Autoshow

View more presentations from Darryl Heron.

The 2011 IAA (Frankfurt Autoshow) is now open. I spent two days last week wondering around checking out what was new.  I decided to put together a presentaton of SlideShare (shown above), so that you can see more pictures and just to see if this can enhanse the experience of more traditional blog posts.

So Much to See...

While my presenation gives you quite a taste about the show, there is still so much more to see and experience, if you go there.  I took over 1000 pictures which I uploaded to three albums in Flickr, so you can see the vehicles from the presentation from various angles as well as seeing lots of other exciting vehicles that aren't pictured in the presenation. Most every automaker selling cars and trucks in Europe as well as several suppliers and aftermarket companies have presence at the autoshow.  There are high end luxary vehicles from Rolls Royce and Bentley.  There are the usual Italian suspects of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Masserati, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia.


Customization, Customization, Customization...

There is more and more vehicle customization.  Masonary, Techart, Hammon, and Alpine all offer a wide varitey of customizations for high end cars and trucks, while Brabus offers the ability to make your Smart standout without draining your bank account. Brabus had 3 new models on display including a Supercar, a hybrid, and all elecric vehicle. 


Hybrids and Electric Cars...

At the 2009 IAA, I was impressed by the number hybrids and electric vehicles on display.  This year there are way more of these types of vehilces avialable and more of them are actual production models that you can actully buy, so there is a lot of progress being made here.


Mobility and Social Media...

Many of the automakers are planning and doing some interesting things in the world of Mobility and Social Media.  In my experience Mobility was an effort by some automakers to make their vehicles more accessable for handicapted and people with disabilities, now the term is more about allowing customers the ability to have a mobile life style that includes doing all kinds of thing from inside and outside of your car.  There are more and more plans to use the cloud so that users can access their data at home, on the go, and now in your car.  More and more companies are seeing that they can gain more customers and keep them by offering more and more non-traditional services around cars and trucks.  Ford has the Evos on display, which is their social car and shows many of the things that Ford is currently working on in this space and many of the ideas and features are likely to make their way into production in the near future. When I talked to a woman at TomTom, she told me how TomTom developed an iPad app based on feedback and requests from TomTom users.  More and more TomTom devices are being sold as standard and otpional equipment with more and more models.  Some TomTom devices allow you to Tweet at various parts of your trip and to announce when you arrive. There will be more and more possibilities to interact with family and friends in ways that were only imgination a few years ago.


I had a blast at the Frankfurt Autoshow and could have spend several more days just looking around.  There are tons of interesting concept cars giving us a peak into the near future as well as lots of vintage cars and old timers which can be our window to the past.  Its too bad the autoshow is only every other year, so if you miss it this time you'll have to wait till 2013! I hope you get a chance to go and if not, why not check out my pictures on Flickr.

My Flickr albums can be found at...

2011 IAA Frankfurt
2011 IAA Frankfurt part 2
2011 IAA Frankfurt part 3


My post from the 2009 show can be found here.