It's springtime in the Big Apple, and the sun is shining, so eccentricity can probably be excused. But it will probably still sound a little strange if I tell you that the star of this year's New York motor show was a car that wasn't even there - the new small Jaguar sports car, formerly known as the C-X16 but now revealed officially as the Jaguar F-type.
Jaguar Land Rover boss Dr Ralf Speth revealed that production versions will be with us before the end of the year, one big reason for excitement, but another was the general feeling of wonderment that JLR bosses could have got the name so simply right, given the amount of brain-strain it is bound to have needed.
See all the latest New York motor show pictures
New York blogs from the show floor
Under such circumstances, it's always amazing when a big company does the simplest, best and most obvious thing. Mind you, choice of F-type really nails the new car's colours to the mast - the E-type, 50 years old, is Jaguar's icon of icons, and here comes today's management placing its new model on the same level. Fascinating times are coming.
Though it is fully 112 years old, as banners reminded us, the NY Show isn't usually as large or significant as a Frankfurt or a Shanghai, but this year the manufacturers were taking it very seriously indeed.
Nissan-Renault chief Carlos Ghosn made the opening address over breakfast, taking the opportunity to reiterate his controversial claim that 10 percent of new cars will be battery-powered by 2020, that "the stars were lining up" in favour of electric cars, and what the rest of the world needed was his alliance's "wide-angle view of the world".
See all the latest New York motor show pictures
The other show stars we significant but hardly block-busting. There was an all-new, even more powerful (640bhp) and slightly lighter Chrysler (not Dodge) SRT Viper that looked very compact and professionally styled against the original that died in 2010. For all the double-bubble roof and mile-long bonnet it looked tamer, somehow, though the excitable presenters that accompany the myriads of American video crews at events like this were driven half-wild by it. There was an all-new Dodge Ram pick-up, too, an out-of-favour sort of car yet probably the most profitable of the lot, and profitability matters a lot at Fiat-Chrysler right now.
With the élan and rising confidence that typify Korean launches these days, Hyundai pitched up with a sharp-looking new Hyundai Santa Fe in two wheelbases, and five- and seven-seater. Only the short one will come to the UK, very late in the year. It looked great, and is a dead cert to achieve Hyundai-Kia's general aim of moving upmarket, especially since the tipped £25k entry price (up £5k) still looks excellent value. The model is starting to acquire true gravitas, something it's creators want most.
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