This car, although sexy in proportions and accompanied by a delightful booth professional, was an utter disappointment in the metal.

Mike Robinson, head of design at Bertone, claims that he was trying to be "controversially conservative", but to me it just looked like a concept from 2002.

No, actually it's beautiful real wood, carved and tortured until it looks fake - then coated in acrylic.

Um, it's actually a Bertone concept, not Jaguar, and Mike Robinson, an American, is their "Executive Brand and Design Director". So not a coincidence there.

It's actually significantly more disappointing in person, in my opinion. The detailing (other than the funky grill jewelry) really lets down the beefy proportions.

I think what's really throwing people off is how generic and bloated it looked on the stand. I get it, he likes flying buttresses and scoops and diffusers, but the basic forms and surfaces of this car are so bad, no amount of reverse justification can make it a positive step forward for Saab.

Bloated volumes, fussy details, and tons of ego on this one. It looks like a Subaru Impreza on crack in the metal.

If Castriota is the future, kil me now. The PhoeniX is an abomination of hideous proportions, poor detailing, and worst of all, blandness. There's plenty I don't like about what Bangle did at BMW, but I don't think he's ever shown this level of incompetence in anything he's put forward.

...and nobody will care.

This has nothing to do with being an Apple store, and everything to with retail in general (in the US, in particular).

@sanjayjenks: Audi-esque in that it's a Geely-quality facsimile of the original.

@∞Gïmmï∞Mørgäikkøŋëŋ∞: If the one I'm driving had the skylights, I might agree.

@drewsDutch2: Dammit, I give up. No URLs for Drew!

@drewsDutch2: Or, I would if the image upload was working.

I'm currently driving something that at least gives the others a run for their money.

@noahyamen: I'm curious about this too. I just moved to Europe and want to keep my US number and cancel my at&t account, but I won't have a new phone here for a while.

@doctorq: Well, they didn't compete for the overall win (finishing at best 40th in the car category, depending on what you read), but any driver and vehicle that finishes the Dakar deserves massive credit regardless.

I'm going to have to look these guys up now that I'm living in the Netherlands. Batshit crazy Se7en replicas are always a good thing.

@Moser121: I'm not advocating that F1 bring back unlimited or private testing, I'm saying that F1 needs to bring back limited, controlled, in-season testing to enable the smaller teams to test parts and young drivers to experience the cars outside of race weekends.

Three words: bring back testing.