2008 Paris Show Roundup

Don't get the wrong impression here: Paris 2008 has been a terrific show with a whole raft of world debuts and spectacular cars whichever way you turn; but it has an undercurrent, the feeling of a party that's been asked to turn the noise down.

It's not about the show, which as ever is one of Europe's biggest and best; it's about timing, head on into a global financial system potentially in meltdown, and the backdrop of an ecology supposedly threatened with extinction by the industry we're here to celebrate. It's bound to create a bit of a siege mentality, and many insiders mutter that that's how they'll remember Paris 2008.

But stick your head above the politics and the cars are still the stars, and that's why it's still a fantastic place to be. Not that they're all gems, of course, and there's still a gap to be bridged between just building small cars and building the small, clever cars that the world really needs.

And there's nothing especially clever about the Alfa Romeo MiTo, but the smallest Alfa in a long time looks fabulous, inside and out, with the perfect blend of sportiness and quality. Next door, the Abarth version of the big-selling new Fiat 500 also shows that small and sporty can go together. At Lancia, the girls are very much prettier and the men more stylish than the new Delta, while on the Fiat stand itself the Fiorano Qubo mini-MPV reminds you mainly that Qubo is probably Italian for a small lumpy box.

The all-new Ka, on the other hand, is Ford's smallest, but way prettier now than the original Ka blob - although to be fair, enough people liked that one to make it a success story in its own right. Citroen's C3 Picasso is semi-cute too, in a chunky way, but you can't help remembering that if you gave Pablo a pretty model and a blank canvas, he might see cross eyes and a big nose.

Over at BMW, they're hedging their bets, going small but staying with the SUV trend, in the X1 Concept, which looks OK except for a feeling that it might have been delivered on the wrong wheels, which are far from BMW's usual arch-filling proportions.

On the big SUV front, the Hummer H2 E85 offers an interesting twist, running on super-ethanol, which seems like an only partly viable way to save the planet. If you have to flaunt it, we prefer the Corvette ZR1 approach: 638 hp, 604 lb-ft of torque, 200-mph-plus - and if you have a problem with that, you don't have to buy one. Ditto the Audi RS6, now in sedan form alongside the original Avant wagon, for anyone who doesn't need to carry furniture or a dog at 170 mph and likes the sound of 10 cylinders and the thick end of 600 hp in the morning. Oh, and 45 years after it was launched, Porsche's 911 continues to evolve as inexorably as ever, adding yet more power while reducing CO2 emissions by 15 percent. Clever Porsche.

Chrysler, sadly, doesn't look as exciting as it once used to, with highlights including a France-only 'Executive' edition of the no longer very new 300, and a 25th-anniversary version of the Grand Voyager, shown alongside the quarter-century-old original. GM, by contrast, looks to have hit the bulls-eye with its new mid-size family for Europe, the Insignia, which looks terrific, bristles with technology, and has quality to frighten a few far more exotic names.

And finally, hanging with the big boys, Bentley begins the phase out of the long-serving Arnage with the very limited edition Arnage Final Series, while Mercedes is likely to make even that look like a mainstream model with the elegant but heavily armored S 600 Pullman Guard - specially designed for heads of state and nervous businessmen who fear being shot at, and at a price that only they might be able to afford. That is if the global economy hasn't collapsed even further while we've been walking round the halls.