Montreal Auto Show Part 1: Trucks

Montreal Auto Show

So the Detroit Auto Show is finished. Almost everyone in the automotive media was there covering all the new cars, from the new C7 Corvette Stingray, to the new NSX Concept.

I was not there. Instead, I chose to cover a lesser known North American Auto Show, the Salon International de l’Auto de Montréal. You might have never have heard of it, but this show had 44 stands, with all the manufacturers that matter. That means Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls Royce, even Maserati!

The photographic coverage I did was very vast, so in order to make it more readable to you all, I will update the blog over the next five days, with five new posts from the best that I saw: Trucks, Small cars, Midsize, Exotics and Concepts.
Today, we will look at Trucks.

After all, this is North America., the land where the Truck is King. There were quite a few at the Montreal Auto Show, but not as much as I would have expected. We have to face it, just like all other auto shows, environmental consciousness was increasingly present.

That said, that did not stop GM from presenting the new 2014 Chevrolet Silverado. It is a major change from the old one, and this classic truck continues to impress. On the GMC side, nothing really new, but you have to admit, the GMC Denali HD is mighty impressive. Here, the term truck makes sense. It is one of those vehicles where you really have to climb in to get in.

Speaking of climbing, my all time favourite truck was there, the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. It is unbelievably intimidating in person. Here is a truck designed to take bumps and jumps like a Mclaren takes a corner, which is very fast indeed. Continuing in the F-150 range (and it is just incredible the amount of variants there are), there also was the HD (for Heavy Duty) version present. HD basically means take a big truck and make it bigger.

From the last of the big three was the Dodge Ram. Another very capable truck, if only starting to look a bit dated. The Power Wagon version looks very good, but less capable than a Raptor, I have to say.
On the Japanese side, Toyota was showing a rugged version of the FJ Cruiser which looked interesting. From Lexus you had the obvious RX450h, but better yet, the new LX570 which is absolutely huge (pictured here against a Mercedes ML). Acura showcased the 2014 MDX, in all its LED glory.

And from Europe, the Mercedes stand was showing off the ML63 AMG, one of the best SUVs in my mind. The big news was coming from Land Rover though. The Evoque was presented (and I have to admit, I am really starting to like it…), but more importantly, the latest Range Rover was there. Just look at it. It just screams do-anything-in-absolute-comfort-and-style.

So these were the trucks that stood out from the rest in my mind. Tomorrow, we will look at the other end of the scale: Small cars.