As a young boy in England, I remember joining my father at motor-bike scrambles, speedway events, trials riding competitions, stock cars and even Formula 1.
At almost all the events, the noise levels were thrilling, the smell of race gas became an adrenaline buzz and it didn’t take much to get a young kid as high as a kite on the thought of the racing or competition that was about to unfold.
Perhaps times have changed a little with the introduction of electric car racing, which I would find about as exciting as watching a Cricket test match. Actually, I am not sure it would be as exciting as cricket.
Listening to silent cars driving around a circuit with nothing but the smell and noise of diesel generators working away in the service area is not my idea of a fun day out.
So it is no surprise that the dream lives on here in Geneva at the 2019 Geneva International Motor Show.
I am here with Dutch manufacturer PAL-V, which is delivering the world’s first flying car next year. We have our second production model on display, which is the limited edition version of the PAL-V Liberty.
However, in the aftermath of talking all day to crowds of people touring the halls demonstrates that the love of the internal combustion engine and the power it produces together with the sound is still abundant.
Advances in technology are obvious and perhaps, eventually we will be looking at a line up of drearily silent e-Cars at the show but not yet.
People are scrambling to outdo the completion with the addition of more raw horsepower. The price of gasoline probably does not phase the affluent purchaser because the sticker price on most of the vehicles is north of $1 million.
Most people are only here to look, but business is done in substantial numbers and certainly our company, PAL-V has been writing up orders for clients from around the world.
Geneva is a crazy place this time of year and the atmosphere while perhaps described as “electric” is definitely driven by an historic passion for the internal combustion engine
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.