Tokyo Motor Show - General Motors

Who was exhibiting on the GM stand?
General Motors, the world’s biggest car company, owns numerous brands and lumped them all together on the same stand at Tokyo: Opel (Vauxhall’s European badge), Saab, Cadillac, Corvette and Hummer were all on show.

What’s new?
Strangely, GM didn’t reveal anything new at Tokyo. Everything on display had been seen at earlier European or American motor shows.

So what was there?
Japanese visitors were given their first glimpse of some European models going on sale there shortly: the Opel Zafira MPV, Saab 9-3 Sportwagon estate and the Opel Astra Twintop coupe-convertible.

There was also a smattering of American models, such as the Cadillac BLS compact executive, the latest Corvette sports car and a Hummer H3.

Any mad concept cars?
There was the GM Sequel, but we’d seen that at the Detroit show at the start of 2005. It’s a futuristic fuel-cell car with some handy real-world credentials: it’ll drive 300 miles between fill-ups and sprint to 60mph in less than 10 seconds.

GM reckons clean fuel-cells will be near production readiness by 2010. Watch this space.