I suppose I'll let my patriotism get the better of me for once, but the Star of the Geneva Motor Show is a toss-up between the Tata Nano, Ford's stunning new Fiesta and the hot Abarth 500 version of Fiat's beautiful new baby.

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The Fiesta as mentioned in our earlier story is perhaps the best ever looking little Ford, bristling with all the latest tech and even due to be available in a clean and frugal sub-100g/km CO2 version. It's also significantly lighter than its forebear — clever thinking in a car world that's so obsessed with "bigger is better" that it forgot how bad weight is for a car...

The scrum around Tata's R17 000 Nano failed to subside all day as scribes fought for a piece of the action with the little car creating scenes on its European debut reminiscent of those around Nissan's powerhouse GT-R in Tokyo last year. But for very different reasons this time around...

Nano would be a clearcut campaigner for Star of the Show — it's small, clean and economical and so cheap too. But that the green gang isn't very happy about a couple of million extra cars will now impact on our fragile atmosphere, takes a little sheen off a truly milestone car.

So that let Abarth's 500 in at the post to claim our Star of the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. Pandemonium broke at its early-evening launch right at the end of the day, as scribes literally came to blows over the far too few press kits available for a much greater than expected throng squeezed into Abarth's little display.

Abarth 500 though, best personifies the mood of this year's show in a neat, relatively cheap city car with an 'I want you' appeal and a certain sting in that Scorpion tail...

What else is hot?

So besides the top top and the rest of the morning's releases covered in our earlier report, what else was new in Geneva?

Well Citroen certainly has uncovered that chic it was once famous for and in a big car at that — the new C5 certainly looks the part. I'd go so far as to say it's the best looking middleweight saloon of all on the market today...

Peugeot (308 wagon & the hip Bipper van), Porsche (detail changes on Carrera) and Lexus (Euro debut for LF-S) were relatively quiet, but Toyota showed a most interesting Urban Cruiser concept and introduced the For Sale version of its little Smart rivalling iQ three-seat city car.

VW debuted the excellent reborn Scirocco and swoopy four-door coupe Passat CC a-la Merc CLS, while the SA-bound Tiguan range certainly looked the part. Audi had A4 avant out alongside the monster R8 Le Mans V12 TDI and a clean-burning TT 2.0 TDI quattro, while Seat's sassy concept clearly predicts the next Ibiza.

As reported earlier, BMW's X6, M3 coupe and M3 sedan's showroom spec debuts were humbled by Munich's Efficient Dynamics push, highlighted by a broad clean-burning range and that intriguing four-cylinder turbodiesel hybrid. X5.

General Motors covered a broad base with the next Meriva and Saab 9-1 concepts centre stage. A baby Hummer concept, Cadillac's fuel cell SUV and a coupe concept along with the Euro debut of the M5-rivalling CTS-V and Saab's 9-4X made premier brand news, while a brace of new Chevys and Opel's Agila dominated among many concepts.

Volvo XC60 introduced the brand's swoopy new look while Jaguar's XF took its Euro bow alongside the sporty XKR S, while Aston Martin showed Vantage V 12 and a tweaked DB9.

Italian quarter

The Italian quarter was as active as ever — Lancia at last introducing the new Delta set to take it back into world markets, including perhaps South Africa, Fiat showed its latest people mover/van called Fiorino, Alfa Romeo introduced its stunning 8C Spider and a reworked and lighter weight 159, and Lamborghini introduced a facelifted Murcielago in LP540 form, while Rolls Royce's extravogant new coupe certainly did impress...

Dacia unveiled its Sandero due to be built and sold in SA as a Renault and Kia had a wacky square urban concept on show.

Chinese interest centred around Brilliance's good-looking range while newcomers BYD showed a last-gen Toyota-esque range that included a hybrid.

Daihatsu showed a sharpened Sirion and Mazda had new 6 out alongside a three-door 2, both clearly set for SA release soon.

In all Geneva '08 was a cheerful affair that finally saw the critically important aspect of clean motoring finally taking precedence over all else — including performance.

Yes, performance, style and panache were there and then some, but well balanced and starting to emerge from some excellent sources — like light weight and regenerative sources, which will certainly conspire to make speed so much cleaner too, in future.

That in itself is a significant motoring milestone marked by the 2008 Geneva Motor Show...