Ten highlights of the New York show

Britain's 5-Series rival enters its second generation, and the emphasis is on evolution rather than revolution. The recognised hallmark of a car that's already pretty good, then.

New for XF mk2 is a bunch of new engines, the big-sellers coming from Jag's still questionably titled Ingenium range, while nearly 200kg has been scythed from its kerb weight, lots of aluminium construction largely to thank.

Read more about the new Jaguar XF here

McLaren's new Sports Series supercar has been drip fed to us for a long time now, and any more cropped in pictures of swirly-decaled prototypes might have driven us mad. Happily, the final, actually real production version takes its bow in NYC.

Details remain scant but with 562bhp (the British conversion of the 570PS that gives it its name) it tackles the Porsche 911 Turbo S head on, and as such, should cost around £140,000 - a whole Cayman GT4 less than McLaren's current ‘entry' car...

Read more about the McLaren 570S here

Fantasy supercars with implausible performance numbers are no strangers to TG. We've seen all manner of schoolboy-spec drawings with ‘1000bhp!' daubed uncouthly on them, and somewhat inevitably, most never see the light of day as an actual production car.

What chance the Streamliner, then, with its 1700bhp, 290mph top speed and 4.1-second 0-100mph time (yes, really)? What form it takes at the New York show should give us a good hint at how high to peg our hopes...

Read more about the LM2 Streamliner here

So long ML, hello GLE. Merc's naming structure reshuffle has reached its biggest selling SUV.

Styling changes are modest and the most exciting news comes via a 442bhp plug-in hybrid and the quite bonkers, BMW X5M-bashing GLE 63 AMG.

Read more about the Mercedes GLE here

Providing stern competition for the GLE hybrid will be BMW's plug-in X5. With 309bhp, it won't be as sprightly, while its green numbers are identical. But the X5 has plenty of cache and some of the better dynamics in this class.

Whether an environmentally friendly SUV is an oxymoron or not is unlikely to stop either of them racking up sales...

Read more about the BMW X5 hybrid here

And now for the original hybrid SUV. A new RX is coming, though the picture above is about as descriptive as things have got so far. More illuminating imagery - and actual details - will arrive on April 1 when the New York show doors swing open.

Can't quite afford a Lexus? The RX's little cousin - the Toyota RAV4 - gets the hybrid treatment in NYC too.

SUVs appear to be the theme of the New York show, and Land Rover is unwilling to count itself out of the fun. Meet the Range Rover Sport HST.

It's designed to boast all of the frilly bits of the top-end V8 models, but uses the less brawly 375bhp supercharged V6 from the Jag F-Type as its heart. It won't be coming to the UK, though. Boooo.

This has got us excited. Mazda will bring a ‘Club Edition' of the new, mk4 MX-5 to New York. Though details on what that actually means are conspicuous by their absence.

Is it a track-ready roadster? Or an MX-5 with strobe lighting, improbably loud dance music and extortionately priced beer? The truth probably lies closer toward the former, but we'll know for certain next week...

You're familiar with Alpina, right? They take BMW's sportiest cars, soften them off a bit, retune the engine and add a whole heap of exclusivity. The end result can often be more desirable than the already fairly excellent car they started with.

Well, they've been doing it for 50 years now, and are celebrating in the only way the car industry knows how: a good old special edition. Meet the near-600bhp, 200mph-plus B5 and B6 BiTurbo Edition 50s. Interested?

Read more about the Alpina Edition 50s here

Okay, so this won't be a star of the show. Possibly not even the star of its stand. But the current Optima is something TG has a bit of a soft spot for, a car that ticks a lot of entirely sensible boxes but which looks quite cool and slashy while it does so. And the all-new Korean Mondeo looks to be cooler and slashier still...

Read more about the Kia Optima here