The stars of the 2015 Detroit motor show

1 Ford GT
Most cars that appear at a motor show are trailed in advance and folks know what to expect. So it was something of a surprise to find that Ford managed to fool everyone with an all-new GT.The third-generation car is a 600bhp-plus mid-engined missile which does a good job of looking like part of the GT family without looking like a pastiche of its forbears. It looks incredible, has the tech to match a Ferrari and, crucially, heralds a whole new era of performance Fords, rather than being just a one-off.

2 Jaguar F-Pace
Bit odd to list a star of the show and to make it a car that wasn't actually there, but the Jaguar's confirmation that it will build a sports SUV was news. So was the name, which caused a few frowns around the room. Jaguar predicts it may become its best-seller around the world. It's due late this year and we can't wait to see it.

3 Chevrolet Volt
You don't head to Detroit with high expectations for the zero-emission tech, but Chevrolet's announcements about the Bolt concept and the improved Volt were among the most exciting things there. The Volt gets a boost to its battery-only range alongside a host of details improvements, the sum of which seem set to make a big improvement over the car it replaces. There are no plans for it to go on sale in Europe at present though.

4 Chevrolet Bolt
The Bolt is a pure EV concept which is somewhere between a supermini and a hatch in size, and is claimed to offer a 200-mile range. It's tipped to cost around $30,000 when it makes production, which translates to a whisker under £20k. At around the third of the price of a 85Kw Tesla Model S, it proves that an EV does not need to be flash to impress. Fingers crossed it crosses the Atlantic.

5 Bentley Bentayga
Information is starting to emerge about the forthcoming and hotly anticipated Bentley SUV but, not for the first time at this show, a Brit SUV caused a collective intake of breath when the name was announced to the assembled press. Bentayga is the name of a mountain range on Gran Canaria and the idea, according to Bentley bigwigs, was to make it distinct from the evocative names used on the company's plush offerings of the past. The prospect of hybrid power options alongside the more regular W12 and V8 options suggest that this will be more than just a hyper-plush SUV. It will be the most technically advanced Bentley ever built.

6 Honda NSX
Concept cars are meant to show a visually alluring, scarcely believable view of what the next generation of cars may look like. So it was with surprise and delight that show patrons gazed upon the production-ready version of the Honda NSX, which looked even better than the mock-ups that preceded it. It's not just an achingly good-looking thing either. In the age of hybrid tech, the NSX takes advantage of hybrid technologies that Honda has developed for other cars and made the car as clever as it is handsome. Twenty-five years after the previous NSX redrew the supercar rulebook, it could be about to happen again.

7 Infiniti Q60
The talk of the halls was that the Q60 is Infiniti's best-looking car to date, and it is hard to disagree. Thing is, the issue with Infiniti cars when they've reached the UK has never been about how they look but more how they drive. Hopes are that this will make its way to the UK in time, but we'd really like it to rival a BMW 4 Series and similar from behind the wheel, rather than just through the lens of a camera.

8 Volvo S60 Cross Country
It might not be the most exciting thing at the show, but there is something very interesting about Volvo's attempts to try to stretch the executive car segment into SUV territory, without going 'full SUV'. It's been done with estate cars, but it's not been a common treatment for high end saloons. Rugged-looking execs could be stretching a niche too far, but this makes the S60 look considerably more interesting than the rest of the line up – and we're looking forward to seeing how it fares in the market.