Roll up to next month’s Paris Motor Show and you’ll be confronted by vast halls crammed with bubble-shaped, friendly faced eco-cars whirring around special trial circuits. One such model, the fully electric Peugeot BB1, is as French a design as you can imagine – quirky in the extreme, yet strangely cute, with the impression of being driven backwards on account of its severely kinked windscreen. With four seats yet 49cm shorter than last year’s sensation, the shopping trolley-sized Toyota iQ, the BB1 makes back seat passengers wrap their legs around the front seats and maximises interior space by ditching the usual petrol engine and transmission for a twist-and-go throttle and slim lithium ion battery powering two 10 HP motors driving both rear wheels directly. Although the concept for this shiny little automotive insect was released last year, global communications director Marc Bocqué has only just confirmed that Peugeot has given it the green light. Almost certainly to be renamed for its ‘real launch’, the production version, which Bocqué claims will lose none of the outlandish styling of the concept, will likely be unveiled next month, no doubt on a crystal-clad catwalk flanked by jugglers stolen from the Cirque du Soleil.

Another theme of Paris will be the app-ing of the automotive landscape. Volkswagen has already launched a competition called ‘App My Ride’, which solicits apps benefiting drivers, while Ford’s Start concept car serves up a large screen interface not dissimilar from an in-car iPad. Being able to search out a parking space or having your sat-nav able to take in natural speech voice recognition commands (“Take me to the nearest service station!”) will be another theme, although no one is predicting that carmakers will ultimately do anything that Apple hasn’t already done better.

That leaves the lovely comfort zone of fast metal powered by dirty oil, of which there’ll be plenty. Expect the Bavarians to steal a march on the Parisians, with BMW unveiling a supercar that fans have been begging it to make for years. We already have a pretty good idea what it’s like – it’s called the Z9, is powered by a massive, twin-turbo, front-mounted V8 developing 600 HP and is designed to go head to head with Audi’s R8 and Mercedes’ SLS. Miles away from the retro Z8 that BMW stopped making in 2003, the Z9 is sharper than a santoku knife with a ground- hugging profile, slither-thin overhangs front and rear, and Porsche Boxster-aping double bubbles tapering away from each headrest. If that’s not enough, BMW- owned Mini will unveil a seven-seater SUV. Disconcerting as this might seem, Mini designer Adrian van Hooydonk insists that the Mini SUV will not only be “premium, fun and unique” but the most compact in its segment. In other words, if you like SUVs but feel compelled to downsize, a Mini SUV awaits.

The final headline grabber (unless the rumour is correct that Lamborghini will unveil a Murciélago replacement) will be the fourth generation Range Rover. The Tata-owned, British company has confirmed that it will unveil the new model to coincide with the 40th birthday of the original Range Rover. Based on the LRX concept that has done the rounds in recent months, the new model will be renamed and offer the option of front-wheel drive only, which has already outraged traditionalists even though it greatly reduces weight, emissions and fuel consumption.

In lots of ways the new Range Rover represents the real face of the car industry in 2010, which awkwardly straddles an electric future and the gaz-guzzler legacy of cheap oil. The cost is enormous and the economic recovery isn’t here yet to pay for it, with year-on-year European car sales down 8.6% overall in May. Luckily, carmakers are eternal optimists so none of this misery will be perceptible in Paris – just acres of shiny new product.