Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2015 i Wheels

With a little camera transmitting onto a white screen what his brain was transferring onto paper, I was seriously gobsmacked at this Aussie-boy-done-good’s perspective. Like any great artist, Casey looked into the blank sheet in front of him and saw another dimension. And even when his main design – an interpretation of what a Hyundai Ute might look like – was approaching completion, all I could see was some stunning, long-nosed reimagining of a 1963 Buick Riviera, not realising I was mistaking the tray for a bonnet. And had ignored the mirrors already drawn on what I thought were the car’s rear flanks. When I think car drawing, I think like a flatearther. All my childhood scribblings were wildly fanciful two-dimensional side views with ‘bee-sting’ aerials, mudflaps and exhaust smoke.…

DON’T laugh at Alfa Romeo’s plan for rapid, product-driven growth. There’s sure to be scepticism about the brand’s ability to achieve its targets, but Fiat-Chrysler has done it before. Many doubted FCA-owned Maserati would be able to jump from 6000 sales a year in 2012 to 50,000 by 2015, but last year the Trident brand racked up a tally of about 36,500. Maserati is run by the same executive as Alfa Romeo, Harald Wester (pictured, left). Now, no one smirks when the German talks of Maserati selling more than 70,000 cars in 2018. Can he work the same magic with Alfa?…

EARLIER this year we asked what BMW’s M badge meant to you, and the best answers – just saying “Motorsport” didn’t cut it! – won the chance to participate in a specially tailored performance driving day. Several brands now offer these dynamic antitheses to the static motor show, with BMW’s Driving Experience roadshow, for example, performing 90 days every year, with about 3000 punters accelerating through three levels of courses. The Intensive Driving Experience is BMW’s $1395 entry-level course, though for our winners there was a twist to turn it into the M Driving Experience, with the usual 428i Coupe, M235i, M3 and M4 joined by the M5, the recently refreshed M6 and the new, second-generation X6M. That’s a collection of cars worth a princely $1.2 million. This is a…

TYPICAL. You wait years for a mid-engined American supercar, and then suddenly two of them turn up at once. Ford’s GT is the one you probably know most about. Star of this year’s Detroit motor show, the new GT is a successor to the 2004 version that paid homage to the GT40 built to take on Enzo Ferrari at Le Mans in the 1960s. But it’s a very different car, with a 450kW-plus 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 instead of the previous supercharged 5.4-litre V8 slung beneath its long body. It’s basically a race car for the road and will be built in very limited numbers – probably no more than a few hundred a year – priced at more than $US300,000. Of course, it’s the basis of the company’s return to…

PAY IT FORWARD IN THE review of the new Audi RS3 (Wheels, June), Nathan Ponchard asks: “Is this the first modern car to wear wider fronts than rears?” Well, it may be the first in the Australian market, but the US-market Pontiac Grand Prix GXP from 2005-08 attempted to tame a 5.3-litre LS4 V8, mounted transversely and sending 226kW and 438Nm to the front wheels alone by sticking wide 255 tyres on the front with 225s at the back. Reportedly, it worked pretty well; much better than its General Motors platform mate, the Chevy Impala SS, that made do with a more normal arrangement. I’d still take the RS3, though. Aaron Plein, via email “Much of the add-on stuff for compliance is superfluous to primary safety requirements” GENERAL COUNSEL IT’S…

SPECS Model Ford Everest Engine 3198cc 5cyl, dohc, 20v, TD Max power 143kW @ 3000rpm Max torque 470Nm @ 1750-2500rpm Transmission 6-speed automatic Weight 2150kg* 0-100km/h 11.0sec* Economy 8.5L/100km* Price $54,990- $76,990 On sale October * estimated THE CONVOY is pulled up outside the small South Australian town of Copley near the Flinders Ranges. Ford powertrain development engineer Pete Bradley taps away at his laptop, checking codes and emails before dialling Shanghai on the sat-phone. Apparently a vehicle in a simultaneous durability test in China is not shifting gears correctly. Pete asks if the latest updates have been loaded and emails the latest software release. “Try this one and let us know how it goes,” he concludes before ending the call. The vehicle is Ford’s new Everest 4x4. We’re along…

Model Kia Sorento Platinum Engine 2199cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, TD Max power 147kW @ 3800rpm Max torque 441Nm @ 1750-2750rpm Transmission 6-speed automatic Weight 2036kg 0-100km/h 9.6sec (claimed) Economy 7.8L/100km Price $55,990 On sale Now WAIT. Go back. Did Kia Man just say the words “barbecue credibility” when extolling the virtues of the third-generation Sorento? Buy the Kia and wield your seven-year warranty with pride as you reduce your rivals to shrivelled husks, wearing inferiority aprons at the grille of resentment snags. Kia also had a lovely euphemism for describing how the Sorento was a bit limited off-road: “Maintaining the promise of adventure.” You can maintain that promise right up until that moment you realise you have no low-range and a rear overhang so long that your tow ball will…

Model Audi A1 Sportback 1.0 TFSI Engine 999cc 3cyl, dohc, 12v, turbo Max power 70kW @ 5000-5500rpm Max torque 160Nm @ 1500-3500rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Kerb weight 1090kg 0-100km/h 11.1sec (claimed) Economy 4.4L/100km Price $28,250 On sale Now IN 1974, a fledgling Audi released a premium supermini called the 50. But overlord Volkswagen soon turned the design into the VW Polo, forcing Audi to instead toil over turbos, quattro and obsessive quality. We understand the Sally Field tear-jerker Not Without My Daughter was all about Ingolstadt’s stolen luxo baby. Probably. Anyway, Audi tried again in 2000 with the all-aluminium A2, an ambitious but expensive flop. So a testy VW – overlord still – suggested Audi dovetail the 2010 A1 with its ever-improving Polo, finally reuniting mother and child, in true…

Model Ford Mustang GT Engine 4951cc V8 (90°), dohc, 32v Max power 324kW @ 6500rpm Max torque 542Nm @ 4250rpm Transmission 6-speed automatic L/W/H 4783/1915/1382mm Wheelbase 2720mm Kerb weight 1728kg 0-100km/h 4.6sec (claimed) Fuel economy 13.1L/100km (test average) Price $125,000* On sale December *Converted car by Mustang Motorsport Model Ford Falcon XR8 Engine 4951cc V8 (90°), dohc, 32v, S/C Max power 335kW @ 5750rpm Max torque 570Nm @ 2200-5500rpm Transmission 6-speed automatic L/W/H 4949/1868/1458mm Wheelbase 2838mm Kerb weight 1861kg 0-100km/h 4.9sec (estimated) Fuel economy 12.8L/100km (test average) Price $54,690 On sale Now BLAME Bathurst. That’s where the Aussie affair with V8 power really took shape. And that shape, when it arrived in 1967, was the four-door XR Falcon GT. Tweaked with chrome wheel trims and GT Gold paint, the XR…

Model Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4 Engine 5204cc V10 (90›), dohc, 40v Max power 449kW @ 8250rpm Max torque 560Nm @ 6500rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Kerb weight 1532kg 0-100km/h 3.2sec (claimed) Economy 12.5L/100km Price $428,000 On sale Now Ingredients for roast Lambo 1 Carbon-ceramic brakes make stopping from even 250km/h seem a simple affair 2 Built largely from carbonfibre and aluminium, this new baby Lambo is 10 percent lighter than the Gallardo 3 Huracan is the first Lamborghini produced under new head of design Filippo Perini HERE are some days where the inevitability of autonomous cars – and an end to all we know and love of driving – seems only mildly appalling. Like the loss of full-strength beer at the cricket, choosing films in a “video” shop and making eye contact…

A DOZEN years ago, nobody would have foreseen the fall of CDs, the rise of The Greens, or Matthew McConaughey’s career-defining turn in True Detective – a true McConaissance! The same applies to SUVs, which from a low base back then are now closing in on passenger-car market share to be the dominant force. Like their on-limit handling once was, the tipping point is coming sooner than you might think. And nowhere is that truer than in Audi’s case, where its Q5 – the long-reigning medium-sized premium SUV – comfortably outsells the A4 range that begat it. The Ingolstadt brand’s position is under threat, however, with no fewer than three all-new or facelifted foes driving interest in a class that has grown by more than 25 percent this year alone.…

I’M IN Port Melbourne picking up a test car. Bertie Street, to be exact, a Mecca for Holden fans and Australian performance cars in the 1980s because this is where Peter Brock’s HDT Special Vehicles was based. I’m well aware this is a road where countless hot Commodores once laid rubber in the fight against everyday mundanity as Dire Straits pumped out of their Eurovox cassette decks. Yet now, two decades on, at the end of this street, sits the HQ for the most boring car company in the world: Toyota. I’m picking up the last Aussie-built version of Toyota’s cardigan on wheels as another significant chapter of our car industry approaches its end. Yet, unlike anything from HDT, the Camry is a car I loathe: unexciting, underdone and usually…

BUYING a new house can be one of the most exciting things you can do in life – or the most stressful, frustrating, annoying and downright distressing. As you can probably read between the lines, I have mixed feelings about the whole caper. And don’t even get me started about agents and how they’re largely responsible for Australia’s absurd affordability crisis. Despite all that, I actually quite like the searching process. I love trawling the web, finding likely properties, drawing up a schedule of inspections and dragging the family around from one to the next with military precision. It’s quite exhausting, yet also thrilling and nerve-wracking all at once. It’s also a good test of a car. There’s lots of stop-starting, piling in and out, parking in tricky places, negotiating…

1 RANGE ROVER EVOQUE 24 Two diesel engines, one petrol, three trim levels, and three- and five-door bodies ensure there’s an Evoque for everyone. Well, anyone with upwards of $50K to splash on a trendoid SUV. 2 PORSCHE 911 21 As well as building the benchmark sports car, Porsche does a brilliant job of covering multiple categories, from road-going racers and potent Turbos to poseur convertibles. 3 RENAULT MEGANE 19 Sometimes it’s the quiet ones that surprise most. Renault’s Megane isn’t a big seller (14 small-car rivals outsell it), but it trounces the opposition for model choices. 4 HOLDEN COMMODORE 18 The Commodore’s broad range comes courtesy of sedan/wagon bodies and myriad drivetrains and trims. But it would take the top spot here if we factored in utes, HSV variants…

Holden on to Cruze? THE new Chevrolet Cruze has been revealed ahead of its 2017 on-sale date in the US, but Holden is yet to officially confirm whether the nameplate will survive in Australia. The new-gen Cruze is longer, lower and lighter than the current locally built model, which is based on the ageing Delta II platform and will cease Australian production by 2017. With Opel’s new Astra set to debut at the Frankfurt show in September, and Holden keen to flesh out its range with GM Europe’s Golf fighter, the next-gen Cruze has a slim chance of coming here as a price leader. MX-5-based Fiat roadster spied THE Italian version of Mazda’s new roadster has been spotted testing, and the Fiat 124 Spider – the badge it is expected…

MARK Webber has never been afraid to call it as he sees it, so we shouldn’t be surprised that his new autobiography pulls no punches. But this is Formula One, where politics rule. Webber was even prevented from writing this autobiography for a year after he quit Red Bull. Now he’s getting it all off his chest. What struck me about Aussie Grit is that all the dramas we’ve heard while cheering him on these past years were not only true, they were even more amazing than we’d suspected. Yes, Mercedes abandoned him when its cars tried to kill him – twice – at Le Mans. Yes, joining Williams was a massive mistake that almost ruined his career. Yes, Nico Rosberg’s vanity earned him the nickname…

KIM Carr still believes in the car industry, but can do little about it from the discomfort of the Opposition benches. Now the former industry minister helps to shape policy so Australia can maintain crucial capability. “Whatever happens, there will be an Australian automotive industry,” he says. “What we are debating now is the scale and its nature.” The senator says investors need to know they are welcome and that policy promises will be kept. But this will be difficult given massive funding cuts by successive Liberal and Labor governments, not to mention footage in late 2013 of treasurer Joe Hockey in parliament daring General Motors to leave Australia, a performance that made a big impact in international automotive circles. Yet he insists there are multiple proposals to invest in…

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2015 Fiat 500X; Hyundai Tucson; Infiniti Q70; Jaguar XE sedan; Mazda MX-5 and 2 sedan; Mercedes-AMG GT S and C63 S; Mitsubishi Challenger and Outlander PHEV updates; Porsche 911 GT3 RS and Targa 4 GTS; Skoda Fabia; Tesla 60D and 85D; Toyota Prado update; Volvo XC90 Volvo XC90 IF this car fails, Volvo may as well chuck in the towel. The XC90 brings all of the Chinese-owned Swedish brand’s nous into one car for the first time since the maker’s ‘slow divorce’ from former owner Ford. It has a new design language, new modular four-cylinder engines and replaces a model that sold strongly as the brand’s money-maker for 13 years. OCTOBER 2015 ONWARDS Alfa Romeo 4C Spider; Audi RS3 Sportback and Q7; BMW X1, 3 Series and 6 Series…

Model DS5 Blue HDi Engine 1997cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, TD Max power 133kW @ 3750rpm Max torque 400Nm @ 2000rpm Transmission 6-speed automatic Kerb weight 1540kg 0-100km/h 9.2sec (claimed) Economy 4.4L/100km (EU) Price $60,000 (estimated) On sale First quarter 2016 THIS is not a Citroen. You won’t find the Citroen nameplate or the famous double chevrons on the new DS5. It’s the first model to be sold as a DS, PSA’s new, third brand positioned above Citroen and Peugeot. DS executives acknowledge that establishing a premium brand aimed at Audi is going to take much time and much money. More, it admits, than a facelifted version of an old Citroen model with a large chrome grille, swivelling LED headlights and a new name, which is what the new DS5 represents.…

Model Citroen C4 Cactus Blue HDi 100 Engine 1598cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, TD Max power 73kW @ 3750rpm Max torque 254Nm @ 1750rpm Transmission 5-speed manual Weight 1070kg 0-100km/h 10.7sec (claimed) Economy 3.2L/100km (EU) Price $28,000 (estimated) On sale February 2016 IS CITROEN’S new C4 Cactus a conventional five-door hatchback or a compact SUV or, as we suspect, something quite different? In reality, the Cactus sits midway between the two classes, combining imaginative styling with rational thinking in a clever package that is smaller than it looks, light of weight, modestly powered and comfort oriented, yet purely conventional in its mechanicals. Different, yet also pragmatic. A front drive-only crossover that’s taller than hatchback rivals, but shorter than an SUV, Australian Cacti are expected to have an 81kW 1.2-litre turbo-petrol three-pot…

Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake Stuttgart’s coupe-esque CLA grows an even bigger tail and gains some practicality in wagon form WheelsMag.com.au/clasb Mustang Convertible Forget burnouts and lap times – it’s more about soaking up the scenery in Ford’s American drop-top, four-pot pony express. WheelsMag.com.au/mustangconvertible Audi Q3 With the high-flying Mercedes GLA and upcoming second-gen BMW X1 threatening the Q3’s sales leadership, Audi has fitted more efficient engines and extra kit to buoy the compact SUV’s appeal. But is it enough? WheelsMag.com.au/audiq3 Mini Cooper S JCW Style meets substance as a big-daddy engine upgrade is injected into the Mini Cooper S John Cooper Works performance machine. WheelsMag.com.au/coopersjcw Stay regular Get your daily dose of Wheels with news, videos, galleries and more at WheelsMag.com.au…

I WAS but a kid of 21 when LH254 flew me into Paris on Sunday, 26 December, 1965. Seduced by the beyond-beautiful Citroen DS, an aerodynamic wonder already a decade old yet still utterly contemporary, my plan was simple: catch a bus to central Paris, find a DS taxi – and only a DS – for the ride to Le Grand Hotel. Ignoring the Peugeots and Renaults at the taxi rank, I waited, intent on landing my first ride in Citroen’s elegant sedan. Finally, wallowing in the unmatched comfort of its vast rear seat, I knew it was the most comfortable car I’d experienced. Who said you should never meet your heroes? A couple of days later I hired a Citroen Ami 6, the weirdly styled, rebodied 2CV. I wanted…

MEET our new-age ‘Rex’, a different flavour of Rex to the type we’ve been used to in the Wheels office over the past 20 years. The BMW i3 Rex does without its Subaru namesake’s all-paw traction and barking boxer engine. In fact, in some guises it does without an engine at all. This Rex isn’t about tearing through forests; it’s more about hugging them. It’s also the reigning Wheels Car of the Year, the first electric car to claim the coveted gong. There’s added pressure jumping into a COTY winner to evaluate it over an extended period. After all, as intensive as the COTY test is – seven days, 15,000 kilometres, 522 coffees and 79,000 lost arguments – there’s a chance my few months behind the wheel could end up…

IT’S not every day that a dark-haired version of Catweazle – he was like a cross between a 1970s hipster and Merlin who starred in a TV show back in the dark ages; YouTube it, you’ll be alarmed – runs up to you at a red light, bangs on your window and then barks out of his beard: “Hey! How is the DIESEL? I’ve got the petrol VERSION, parked right back THERE and I just wanted to KNOW.” I was parked in my new MY15 Forester (yes, it does look a lot like my old one that went back three months ago, but I like blue) at one of the busiest intersections in Sydney, and if Wild Eyed Man didn’t get back in his Subaru quickly there’d be carnage behind…

IF I’D known it was going to consume so much brain power, I’d have quashed the thought as soon as it entered my mind. But I didn’t. And now I’m bitter, twisted and confused, all over six seemingly innocent words: “Should I buy a new car?” The question arrived as I was washing my beloved Mk5 Golf GTI, prompted by a terrible realisation – I couldn’t remember the last time I took my personal hot hatch for a proper drive. Between supplied test cars and long-termers, the Golf had faded into obscurity, forcing me to consider a hard truth: I should sell it. But what to buy? I decided it should be something old, interesting and oozing with character, like an original Mk1 Golf GTI, an Alfa Spider or a…

A FAMOUS advertisement, written by ad-man David Ogilvy in 1958, proclaimed Rolls-Royce to be the best car in the world. By the mid-1960s, however, the car most coveted among royalty, rock stars and aristocracy – and murderous dictators for whom money was no object – was the Mercedes-Benz 600. Known within the company as the W100 and more widely as the Grosser (‘great’, as in big), the vast limousine – built in standard and long-wheelbase versions and weighing up to 2.8 tonnes – was symbolic of a company that prided itself on both its technological leadership and traditional coach-building skills. Mercedes’ new flagship was unveiled at the 1963 Frankfurt motor show (sharing the spotlight with another significant newcomer, the Porsche 901). “The Super Mercedes Model 600, the exclusive vehicle for…

ALFA Romeo’s all-new Giulia, revealed in Milan on 24 June, is more than just a car. The four-door sedan is also the first step in a grand plan that, if successful, will revitalise the Italian brand. This is one of the biggest plays the car industry will see in 2015. Parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plans to spend a staggering amount of money – €5 billion (about $7.3bn) – to transform Alfa Romeo into a brand capable of challenging German dominance in key premium segments. The ambitious objective is to increase sales more than five-fold. Alfa Romeo sold only 75,000 cars globally in 2014. The declared aim is 400,000 by 2018. The Giulia’s task is to take on the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, as both a…

HONEY, I shrunk the Le Mans winner! This 1:8 scale model of Porsche’s 919 Hybrid took 3000 hours to make, by hand, and is accurate to one-tenth of a millimetre. Limited to 100 units, it’s signed by the three drivers of car #14 in last year’s race – Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb. Yours for the price of a Mazda 2. Porsche 919 Hybrid 1:8 $15,147 shop3.porsche.com/australia SWISS brand Edox celebrates the 50th anniversary of its iconic HydroSub with this new limited edition. Water resistant to 500 metres, it hat-tips to the original, the biggest visual difference being the addition of a modern crown-protector system. Set in bright blue, the metal protector slides upwards to reveal the screw-locked crown, or downwards to hide it. Edox HydroSub $3200 edox.com.au…

IMAGINE HOW A NEW LAW PROPOSING TO MAKE A FRONTAL LOBOTOMY COMPULSORY FOR ALL IMMIGRANTS TO AUSTRALIA WOULD BE RECEIVED. THIS IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION BY THE WAY, NOT NEWS FROM CANBERRA. I ask it because we already have laws in place that do exactly this to cars. Automotive technology, in case you hadn’t noticed, is advancing at a brisk pace these days. But we have a regulatory environment that means the most evolved examples must be dumbed-down. Audi’s new Q7 makes a nice case study. The second generation of the big seven-seat SUV no longer deserves the amusingly cruel QE7 nickname it’s known by in the Wheels office, by the way. But what’s important here is that the new Q7 introduces a bunch of advanced driver aid systems. It…

Model Audi Q7 3.0 TDI Engine 2967cc V6 (90º), dohc, 24v, TD Max power 200kW @ 3250-4250rpm Max torque 600Nm @ 1500-3000rpm Transmission 8-speed automatic Weight 2060kg 0-100km/h 6.5sec (claimed) Economy 5.7L/100km Price $103,900 On sale September TO SAY it’s been a long time between Q7 drinks is an understatement; the first generation was released back in 2006. Since then, rivals from Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and BMW have been replaced with completely fresh metal, while the Audi has only been tweaked and freshly tinselled. But Q7 take two is here, almost. In a bigger-is-better world, the Q7 has taken the opposite approach, shedding 37mm in length, 15mm in width and 325kg of heft. But it’s still longer and wider than an X5 or M-Class. Even with the third row of seats…

Model BMW 120i Engine 1598cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 130kW @ 4800-6450rpm Max torque 250Nm @ 1500-4500rpm Transmission 8-speed automatic Kerb weight 1305kg 0-100km/h 7.2sec (claimed) Economy 5.7L/100km Price $41,900 On sale Now IT’S a case of look twice, even three times, to distinguish the updated 2015 BMW 1 Series from the model it replaces. Doors, roof and glasshouse are unchanged, leaving the visual grunt work to the new bumpers and heavily revised tail-lights that create a classier-looking rump. The base 116i has been dropped, replaced by the identically priced ($36,900) 118i that uses a more powerful version of the same 1.6-litre turbo four. It’s to be a short-lived engine in the 118i, with Mini’s 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo with identical 100kW/220Nm outputs set to replace it around September…

Model Mercedes-Benz GLE450 AMG Coupe Engine 2996cc V6 (60°), dohc, 24v, twin-turbo Max power 270kW @ 5500-6000rpm Max torque 520Nm @ 1800-4000rpm Transmission 9-speed automatic Weight 2220kg 0-100km/h 5.7sec (claimed) Economy 9.4L/100km Price $141,900 On sale September THE 2015 Mercedes GLE Coupe is only the first step on a journey of body-style discovery for the German carmaker. To some, it may seem like Benz is playing catch-up with the BMW X6 four-door coupe that arrived in 2008. Not so, says the three-pointed star; the SUV Coupe project was well advanced in the mid-2000s, claims head of SUVs Wolf-Dieter Kurz. “We looked into [an SUV coupe] at that time and said, ‘Let’s invest the money differently to give us the wider portfolio base than just investing in the niche’. “On one…

THE FIRST, arresting presence is a large and luxurious American sedan. It’s the original clay model of the Buick Avenir concept, a headline act of this year’s Detroit Auto Show. Nearby is the Holden Efijy, no less striking now than almost 10 years ago when it, too, rocked the US motor show circuit. Through the doors just beyond there’s a cutting-edge hot rod in carbonfibre; low-slung sports-racing cars that took on Europe’s best; Abigail-curvy muscle cars; a practical pick-up that delivered a global trend; a Formula 1 world championship winner. All are world-class cars. All designed here in Australia. The National Gallery of Victoria’s recent exhibition Shifting Gear: Design Innovation and the Australian Car was remarkable in being the first major exhibition to celebrate Australian automotive…

SOMETIMES when life gives you lemons, you have to make a billion-dollar business idea out of them. We never set out to get rich; all we wanted was to bring joy to the masses, and our plan was simple. I would become an Uber driver for a day and then surprise and delight customers by turning up not in a slightly tatty Prius with a pungent scent of desperation and Armor All, but in a Lamborghini Huracan. Uber – if you ask your friendly local taxi driver – is an evil global giant, bent on the ruination of the much-maligned taxi industry. Basically, it’s a phone-app ride-sharing service using private cars and drivers that undercuts the established players. Uber is particularly wonderful in places like Los Angeles, where you’re more…

PROVIDED it involves cars being built, I’ve become a bit of a sucker for those Mega Factory shows on telly. When you think of all the complexities involved in shipping huge rolls of raw steel into one end of a monster building and having something as remarkable as a modern car rolling out the other end, it really is an act of organisational genius. If the car-building action slows, I pass the time by carefully observing the line workers and playing the ‘bags not doing that job’ game. Like the poor bloke muscling the diff into position – bags not doing that. The woman bent at some horrible angle pinning the tangled-spaghetti wiring harness through the interior? Bags not doing that. No, the gig I’d like if I were to…

PEUGEOT’S decision to contain the latest 308 within traditional C-segment hatchback dimensions – in other words, small – can work both for and against it. Two close friends each drive current Volkswagen Golfs, and rarely transport anybody in the back. While the German car’s generous rear-seat space was appreciated the few times it was required, both admit they would probably trade a bit of that extraneous size for more of the parking-friendly compactness and manoeuvrability of the Peugeot. The 308 is 96mm shorter and 34mm lower than the Golf, though it is 5mm wider, and its 435-litre boot capacity is 55 litres larger. Both sit on a 2620mm wheelbase. Surely the VW offers the better experience for passengers? You’d think so, but two four-up journeys in the Pug totalling 700km…

Sun power Rays the roof A MELBOURNE car magazine piece from 1954 asked the question: “Does this mean General Motors already has a sun motor working in its laboratories?” Then provided the answer: “More likely yes than no.” Hmm. The same article also predicted that by 1965, American cars would be tear-drop in shape, use radar for navigation, be made from a combination of titanium, aluminum, magnesium and plastic and be powered by a rear-mounted gas turbine engine. It's easy to see how such a prediction was made given the rapid technological development of the car – and of course other aspects of technology, such as flight – in the previous decades. GM was trying to crack the ‘sun power’ nut. Respected engineer Charles Kettering, who was head of research…

PLENTY of us spent our school years sketching racing cars, doodling sponsor designs and plastering car, surf clothing and flavoured milk stickers over everything. Brett Rogers, 41, now does it for a living, as one of a small handful of specialists in motorsport design and signage. These days, that means vinyl-wrapping, a technology that originated about 20 years ago for German taxis. Wrapping’s advantages of quick colour changes, the precision of printed graphics and vastly less expense than sign-writing – or painting – proved even more applicable to motorsport. Rogers practises what he preaches, owning a Mitsubishi Evo VI time-attack car and co-owning, with Paul Stokell, a Radical SR3. Rogers’ race-wrapping portfolio has included V8 Supercars, Australian GT and Carrera Cup cars, and usually totals three dozen or more vehicles…