Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i Wheels

Brock’s VL Director was the first Aussie car with independent rear suspension PETER Brock was not pleased. Wheels had compared his HDT Special Vehicles VK Group III Commodore with a BMW 528i, Saab 16S Turbo and Volvo 760 Turbo. A letter to then-editor Peter Robinson – as well as a flurry from readers accusing Wheels of being out to “knock the Brock” – followed. We’d tested a car built from a low-spec Commodore Executive and criticised it for lacking refinement and sophistication against the European cars. Brock objected to us whacking “a sporty Group III up against the Veuve Clicquot set”. The car for the task was the VK Director, HDT’s Calais-based ‘Velvet Thunder’, essentially the precursor to today’s HSV Senator. It was the most advanced HDT model, the most…

DUAL-CAB utes loom as the next battlefield in performance vehicles as manufacturers capitalise on increased demand for something above the load-lugger norm. Already, local sales of upmarket utes such as the Ford Ranger Wildtrak, Toyota Hilux SR5 and Volkswagen Amarok Ultimate account for 40 percent of a market segment that now snares almost one in six sales. Buyers are clearly hungry for more sporting, visually aggressive pick-ups, especially with the imminent demise of the Falcon and Commodore-based utes. The prospect of paying $60K for a dressed-up work ute hasn’t frightened buyers, and carmakers are keen to cater with more visual fruit and – in some cases – upgraded performance. Leading the hi-po ute onslaught will be HSV, a brand best known for 400kW-plus Commodores. “We have an interest in this…

Model Audi R8 V10 Plus Engine 5204cc V10 (90°), dohc, 40v Max power 449kW @ 8250rpm Max torque 560Nm @ 6500rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1630kg 0-100km/h 3.2sec (claimed) Economy 12.3L/100km (EU) Price $389,900 On sale Now IT WAS right about when I noticed the speedo climbing past 265km/h over the crest on Conrod Straight that I reflected, briefly, on the wisdom of launching a new road car on a racing circuit. Especially this circuit, just a day after it hosted the Bathurst 12 Hour (won by McLaren). Race circuits generally humble even very good road cars. But the new R8 V10 Plus is clearly in its element. That speedo reading I see – with possibly another 10-15km/h to add before Caltex Chase – makes the R8 road car as…

Model Audi A4 2.0TFSI Sport Engine 1984cc 4-cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 140kW @ 4200-6000rpm Max torque 320Nm @ 1450-5200rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Kerb weight 1405kg 0-100km/h 7.3sec (claimed) Economy 5.3L/100km Price $60,900 On sale Now IF YOU’RE struggling to spot the differences, best drink in exquisite details like the clamshell bonnet, arrowhead headlights, double-edged crease lines and tapered tail graphics. The result is restrained elegance. Bolder ideas abound inside. Audi has long been the maestro of peachy interiors, but the latest A4’s spacious cabin feels how Apple might have executed it. Fresh and airy, the horizontal dash flows with sculpted surfaces and lush materials, yet – needlessly fiddly T-bar shifter and the odd rattle aside – cold Teutonic functionality abounds. Everything operates as expected, from the excellent driving…

Model Peugeot 308 GTi 270 Engine 1598cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 200kW @ 6000rpm Max torque 330Nm @ 1900-5500rpm Transmission 6-speed manual Weight 1205kg 0-100km/h 6.0sec (claimed) Economy 6.0L/100km Price $49,990 On sale Now WHEN the sun set on the thrilling 306 GTi-6 in 2001, some of Peugeot’s soul went with it. Without a Golf GTI rival, the lost decade that followed was a free kick for rivals and a kick between the legs for enthusiasts. So any scepticism towards the 308 GTi is understandable, especially as it is down on capacity (1.6 versus 2.0 litres), up on price (10 percent above the equivalent Volkswagen) and lacking an auto option. But upsetting the establishment defines the best hot hatches and herein lays the (other) Lion brand’s greatest opportunity…

NISSAN X-TRAIL ST V MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER LS PRICE & EQUIPMENT 20 POINTS The entry-level five-seat X-Trail and Outlander front-drive autos are identically priced at $30,490 but the Nissan gets a bigger 2.5-litre petrol four (than the Mitsubishi’s 2.0). It misses roof rails and gets a smaller 5-inch (versus 6.1) multimedia display screen, but adds auto headlights and neat warming/cooling front cupholders. 16/20 Both get cloth trim, CVT gearbox, hill-start assist and reversing camera, but the Outlander has a few bonuses, such as LED tail-lights (both get LED DRLs), climate control (only plain air-con in the Nissan), voice control for the Bluetooth system (also with steering wheel controls in both) and a driver’s knee airbag. 17/20 INTERIOR & VERSATILITY 20 POINTS Classy design and soft-touch materials mark X-Trail cabin as huge…

LOOKING back, I blame the photographer. After all, it was her idea to drive the Mustangs here. Her idea to “get a few shots of the cars with some school kids”. Her idea to create this scene of pubescent chaos, this tidal wave of pressing human flesh. If I wasn’t so worried about the little terrors nicking the keys, I’d be impressed at how many of them there are. We’ve hijacked morning assembly at a college in Bathurst, deep inside Ford and Holden country, and news of our arrival spreads almost as quickly as pictures of the cars are uploaded to Facebook, so strong is the pulling power of the new Mustang As one sandy-haired kid gushes, his freckled face flushed with excitement, “It looks unreal!” He’s right, it does.…

Los Angeles rockers Guns N’ Roses’ 1992 album Use Your Illusion II included an anger-fuelled track called Get in the Ring . In the compact sports sedan arena of that era, it could also have been the call from BMW’s all-conquering 3 Series as it threw down the gauntlet. At the time, Bavaria’s mid-size rivals were few and far between. The first Audi A4 was still a twinkle in Ingolstadt’s eye. The Lexus IS was some six years distant, and it would be another decade before Jaguar introduced the X-Type – a Ford-era Mondeo spawn so unsuccessful that the Brits now claim that the XE’s predecessor is not its predecessor after all. Mercedes’ future C-Class, the 180/190E, was the BMW’s only real threat…

IT STARTED at the pub. “Damo, do you want to drive my new long-termer?” Wheels skipper Butler offered. “It has two seats,” he says, swilling another mouthful of beer with a cheeky grin. Surely this is a stitch-up: Why is the boss giving away a sports car? It better not be a Hyundai iLoad... There was no catch. A stunning Sunset Red MX-5, sultry lines and all, was mine for a few weeks. And it could easily be yours because this $31,990 base car – the 90kW 1.5-litre, six-speed manual – has no options beyond the deep rich paintwork (an extra $250). Utterly affordable. Within metres of having collected the COTY champ from Mazda, I thought, “What a fool; who gives up a car this good?”, as the lightness, tactility…

ONE topic that seems to separate me from my colleagues is the subject of manual gearboxes. While my fellow scribes wax lyrical about self-shifters and bemoan any new model that arrives without one, I’m a huge fan of modern automatics and actually prefer them by and large. Don’t get me wrong; give me a race circuit or the opportunity for a quick fang on a challenging road and I’m all for a manual, but for regular driving on our increasingly clogged and overly regulated roads, I just don’t see the point of working a clutch and gearbox when an electronically controlled auto does it so well. They’re simply more efficient. Recently I was lucky enough to spend a night with the editor’s MX-5 and, while the commute home did little…

FORGET the hot new Focus RS coming this way – it’s the more practical things about the Focus Sport that I’m starting to know well, and most of its systems are truly excellent. Most. The sat-nav’s traffic alert system is surely intended to save large chunks of time. I haven’t had a lot of faith in these systems, often being stuck in a traffic jam before a robot’s voice says, “There are traffic delays on your route”. If it’s going to state the obvious it may as well say, “You’re driving a car” or “The capital of Peru is Lima”. So I had to test the Focus’s traffic system for BS. On Melbourne’s Monash Freeway, the Sport’s nav told me to take the Burke Road exit to avoid queues further…

1 MORGAN 3-WHEELER 60kW OK, so there’s not a whole lot of punch in the world’s weirdest looking ‘car’, but with all 60kW fed through a single wheel, the little 175/65 15-inch tyre has a fair bit to deal with. 2 MAZDA MX-5 1.5L 96kW Fresh from a COTY victory, the entry-level version of the loveable MX-5 is proof you don’t need bags of horsepower to have bags of fun. 3 BMW 318i 100kW Three-pot 1.5-litre turbo shared with various Minis manages just 100kW from the engine that replaces the identically powered four-cylinder still used in the 118i. 4 MERCEDES-BENZ C200D 100kW Compact 1.6-litre turbo-diesel makes it all up in torque, with a hearty 300Nm to complement the modest 100kW. 5 LOTUS ELISE SPORT 100kW It’s all about the weight…

AT THE risk of stating the obvious, Mercedes-Benz has been at the pointy end of motorsport lately. Hard to imagine, then, how different its brand image was 26 years ago. With the exception of the Cosworth-tweaked 190E 2.3 and 2.5-16 models, Merc’s matronly range through the 1980s was consistent with a company that had officially denounced motor racing for more than 30 years, following the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Mercedes tentatively commenced supplying engines to the Sauber sports car team in 1985. After Le Mans and WSC victories in 1989, Mercedes put its own name to the team in 1990. It began to embrace independent tuner AMG the same year, no doubt with an eye on rival BMW’s booming M-car range. The embodiment of all that pent-up performance angst arrived…

Volvo picks digital locks Losing your phone – or flattening its battery – could take on a whole new level of inconvenience from 2017 if you drive a Volvo. The company is testing smartphone tech that uses an app and the phone’s Bluetooth link to replace a car key, provided the phone is in range. The tech is being tested this year and will be offered on a “limited number” of cars from next year. Volvo says it will make sharing a car easier, allowing people to send a digital key to friends or family. Volvo says it plans to continue offering physical keys while people get used to the digital option. Subaru rallies for a resurgence A decade after ending its all-conquering run, Subaru will return to the Australian…

RENAULT has revealed the latest form of its Alpine Vision, bringing the once-dormant brand a step closer to becoming a showroom reality for Australian buyers. Centre stage at the Geneva show, the mid-engined two-seat concept is said to be an “80 percent” production-ready version of the A120 slated for the Paris show in October. Styled by head of Alpine design Antony Villain (pictured above right), under the direction of Renault’s design director Laurens van den Acker, the A120 visually harks back to heritage Alpine models such as the A110. The concept sports a traditional coupe silhouette defined by a rounded turret and 1950s-inspired wraparound rear glass. Highlighting its aspirations as an alternative to the Lotus Exige and Porsche Cayman, the Vision is powered by a 1.8-litre turbo-petrol four delivering a…

SPECS Model Ferrari F12tdf Engine 6262cc V12 (65°), dohc, 48v Max power 574kW @ 8500rpm Max torque 705Nm @ 6750rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1520kg 0-100km/h 2.9sec (claimed) Economy 15.4L/100km (EU) Price $808,888 On sale Now 01 NAME GAME F12tdf refers to the old Tour de France road race, which Ferrari won nine times in succession from 1956-’64. The car can’t be called F12 Tour de France because the famous bike race owns the rights to the name. 02 WEIGHTING GAME The F12tdf is 110kg lighter than the F12, thanks to the removal of much of the interior (Alcantara and carbonfibre replaces leather and aluminium) and the replacement of most of the aluminium bits on the outside with carbonfibre. 03 GAME FOR ANYTHING V12 develops 574kW instead of 545kW, thanks…

Model Jaguar XF R-Sport 25t Engine 1999cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 177kW @ 5500rpm Max torque 340Nm @ 1750-4000rpm Transmission 8-speed automatic Weight 1590kg 0-100km/h 7.0sec (claimed) Economy 7.5L/100km (EU) Price $89,800 On sale Now JAGUAR isn’t holding back in its battle with the Germans for luxury sedan supremacy. The brilliant XE has only just arrived and now the British brand has launched a new version of its bigger brother, the XF, for the Aussie market. On paper the second-gen XF shares much of the XE’s promise. Shorter, lower and with a 51mm-longer wheelbase than the car it replaces, the XF now rides on Jaguar’s new aluminium-intensive architecture. This means weight savings of up to 190kg and a 28 percent boost in structural rigidity. There’s new suspension, nicked…

Model BMW X1 sDrive18d Engine 1995cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, TD Max power 110kW @ 4000rpm Max torque 330Nm @ 1750rpm Transmission 8-speed auto Kerb weight 1470kg 0-100km/h 9.2sec (claimed) Economy 4.7L/100km Price $49,500 On sale Now PURISTS may bemoan BMW’s newfound fascination with front-wheel drive, but a stint in the cheapest X1s – the fresh sDrive18d diesel and its petrol-powered sDrive20i sibling – suggests we’re way better off because of it. Blame the original X1. Launched in 2010, and based on the E91 3 Series Touring, it was a weirdly proportioned and angry-faced wagonoid with oddly unsatisfying packaging. In other words, the company’s attempt to create a BMW-worthy compact SUV was as compromised as the cruddy ride. Clearly, Munich’s brains trust knew it too because in every vital way the…

Model BMW 318i Engine 1499cc 3cyl, dohc, 12v, turbo Max power 100kW @ 4500-6000rpm Max torque 220Nm @ 1250-4000rpm Transmission 8-speed auto Kerb weight 1425kg 0-100km/h 9.1sec (claimed) Economy 5.4L/100km Price $54,900 On sale Now TO THREE or not to three? In an age of nimble Mercedes-Benz C-Classes and jiggy Jaguar XEs, premium mid-sizer buyers are spoiled for choice, and BMW knows it. So, the four-year-old F30-generation 3 Series has gained a fresh family of modular engines, recalibrated transmissions, stronger suspension mounts and a 10mm ride-height drop to help reassert the nameplate’s dynamic superiority. This is a facelift that goes beyond the normal nip and tuck, though most people will notice only the revised nosecone, updated multimedia and swishier interior ambience. While the four-cylinder (320i, 320d, 330i) and six-cylinder (340i)…

THE Brisbane Ranges are a low sprawl of hills covered by scrubby gumtree forests that roll up out of the plains west of Melbourne. From up here you can look to the south over Victoria’s second city, Geelong, then swing your gaze more southerly toward the You Yangs, that small but steep collection of rocky mounds that protrude suddenly and surprisingly from the surrounding wheat fields. At the eastern end of the You Yangs behind a high fence sits a group of buildings, some squiggly tar, dirt roads and a giant banked oval. This is Ford’s You Yangs proving ground. For more than 50 years Falcons have emerged from here and made their way up into the Brisbane Ranges in search of real-world validation of what has been developed behind…

BUYING a muscle car is one of the silliest decisions you can make. Such vehicles are impractical, rarely permitted to stretch their legs under our Stalinist speed limit regime and absolutely love a drink. So much for the ‘head’ side of the equation. The 2015 Mustang that now resides in my garage appeals massively to my heart. It looks fast standing still. I turn it on and off more than necessary simply to hear the starter morph into a classic V8 rumble. The boy racer in me selects Track mode around suburbia on the very off chance that local streets are transformed into a street circuit. And the new ’Stang always gets ‘popped’ at traffic lights. This car stirs the senses. I’ve owned a number of Aussie cars, but since…

MEET “the electric car that doesn’t look like one”. Audi’s words, not mine. But the more I look at my freshly arrived A3 e-tron, the more it looks like any other A3. All the sheetmetal is shared, as is the glasshouse. It’s as plain as Jane has ever been. Under the skin, though, there’s plenty of electric cleverness going on. Life’s particularly busy under the bonnet, with a 75kW/330Nm electric motor alongside the familiar 110kW/250Nm 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbo with cylinder-on-demand. Under the rear seat is an 8.8kWh battery pack, with a 40-litre fuel tank relegated to the boot floor, which has been physically raised to accommodate it. Not that you’d know it from a quick glance inside. If it weren’t for the chunky fabric bag in the boot to house…

SAFETY is great, as long as it’s not inconvenient. My dog, for example, finds the in-car harness inconvenient to her desire to keep constant watch out both sides of the car. But if we had to stop suddenly, 24kg of airborne labrador-cross breaking my neck would inconvenience me. And since I’m the boss, I win. The blind spot caused by the Genesis’s thick A-pillar and generous wing mirror is an inconvenience when turning right, and when parking. But if it had skinny A-pillars instead, I’d grumble a lot more should we find ourselves inverted in a crash, my head mashed down to my navel because the roof caved in. And I can only imagine how many parking bingles and lane-changing disasters could have befallen us if the Genesis had no…

BMW has added two-wheel-drive models to its new X1 line-up. Badged as sDrive, for the first time in a BMW SUV the driven wheels are the fronts only. The X1 sDrive is available in two variants, the diesel-powered 18d and the petrol-fuelled 20i. Each is a 2.0-litre turbo with lower outputs than the same engines used in the all-wheel drive models (xDrive 20d and xDrive 25i). Equipment levels are on par with the xDrives but prices for the lesser powered front-drivers undercut them by about $7000.…

It’s all change for Subaru, with more gear for the Forester, Liberty and Outback. Much of the focus is around active safety systems, with lane-change warning, blind-spot warning and rear cross-traffic alert now on all but the base Libertys and Outbacks. Auto diesel Outbacks now come with EyeSight, which includes auto braking, while cars equipped with sat-nav also get three years of map updates. Prices on base models are unchanged while others increase by between $500 and $1500. Forester changes revolve around mild styling updates – new grille, headlights and front bumper – and suspension tweaks to improve dynamics and refinement. Forester prices are unchanged.…

MINOR STYLING CHANGES UNIQUE 20-INCH ‘DIRECTOR’ WHEELS NO POLARIZER 304KW 6.2-LITRE V8 FROM SS-V UNIQUE STITCHING AND BADGING HSV-SOURCED MAGNETIC RIDE CONTROL THE spirit of Peter Brock will live on in an exclusive limited-edition Commodore that will revive one of Holden’s most famous – and controversial – nameplates. For the first time since the infamous VK and VL HDT Directors of the 1980s, Holden will use a name that has previously only been associated with its most famous race driver – and the car that led to the split between Brock and the brand that built him. Holden applied with IP Australia to register the Director name in 2014 and it was accepted in January this year. Wheels sources have confirmed that, as with original Directors, the VFII-based model’s emphasis…

Vital new replacement for the 12-year-old DB9 coupe 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 develops 448kW and 700Nm Benz electrical architecture transforms the interior TIME moves slowly at Aston Martin. It took the tiny British company almost 90 years to build roughly the same number of cars Toyota assembles worldwide in a single afternoon. So the launch of an all-new Aston Martin is a big deal. The unveiling of the DB11 coupe at the Geneva motor show was an even more critically important event than usual, though. The first all-new car designed and developed since the 2007 sale of Aston Martin by Ford, whose benign backing gave the company almost 20 years of relative financial stability, the DB11 debuts components and technologies designed to underpin a whole new generation of Aston Martins through…

The dangers involving recalls is one of a number of safety holes the industry has fired at the parallel imports plan THE federal government will not force owners to fix safety faults on vehicles they import privately from 2018 as part of its controversial new private vehicle imports plan. Currently, vehicle safety recalls are conducted by vehicle importers at no cost to the owner, but the 30,000 people expected to import vehicles privately once local manufacturing closes will only be informed of recalls, not forced to undertake them. Considering the cost of fixing potential safety faults, which could run into thousands of dollars and include brakes, airbags, electrical systems or engines, some owners may choose not to bother, potentially endangering their lives, those of their passengers, other road users and…

Model Infiniti Q70 Sports Premium Engine 3696cc V6 (60°), dohc, 24v Max power 235kW @ 7000rpm Max torque 360Nm @ 5200rpm Transmission 7-speed automatic Kerb weight 1719kg 0-100km/h 6.2sec (claimed) Economy 10.8L/100km Price $78,900 On sale Now TODAY’S premium-large establishment knows it needs to offer a pampering ride and a sports-sedan drive, but the 2012 relocation of Infiniti’s headquarters from Yokohama to status-obsessed Hong Kong served to underscore that the brand and the Q70 are not so certain. The Infiniti Q70 has solid fundamentals in that its big, rear-drive platform possesses DNA from parent Nissan’s 370Z and GT-R, and is underpinned by double A-arm front and multi-link rear suspensions. The Sports Premium version duly ticks the high-performance boxes. A smooth 3.7-litre V6 produces 235kW and 360Nm, sounds subtly snarly, and…

Model Porsche 911 Carrera S Engine 2981cc flat 6, dohc, 24v, twin turbo Max power 309kW @ 6500rpm Max torque 500Nm @ 1700-5000rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1440kg 0-100km/h 4.1sec (claimed) Economy 7.7L/100km Price $258,750 On sale March I’VE been sitting in this facelifted Porsche 911 Carrera for less than two minutes and already there’s a noticeable difference. Not in the way it looks – those changes are much more subtle – but in the way it sounds. Squeezing the throttle results in a whistle of compressed air, clearly audible above the familiar flat-six growl. It’s quiet, like a whisper, yet it’s a sound that fills me with trepidation. Unless you’ve fallen off the planet, you’ll know Porsche has turbocharged the Carrera. Purists have been moaning about it for months,…

Model Porsche 911 Turbo S Engine 3800cc flat 6, dohc, 24v, twin-turbo Max power 427kW @ 6750rpm Max torque 750Nm @ 2250-4000rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1600kg 0-100km/h 2.9sec (claimed) Economy 9.1L/100km Price $456,500 On sale Now IN A world where the 911 Carrera is turbocharged, does a 911 Turbo have a reason to exist? If so, what do we call it? Mr T? A turbo Turbo? Big Daddy? August Achleitner, the man in charge of all things 911, has the answers, of course. “Why do we have a separate Turbo model, and can it still stand out? To answer that, let me give you two numbers,” he says, with a self-satisfied smile. “Max torque for the Carrera S is 500Nm, whereas for the Turbo S it’s 750Nm. That’s 50…

Model BMW M2 Engine 2979cc in-line 6cyl; dohc; 24v; turbo Max power 272kW @ 6500rpm Max torque 500 Nm @ 5560rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1570kg 0-100km/h 4.3sec (claimed) Economy 8.5L/100km Price $98,900 On sale April THE 1 Series M Coupe was a werewolf in wolf’s clothing. Ask anyone who’s driven one and you’ll get the same low whistle of air through pursed lips. It was both great and terrifying, in unequal measures. Five years on from that foray into the frightening, the folk at M Division have delivered its meaner but nicer successor, the BMW M2, a car so good that any genuine enthusiast who drives it back-to-back with the supposedly superior M4 would walk away wanting the cheaper option. And thanks to its core brief to steal younger…

HERE’S something perversely wonderful about being a hooligan in a $425K SUV on sand dunes. Unleashing 447kW and 900Nm from the Bentley’s 6.0-litre, 12-cylinder engine to climb the dunes, then carving across the face just below the lip like a pro surfer on a wave, leaving huge rooster tails of sand in your wake. Who would do this in a Bentayga? Yet I’m only following the example of the car in front being driven by Bentley’s engineering boss, Rolf Frech. On the next towering wave of sand, he attacks at an angle. When the 2.4-tonne luxury SUV loses its fight for altitude in the treacherously loose terrain, he keeps the throttle pegged, letting the Bentayga drift balletically along the wave before tilting the tiller down the face and surfing back…

James Warburton took over the running of Australia’s premier racing category in mid-2013 at a challenging – some say desperate – time in its history. He faced the real possibility of grabbing the controls of a potential train wreck. Private equity firm Archer Capital had in 2011 controversially bought a majority shareholding in V8 Supercars Australia in a $130 million deal overseen by bombastic founding chairman Tony Cochrane. The teams were initially thrilled to divvy up a large pile of money from the sale, but quickly became concerned about Archer’s motives and its lack of motorsport expertise, leading to poor ongoing returns. From the very start, the savvy, grown-up media had been distrustful of V8 Supercars’ imaginative attendance figures and TV ratings claims. A succession of off-shore races powered by…

Despite the ‘Home of quattro’ signs displayed by Audi at numerous events, Seefeld near Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps can lay claim as the real home of the German company’s famed all-wheel-drive system. It was here in 1980 that Ferdinand Piech showed off the original all-wheel-drive Quattro supercoupe to the media. These days known as the Ur-Quattro (named after the ancient city of Ur that took on the meaning ‘original’), the big, boxy Audi stormed the World Rally Championship and changed the sport forever. The venue at Seefeld is actually a paddock that cows graze on over the summer, but come winter Audi sets off a series of hydrants to cultivate a glazed ice surface 50-75cm thick.…

Specialised winter tyres are almost unheard of in Oz, but the Ice Academy showed how effective they are, especially under braking. Smashing the pedal from 40km/h saw the CX-3 with regular all-season tyres sailing on, the working ABS furiously. With chunkier winter tyres the stopping distance almost halved. Bridgestone engineers say there are many factors at play, including a tread pattern designed to hold snow within the grooves rather than disperse it (as happens with water). Snow on snow apparently gives better grip than rubber on snow. The rubber compound is super-soft (so unsuitable for regular driving because the tyres will wear out quickly) and includes a fine grit to help better ‘grab’ ice, rather than slide across it, while the tread blocks are quite angular and sharp on the…

THE holiday season is usually all about minimising family interaction and maximising tinkering time with my long-neglected classics. With an Alfasud recently joining the fold, hands (and credit card) would certainly be kept busy. Except this time around three friends needed new cars, and pronto. Without warning, Mel’s 2006 Suzuki SX4 met its end in a ditch, Vic’s 2002 Renault Scenic’s electricals expired, and Viv’s decrepit 1992 Camry finally called it a day. Three emergency missions, one plucky Celerio, and no time to lose. Varying requirements and a vast choice of cars to consider meant a couple of days with each, visiting many different dealerships across the length and breadth of Melbourne. With the air-con cranked up and often all four seats occupied, the Suzuki soon came under the microscope.…

WE’VE had a turbulent month, the Astra GTC and I. Those familiar with my time with Holden’s Sunny Melon hatch will know I’m in love with its swoopy design, its perky 1.6-litre turbo-petrol and the way it strikes a sweet balance between handling and ride comfort, even on 19-inch wheels. But this month we hit a hurdle. It arrived in the form of a tight and eerily dark underground car park where the Astra’s poor visibility, lack of reversing camera and wide 11.9m turning circle combined in a perfect, swirling storm of frustration. Let’s just say I haven’t completed that many three-, five-and seven-point turns in a very long time. As good as that sexy, narrow glasshouse looks, it leaves you with zero reference as to the rear extremity of…

As the Captiva gears up to pop a tenth candle in the birthday cake, Holden has also found time to tweak the look. The main change centres around the spilt grille also used on the Cruze, something that gives it a distinctive pout. The split Captiva range5 and 7 - is gone, with the larger Captiva 7 body now used for all. But Holden has introduced a five-seat version to keep the all-important price point down. New gear includes Apple Carplay and Android Auto, while the range-topping LTZ picks up active safety features such as blind-spot warning. There are no changes yo drivetrains, though, which remain the underwhelming 2.4, the grunty 2.2 diesel and the thrashy 3.0 -litre V6 from the Commodore.…

IF THERE’S any debate about whether car nuts are born or created, we reckon it ends with the story of Josh Stebbing. Eight years ago, Josh’s mum Melissa bought a Hot Wheels car at the supermarket for her son, then aged just two. Something about the 1:64-scale green Chevy El Camino seemed to click with the kid. “I started playing with them and then I got more and more,” Josh says. Now he has collected more than 3000 toy cars. Melissa can’t fully explain the “natural attraction”, because there’s no overt automotive influence in the family, aside from one of her uncles who restores and modifies Falcon coupes. Neither has Melissa, a single parent, been showering her son with what equates to one model car per day over eight years.…