Table of contents for April 2019 in Wheels

JUST WHEN you thought the HSV-badged Chevrolet Camaro couldn’t be any more tempting to the grunt-loving, old-school enthusiast, the even more attractive 2019 2SS model has been launched, and will offer a manly manual gearbox. The six-speeder will become the standard transmission, yours for the slightly higher starting price of $86,990 (up $1000), while a 10-speed auto – replacing the current car’s eight-speed unit – will be the option for left-leg-lazy buyers, at a $2200 premium. The manual comes with both rev-matching and hill-hold, although purists will snort with derision at the idea of using either, while the auto offers the bonuses of a customisable launch-control program, and a slightly contentious line-lock feature. Beloved of drag-strip diehards, line-lock allows you to hold your Camaro stationary while you spin up the…

DUE MAY VOLKSWAGEN TOUAREG All-new, third-gen large SUV has aspirations of taking on the dominant German brands, but unlike the Mercedes-Benz GLE, BMW X5 and Audi Q7, the Touareg seats only five, with an emphasis on two rows of luxury. The V6 diesel models arrive first, with a plug-in hybrid set to follow. DUE APRIL BMW 8 SERIES The return of the 8 Series badge for BMW’s flagship two-door brings classic proportions with real presence. Available initially as an M850i xDrive in coupe or convertible forms, both with a 390kW twin-turbo V8 driving all four wheels, the newcomer promises to take on the gran turismo flavour of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe and Bentley Continental GT. DUE APRIL PORSCHE 992 911 Porsche has not just improved the 911 but transformed it…

Model Porsche Macan S Engine 2995cc V6 (90°), dohc, 24v, turbo Max power 260kW @ 5400-6400rpm Max torque 480Nm @ 1360-4800rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1865kg 0-100km/h 5.3sec (claimed) Fuel economy 8.9L/100km Price $97,500 On sale Now IF WE’RE TO believe the advertising campaign for the new Porsche Macan, it’s all about the butt. Cheeky ads in major newspapers and on outdoor billboards feature the premium SUV’s admittedly well-proportioned rear end in all its shapely glory, challenging buyers to “give those behind something to appreciate.” Fortunately, for fans of the Stuttgart marque, there’s much more to the Macan’s mid-life update than a butt lift. Porsche did an impressive job straight out of the box with its mid-size luxury SUV, building a suburban hero with a sporting double life that not…

Model Mini Cooper SE Powertrain single electric motor/ 92Ah lithium-ion battery Max power 135kW Max torque 270Nm Transmission single-speed reduction gear Weight 1350kg 0-100km/h 7.5sec (est) Range 230km (est) Price $50,000 (est) On sale Q4 2019 LAST TIME Mini turned its three-door hatch fully electric, the rear seats vanished, boot space shrank and weight increased 300kg. That was back in 2008, just 600 were leased, but the Mini E did inform development of the BMW i3. Now the i3’s repaying the favour by donating its EV technology to a proper series-production electric Mini, the packaging compromises all but eliminated. Promisingly, ‘Cooper S’ has been inserted between ‘Mini’ and ‘E’. We’re driving a prototype of the Mini Cooper SE on a coned airfield course. It doesn’t take long for a grin…

1 MAZDA 3 People who know their stuff are c calling the new 3 ”this year’s most important car”, and while we’ve driven it in the US, we’re yet to see what it’s like on Aussie roads. Expect a higher-quality cabin with improved NVH, plus standard sat-nav and radar cruise even on the base model. If it’s as good to drive here as it looks, life’s about to get tough for the 3’s rivals. 2 HYUNDAI KONA EV The EV onslaught continues for the Korean giant with the arrival of a pure electric version of its striking-looking small SUV. Following as it does in the zippy wake of the Ioniq, Hyundai claims the Kona EV has been tested and tuned locally to cope with our ‘special’ roads. Expect a claimed…

I SHOULD HAVE seen it coming. “Rock solid, this,” claimed photographer Alastair Brook, hacking his heel at the soda crust to show just how implacable it was. The only BMW 330i in Australia, entrusted to us ahead of launch by Munich, crept out onto the playa, inching out just a few metres for the photo before we’d roll it back to terra firma. We couldn’t exactly pinpoint the moment the creme brulee gave way beneath it, but it became apparent after some time that the car was imperceptibly sinking into a pit of brown ooze. This was going to take some explaining. This was Alex Inwood’s idea. Our gallant editor’s plan was to take BMW’s box-fresh 3 Series and, over the course of three days, cover three states while putting…

1. AUDI A4 Age hasn’t withered A4’s gorgeous, spacious and airy cabin, with leading quality and detail smarts abounding. Full-width air vents give a nod to classic ’70s 100 series, yet rich, aromatic presentation remains contemporary. As with BMW, clever multi-configurable digital instrumentation provides extra layer of info accessibility. Central screen the smallest here. Rear has individual climate controls, storage galore, while backrests split/fold to increase versatility. Spare is a space saver. Luggage capacity is 480L. 2. BMW 3 SERIES Dash evolves into best-yet presentation for 3 Series, despite fussy digital dials. Flawless new iDrive interface, excellent storage, and quality materials/switchgear further progressions. But G20 is first 3 Series without manual handbrake. ‘Caring Car’ energises or relaxes occupants via ambient lighting, climate control and audio. Voice command brings new level…

Ask Mark Reuss about the Pontiac Aztek and the reaction is a combination of a laugh and a groan. He accepts that it is ugly, and best known as a sales failure in the car world, although it has surged back to popularity as Walter White’s car in the Breaking Bad series. Reuss was the project leader on the Aztek and says it was simply a car ahead of its time. “Look what Subaru has done,  that is what we were doing with the Aztek. It was a small, practical, SUV,” he says. “The Aztek was a tough assignment, to make a crossover off a minivan platform, to make it competitive, to create it quickly for a company that was desperate for change. “Those were the circumstances under which it…

BMW X3 X3 finally matures to deserve its BMW badge, with more quality, refinement, space and comfort than before – especially with adaptive dampers. Classy yet functional dash, firm but shapely seats in M Sport, excellent iDrive multimedia and perfect driving position also on-brand. Wheel is too thick rimmed for some drivers. Beware of cheap, clangy rear central cupholders. Rear seats firm but shapely. Rear backrest doesn’t recline, but is well suited to family duties. Boot is 550L. Tyres are run-flats. Ground clearance is 204mm. FORD ENDURA Welcome to five years ago. SYNC3 user experience (if not dated graphics) and Jag-esque gear selector apart, Endura feels old and downmarket in this company. Lack of rear-seat USB connectors also betrays the Endura’s advancing years. But super-wide doors that aid entry, pleasing…

MOST PEOPLE who know me think that I’m loud, brash and overly confident. Little do they know that this is merely a front for the self-conscious me that lurks just below the surface. So imagine my alarm when I’m handed the keys to this ‘look-at-me’ Suzuki Jimny. Painted as it is in a tennis-ball-like Kinetic Yellow, the diminutive 4WD is about as introverted as Donald Trump at a ‘Make America Great’ campaign rally. At least it’s not furry. Or rocking a comb-over. Nevertheless, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to drive a car that had been causing such a fuss around the Wheels office, so I flicked the self-conscious Me the bird and suited up for a set with the Slazenger-inspired Suzi. Measuring just 3645mm from nose to tail,…

TOP THREE PORSCHE 959 “It was ahead of its time. A car that probably made the least money for Porsche out of anything it ever did, because it was so overdeveloped; apparently the margins were horrendous,” says Webber. “Jackie Stewart had a bit to do with it and told me lots of stories of its development with Helmuth Bott, one of the great Porsche engineers.” LOTUS 49 “Can I pick a race car?” he asks. Of course Webber was going to nominate a race car. Thing is, it’s not the car you might have thought. If you’d guessed a Porsche LMP1 weapon or one of his own winning F1 cars, you’d have been way off beam. “I’d have Jimmy Clark’s car,” he says, still full of wonder for its focus.…

HERE IT IS, the 2022 Ford Ranger, nearly three years out from launch. Spied on route somewhere in an outer Melbourne suburb, this is a full-sized clay mock-up of the future medium-sized Ford dual-cab ute, providing the best images yet as to what the next-generation Ranger will look like when the production version’s covers come off sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. With Ford Australia flatly refusing to comment on these extraordinary images, Wheels published these pictures online, suggesting that the mystery ute was either the reskinned Ranger, or a copycat styling exercise from a rival carmaker keen to cash on the one-tonner’s worldwide success. However, as our story spread globally, events took an unforeseen turn when American website Jalopnik (that also ran our pics) was sent an email…

RING RECORDS have become such a common part of car parlance that we tend to take for granted the enormous amount of expense, and risk to life and limb, that goes into setting them, all so that car companies can trumpet them on the interwebs. It’s all good PR, of course, but consider – as the car companies and the owners of the Nurburgring have to – what would happen if a record attempt went wrong; what a PR disaster a fiery fatal crash would be. With drivers at their limit on such a brutal, unforgiving track, the risk is very real. Being the fastest is, of course, about more than clicks and shares, as Porsche chassis expert Ulrich Morbitzer admits. “My personal answer is that, in terms of chassis,…

Model BMW X7 xDrive 30d Engine 2993cc 6cyl, dohc, 24v, TTD Max power 195kW @ 4500rpm Max torque 620Nm @ 2200rpm Transmission 8-speed automatic Weight 2440kg 0-100km/h 7.0sec (claimed) Fuel economy 6.5L/100km Price $119,900 On sale May ON SMOOTH ROADS, THE X7 IS A SWIFT, QUIET, IMPERIOUS CRUISER WHOEVER coined the adage about death and taxes being the only certainties in life clearly didn’t have much of a clue about BMW’s SUV range. With a line-up currently spanning X1 to X6, the arrival of a flagship X7, to give BMW a rival for Mercedes-Benz’s GLS and L-R’s Range Rover (and a larger, roomier alternative to Audi’s not exactly diminutive Q7), was a certainty waiting to happen. You’ll need to crane your neck to take in all of the new model’s…

Plenty have tried to claim the Stuttgart SUV’s dynamic scalp since the Macan burst onto the scene in 2014, including Jaguar’s F-Pace, the Range Rover Velar, the Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 and 63 siblings, Alfa Romeo’s Stelvio and Volvo’s COTY-winning XC60. But in a five-car comparison last year, which included a Macan Turbo, it was always the Porsche that impressed us the most. The new Macan S pushes that dynamic benchmark further, slapping the gauntlet in the faces of its prestige rivals.…

The contenders Everyone wants in on the small-SUV game these days, and our rivals here are two of the freshest in the compact-luxury-crossover segment. Volvo’s XC40, represented here in T5 guise, is also a newly minted Wheels COTY champ – a daunting opponent, then, for the Lexus UX 200 F-Sport that’s laying down the gatlopp (that’s Swedish for gauntlet). Lexus sorely needs to kick some goals with the UX. It’s the brand’s first stab at a small SUV, and its previous foray into somewhat-affordable hatchbacks, with the unloved CT 200h, has proven a struggle. The UX is certainly sized right, based as it is on the versatile TNGA GA-C platform used by its Toyota C-HR and Corolla cousins, and the lineup is incredibly feature-rich. It squares off against the incumbent…

ROD MILLEN’S sitting in a deck chair, contemplating his driveway. The grass edging is looking a bit secondhand and there are tyre marks on the otherwise perfect bitumen. Seven drift cars come flying past on the lock stops at over 100km/h, the tyre smoke growing ever thicker until the final car is just an ear-piercing buzzsaw of a triple-rotor on the limiter. The old boy waits for the smoke to clear and continues his story. “So I said to my wife, Shelly, ‘We could turn the driveway into a Goodwood South.’ I already had a lot of my old cars here and I’d built the barns and now I had to pave the road because it was a gravel road in the early days. She set out about eight years…

“THE PAST is a foreign country,” says the famous first line of L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go-Between, referring to how perspectives can inextricably shift with the passage of time. Certainly there have been seismic shifts in Ford’s past. There were five decades of success as the Falcon Car Company, until we started falling out of love with sedans. Then visionary product ingenuity saw the related Territory of 2004 blaze a lone trail as Australia’s own SUV, right up to when the factories closed a dozen years later. Highly regarded, the latter remained a superior proposition against crossover contemporaries costing thrice the price. What a legacy, then, for the ‘new’ Endura to live up to. “Don’t call it the Territory replacement!” exclaims Ford, presumably as it’s diesel-only, five-seater only and,…

A 911 GT2 RS IN GUARDS RED IS A MAGNIFICENTLY OBNOXIOUS CONTRIVANCE THIS COULD TAKE some explaining. We’re parked on snow at the top of Mount McKay, the highest navigable road in the nation, and our Porsche 911 GT2 RS is about to fall off a cliff. For every metre the car creeps forward, its tail slides 10 centimetres sideways down the icy camber of the track towards the precipice. Unless something changes, 15 metres from now I’m going to be forever known as the guy who oversteered a million-dollar car to destruction. At 3km/h. The original plan was to drive from Bright up and over Tawonga Gap, sidle through Mount Beauty as unobtrusively as possible in a car that looks and sounds as if it has just driven off…

SOMETIMES IT pays to ask. A couple of years ago, I was having lunch with the head of McLaren’s PR operation. I mentioned to him that a number of British publications had run long-term McLarens and that if the model worked for them, why couldn’t it work for Wheels? Surprisingly, he agreed. After a whole lot of wheedling with the local press team, the phone call eventually came that there was a McLaren 570GT available and would we like to take delivery? We didn’t need asking twice. We’re a broad church here at Wheels and the Mac would make a punchy counterpoint in Garage to the usual hatches and SUVs. McLaren splits its range into three tiers. At the top is the Ultimate Series – mega money hypercars like the…

BRASSY ’60s jazz-rock outfit Blood, Sweat & Tears sang “what goes up, must come down,” in their 1969 hit ‘Spinning Wheel’. They were right, of course, as affirmed some three centuries earlier by Sir Isaac Newton and that apple. So it was that after several weeks of sun, surf and sand in Sydney, we succumbed to gravity and pointed the Santa Fe’s nose back towards Melbourne. Having made our way north via the Hume’s easy-driving dual carriageway, it made sense to test the Highlander on the longer but undeniably more scenic and entertaining Princes Highway. Steaming south, with the kids strapped in and a full load, we noticed the Santa Fe occasionally finding its bump stops on some of the road’s more prominent humps and bumps. Whether this was due…

LETTER OF THE MONTH “THE COMMODORE “ AND ASTRA ARE NOW PSA PRODUCTS” KNOW WHEN TO HOLDEN I write with regards last month’s news item suggesting multinational automotive distributor Inchcape is looking take over importation of Holden to Australia from General Motors. Even without direct knowledge of any Inchcape/GM/Holden machinations, I think we can put together some of the pieces and start to see a picture. Inchcape is the Groupe PSA product importer for brands including Peugeot and Citroen. Opel is now owned by PSA. As a result, the Commodore (Insignia) and Astra are now PSA products. Future Opel products will be based on PSA platforms. Inchcape have an interest in being able to offer all PSA products to the markets it operates in. That may include those manufactured by…

LIVING TO THE age of 30 is a fairly simple process. First you need to be born without any major underlying genetic defects, avoid BASE jumping as a pastime and look up from your phone when you cross the road. But it’s not such an easy ride in car years. For a single nameplate to maintain largely unfaltering sales in virtually every corner of the planet for more than three decades requires something Herculean. That’s why turning up to your cousin’s 30th with a bottle of something fizzy and a hug is fine, but doing the equivalent for the world’s favourite sportscar is not. Over its four generations, the Mazda MX-5 has had more special editions than Tim Tams, including one to celebrate its 10th anniversary and another when it…

YOU CAN’T BLAME Queen for continuing to tour long after Freddie Mercury’s death, but you’d have to think their paying fans would be a little disappointed. Let’s not put too fine a point on it, but while the others are all very well and good, you’d know deep down you were missing out on the very best member. That’s exactly how Australia’s power-hungry performance-car fans must have felt when HSV, now starved of home-grown product, finally introduced the Camaro to its local line-up last year, but then went and left the ‘Freddie’ of the range – the fire-breathing, petrol-obliterating ZL1 – at home, instead turning its attention to converting the comparatively mild sixth-generation 2SS Coupe from left-hook to right-hand drive instead. Here we were at last getting our hands on…

FOR A CAR that kicked off its segment in the ’70s, defined the decade of excess that followed, then matured respectfully with the sober ’90s while still being able to push the envelope right out with the otherworldly M3, the BMW 3 Series has lately been stuck in a rut while copycat rivals have risen. Most pundits agree that the Bavarians lost their way around the mid-2000s, when the patchy E90 fell short of its now-fabled E46 predecessor. And though much improved, the F30 successor of 2012 couldn’t hit the old heights. Is the reign of the 3 Series over for good? Not if Munich has its way. Pulling out all stops, the all-new G20 migrates to the marque’s ‘Cluster Architecture’ underpinning every other longitudinal engined/rear-drive-based BMW (and Toyota’s Supra).…

AS THE corporate jet touches down at Essendon Airport on the morning of August 22, 2018, the heavy-set, lantern-jawed executive in the back has a lot on his mind. Mark Reuss is on a rescue mission, flying close air support for both the troubled GM Holden operation he once led, and its new Chairman and Managing Director Dave Buttner, who weeks earlier had been parachuted into the Fishermans Bend hot seat. It’s a fair bet that the man who now sits in the presidential chair in GM’s global operations has better ways to fill his days than the marathon 20-plus-hour flight Down Under. As does his travelling companion, Mike Simcoe, the former Holden designer who penned 2001’s born-again Monaro and is now Vice President of GM’s global design operations in…

The road from Mt Beauty to Falls Creek climbs 1187m over 30km and comprises 237 bends. From Falls, there’s another 311m to climb to the summit of Mt McKay at 1849m. This is a few metres higher than The Cross at Hotham, Australia’s highest piece of blacktop. The road to Falls was originally built as part of the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme, shortly after World War II, with the first ski lodge built in 1948 and the first rope-tow lift commissioned in 1951.…

YOU SHOULD pity our editor, Alex Inwood. Not because of his job, he drives some of the world’s greatest cars all around the globe, so he gets zero pity for that. No, you should pity Alex because he has to suffer me, and because he loves cricket. In the summer months, Inwood switches on every TV within eyesight of his office and tunes them all to the cricket. He monitors the lot like a Wall Street stockbroker, greedily devouring every piece of the action. At least until yours truly wanders through and asks such probing questions as: “Who’s playing?”; “Why is everyone wearing white?” And “What do you mean the game goes for five days!?” Yes, I am a cricketing cul de sac, having been raised in a family with…

AS YOU’LL HAVE noted from the opener to this Garage section, I’m currently in the rather excessive and embarrassing position of running two long termers: one is the current Wheels Car of the Year, and the other is a bona fide carbon-tub, doors-go-up supercar. So you can see why that combo is worth putting up with a bit of stink-eye in the office for. As a result of the McLaren arriving, I’ve been able to spread the good news about the Volvo XC40 a little wider, and the recipients of the Enright largesse this month were video director Josh Robinson and photographer Ellen Dewar. I don’t think I’m offering too much in the way of a spoiler to let you know that you’re set for one heck of a comparo…

PRESTON THOMAS TUCKER was a big man who dreamed even bigger. Seventy years after the demise of his ambitious rear-engined Tucker 48 (aka Torpedo) car, the jury is still out on whether he was a visionary or a highly polished flim-flam man. What’s beyond doubt is that Preston Tucker, born in 1903, had petrol in his veins. He left school in his mid-teens to be an office boy at Cadillac, joined a Michigan police force at 19 to drive pursuit cars and, perhaps inevitably, gravitated to selling cars. He partnered with genius Harry Miller to build 10 Indy 500 racers for Ford in 1935. When they failed, he pitched designs for a military car and a fighter aircraft, from his backyard in Michigan. Detroit’s Big Three had developed no new…