Table of contents for June 2025 in Wheels

RETRO RULES I was pleased to see the VL Commodore featured in Modern Classic (Wheels, April 2025). It’s always good to see an article about a car you’ve owned, and I had three VLs – a Calais, Calais Turbo and an SV88. With the first two, the Nissan engine/transmission combo was brilliant, the turbo being some pretty thick icing on the cake. It was a rocket ship and you had to keep a wary eye out for those yellow NSW police cars. The SV88 was arguably a backward step with a carby V8 and Trimatic but it had loads of torque and emptied the 80-litre tank very quickly. The radar detector was a useful addition. Nostalgia rules! Eric Groszmann, Port Macquarie, NSW THE ART OF DRIVING It’s been a holiday…

SAVE ON THE COVER PRICE FREE DELIVERY TO YOUR DOORSTEP BONUS DIGITAL ACCESS TO EVERY PAST ISSUE OF WHEELS PLUS EARLY ACCESS TO THE LATEST ISSUE BEFORE IT GOES ON SALE SIMPLY select a package: 6 ISSUES $59 SAVE 25% 12 ISSUES $109 SAVE 30% 24 ISSUES $199 SAVE 36% THENcontact us by scanning the code or phone our new Australian-based call centre on (02) 8315 2092 or visit secure.whichcar.com.au/wheels Offer valid until 30 May 2025. Prices shown are in AUD and available for Australian delivery only. Discounts represent the percentage saving on the cover price. Digital only access valued at $59 p/a. Offer valid for new subscriptions and renewals of existing subscriptions. If you have a current print subscription, you are entitled to free digital access. Please email subscriptions@wheelsmedia.com.au or phone our…

THE FIRST ELECTRIC Mini with a full-fat John Cooper Works performance package has arrived. It’s part of a five-model JCW lineup for 2025 which covers the whole Mini range for the first time. That means the electric Cooper hatchback and Aceman wagon, the combustion-engined Mini Cooper as both a three-door hatch and convertible, as well as the familyfocussed SUV-style Countryman. They have all been tweaked with a little more power and new suspension tuning. The new JCW crew is not as extreme as earlier cars, cutting back on the pop-bang exhaust and some of the over-tight suspension, but signals a major milestone. “This marks the completion of our new Mini family. This is the biggest investment we’ve ever done into the Mini brand,” says Alex Brockhoff, general manager of Mini…

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE. It’s a real thing. As consumers we can become overwhelmed by a vast variety of options and it happens to us all, whether it’s scrolling endlessly through Netflix or ending up walking out with a bottle of water because the coffee options in a cafe extended to three pages. Now, more than ever, it’s affecting the way that we choose cars, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the way that vehicle manufactures sell hybrid technology. In short, it appears that there are infinite technological solutions that all aim to target much the same end point: reducing fuel consumption and emissions while retaining or augmenting vehicle performance. Some are more effective than others. The end result of this cornucopia of options is that we can…

CAR vs ROAD MG ZS ESSENCE TURBO Sydney - Broken Hill - Albury MG’S RISE TO SALES STARDOM in the Australian new car market has been nothing short of gobsmacking. A big departure from the former-British MG that folded in 2005, “MG 2.0” under Chinese ownership has been flying up the sales charts since it relaunched locally in 2016, with over 50,000 units sold in 2024 alone. Unlike the MG of old, new MG’s chief appeal has been its strong value equation. Nowadays, it’s disappointingly difficult to find a new car for under $30,000 but MG offers three, in the process claiming buyers who used to be lining up for new sub-$20k Toyota. Considering that the cheapest new Toyota now asks comfortably over $30,000 to drive away, it’s no surprise to…

ACROSS THE PREVIOUS 59 INSTALMENTS of Driven To Extinction, we have featured just one Mitsubishi – the Mirage back in March 2022. The reason? Mitsubishi rarely kills its cars off. They just seem to soldier on in perpetuity until they run into the buffers of external forces. Take the Mitsubishi ASX as a case in point. By any measure, this has been a hugely successful vehicle in Australia. It’s been on sale here for 15 years in its first generation GA guise, having enjoyed a number of minor cosmetic nips and tucks along the way. It hasn’t been that way around the world. Over in Europe, the ASX became a rebadged Renault Captur in 2023, and that was spectacularly short-lived, being replaced by a version based on the Captur II just…

THERE IS AN ACTIVE PLAN to inject the sound and fury of old-school V10 combustion engines back into Formula One. After more than a decade with high-tech V6 turbo hybrid powerplants, which have failed to excite fans while adding massively to the cost and complication of grand prix cars, the power players in F1 are looking at a new direction. It won’t happen immediately because there are already rules about a simplified hybrid system for season 2026 that deletes energy recovery from the exhaust system. But there have been some high-level meetings and quiet talks about a change for 2029, triggered by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. Among those involved in discussions were Mercedes-Benz’s chairman Ola Kaellenius, Audi’s CEO Gernot Doellner and General Motors’ president Mark Reuss. One of the key…

IN LAST MONTH’S ISSUE we reviewed the new ‘G45’ BMW X3 20, which is the fourth generation of the brand’s most popular product globally, and found it to be a force to be reckoned with if you’re searching for a premium mid-size SUV. But with just 140kW of power, while it moves fine it’s never going to set your heart racing. If you’re after a fast X3, what do you do? Enter the high-performance X3 M50 and its 293kW inline six, which is good for a claimed 4.6-second 0-100km/h run and a top whack of 250km/h. It costs a full $42,800 more than the entry-level X3 20 at $128,900 plus on-road costs, but makes more than twice the power and almost twice the torque, and adds a lot in the…

SAY WE BLINDFOLDED YOU. Could you guess a Wheels comparison test based on the sounds of the cars arriving? (Ignore the zip-tied wrists and pillowcase over your head. That’s just for added effect.) A burbling V8 might suggest a Ford Mustang – taking on something like a Toyota Supra, if you also identified a bassy straight-six. The utilitarian thrum of turbodiesels might signal a coming together of dual-cab utes. But what if you heard a sound like someone holding down half a dozen random keys on a keyboard? Electric vehicles (EVs) would be a good guess, but today, the cars arriving are hybrids. The eerie, synthesised hum you’re hearing is an AcousticVehicle Alerting System (AVAS for short). Soon, Australian city streets will hum with various digitised tones from EVs and…

IT HAS JUST 108kW. Hardly the numbers of a giant-killing legend. The Renault Clio Williams is something that can’t really be defined in numbers. Yes, we could point to the fact that its power-to-weight ratio of 110kW per tonne was similar to that of a Golf VR6 but that would be an irrelevance. The thing to know about the Clio Williams was that this was the car that finally moved the hot hatch game on beyond the Peugeot 205 GTI. The 205 was a car that started its development in 1977, with the GTI first appearing in 1983. It was entirely apposite that, when it signed off in 1992, it would hand its mantle to another hot hatch. That car was supposed to be the 206 GTI, but that arrived…

TO BE CLEAR from the start I still haven’t visited a public charging station and based on current performance, I doubt I ever will. The lowest I’ve got down in terms of remaining charge is 7 per cent – it then appeared to stay there for days on end, despite all of my efforts to get it down to near zero. The EQE ultimately won the charging standoff, so now every couple of days – regardless of how much battery life it is showing – I just plug it in at home. Just like the iPhone on my desk charger being fully charged at all times, so is the EQE 53’s status quo. That’s not to say the Merc’s performance SUV hasn’t been doing much travelling. With a couple of…

IF YOU’RE getting simultaneously bored with your stock Porsche 964-series 911 and your sevenfigure petty cash account, here’s the best possible news: Singer Vehicle Design has launched its latest droolworthy suite of restoration services, the Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe Reimagined by Singer. The Carrera Coupe “services” – Singer doesn’t talk in terms of models or series – arguably takes reimagination to new lengths, with a 4.0-litre, variable valve-timing engine developed in conjunction with Cosworth Engineering, and chassis reinforcement input from Red Bull Advanced Technologies. Only 100 commissions are open for this “big-hearted, naturally aspirated sports car” restoration, which picks up the theme of the Super Sport Equipment option that was available on the Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 from 1983-89. Otherwise known as the Turbo look, the Super Sport mated the aspirated…

THE TEXT FROM MY SISTER made me gasp. It was a photo of a muddied badge, “351 GT”, on a burgundy-coloured background. But even after nearly four decades, the recognition was so immediate that I said out loud: “Nev’s car.” Many will have guessed that my late stepfather’s car was a Falcon GT. In fact, it was an XA GT hardtop, one of only 120 with the RPO 83 equipment from the stillborn Phase IV, and the sole XA GT delivered in Sogo Port Wine, a Fairlane colour. The image linked to an online story about this barn find GT that had been wheeled out of a shed in rural Queensland for the first time since 1991 and was now, in May 2021, the subject of an online auction. The…

CAN YOU BELIEVE that it’s been five years since the Toyota GR Yaris burst onto the scene? Toyota’s rally-derived hot hatch was a big moment as it had not made a turbocharged four-wheel drive performance car for more than 20 years. It also arrived with a bang: $39,950 drive away for the first 1000 units, a bespoke body and a new engine that was one of the most powerful three-cylinder units ever. Thanks to its talent, more than 40,000 have been sold globally. Now it’s time for an update, with the GR Yaris undergoing a thorough facelift to make it even sharper and more appealing. Has Toyota done enough to keep it relevant? For starters, it costs more now: beginning at $55,490 plus on-road costs for the GT, with the…

At a nondescript suburban workshop on the outskirts of Melbourne, it looks like a movie crew is setting up to film the sequel to the big-screen epic, Ford versus Ferrari. There are immaculate GT40s parked around the workshop in a scene which could easily be taken from the movie, with all the necessary items to bring them to life. But there is more. A lookalike recreation of a 1960s grand prix car is resting in a corner and there is also a born-again Alfa Romeo T33 which looks as if it could also be leaving soon for Le Mans. It’s all the handiwork of a one-time technician in the British Navy who eventually fled from Ireland to Australia and has since made GT40s into his life and business – while…

DO YOU EVER question your life choices? I do. Every once in a while, I’ll ask myself why I’m running a diesel dual-cab, and it usually comes after I’ve seen something low-slung and nimble drive round the outside of me on a roundabout. That said, there are plenty of occasions where I’ve breathed a sigh of relief that I’m in something that feels vaguely indestructible. That aura of protection is freeing. It means that you don’t have to worry about grounding a low front end, or kerbing a wheel or one of the many tiny errors that can cost you thousands in something a bit more dynamic. I never have to wince when driving up a dirt road or wonder whether there’s a shark’s tooth in the road ahead with…