Wheels -julkaisun August 2018 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

Missing this year’s event had a particular sting. Not only had Wheels negotiated its way into the passenger seat of the Brabham BT62, which was making its global dynamic debut (Ben Oliver, lucky bugger, took my spot; p14), but the scuttlebutt was Goodwood would finally deliver our first proper look at the fifth-gen Toyota Supra; a car that, along with the all-new Corolla, shows Australia’s largest car brand is committed to dialling up the excitement, and driver appeal, throughout its model range. (A camouflaged Supra did hit the hillclimb; see p60). Then there was the intrigue of Volkswagen’s ID R prototype; the bewinged and fiendishly complicated electric racer that arrived at Goodwood hoping to obliterate the record for the fastest run up the hill, just as it had done at…

Holden isn’t the only local brand to see movement at the top of its corporate hierarchy. Ford Australia and New Zealand announced the appointment of Kay Hart as its new President and CEO in July, replacing outgoing boss Graeme Whickman. Hart has prior form as a Ford MD, having helmed Ford Philippines between 2013 and 2015, however she comes to Australia from Ford’s ‘Team Edison’ battery-electric division, based in the USA. She has also worked for many years in marketing-related roles for the Blue Oval.…

1. EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED But at the same time, it’s stayed the same. Forester now sits on the Subaru Global Platform that first appeared under the current Impreza and XV, and the rest of the car has been overhauled to suit. It’s a big step forward, but Subaru hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Much of what has made Forester appealing in the past to a legion of buyers has carried over. It may be all-new, but there’s a likeable familiarity about the fresh Forester. 2. IT’S GROWN The Forester’s body is now 20mm wider and 15mm longer, and 30mm has been added to the wheelbase. This brings 20mm more room between front occupants’ shoulders, and 33mm more rear legroom – a lot considering the old car was…

Former Holden senior executive and Mitsubishi Australia chief Robert McEniry has died, aged 71. “His legacy and contribution to the automotive industry cannot be understated, the Australian Automotive industry has lost a great friend”, reads the final line in an obituary notice posted by GM Holden. McEniry played a vital role in the development of Australia’s car-making industry. After cutting his product planning teeth on the VN Commodore, he was later instrumental in laying the foundations for the Commodore’s first – and last – truly indigenous architecture, the Zeta platform.…

The never-ending hilarity of having Byron ‘Maureen Glory’ Mathioudakis at the other end of the phone line always adds sunshine to my day. And, on occassion, cars to my stable. His fleet of ‘shitboxes’ serves as a shining example of what it means to love cars – even a COTY-winning ’64 Morris 1100, which he’ll never sell – but my ‘new’ ’69 Peugeot 404 may be the finest of all. “If we had to choose one car in which to drive around Australia on one minute’s notice, that car would be a Peugeot 404”, wrote Wheels in 1972.…

Powertrain tech; successful Eco mode; adaptive suspension Slight performance trade-off; minimal exterior changes 01 EYE POD Redesigned LED lighting is the clearest facelift giveaway. ‘Compound-eye’ headlights are standard for C200, Multibeam units will be optional locally. 02 TOUCH UPS Multi-function wheel from S-Class brings swipeable thumbpads for enhanced control of the central screen menus and digital gauge cluster functions. 03 COLOUR CODE Two new paint hues (a silver and a green), new upholstery colours, new trim finishes and new alloy wheel designs mean C-Class is more customisable than before.…

AUDI’S new Q5 3.0 TDI subverts Australia’s love of ‘badge bragging’ by concealing serious punch within an understated exterior. Propulsion comes from a reworked version of the 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 diesel found in the old Q5, though outputs rise to a meaty 210kW and 620Nm (up 30kW/30Nm). That torque figure actually eclipses the (now petrol powered) SQ5 flagship. It’s a beautifully smooth unit, and refinement has been given a further boost with very little of that typical oil-burner rattle. There’s even a throaty induction growl that belies the engine’s diesel diet. Peak torque is available at 1500rpm and continues through to 3000rpm, which, paired with an intuitve and smooth-shifting eight-speed automatic, ensures the 3.0 TDI makes short work of standing starts and overtakes. The quickest diesel Q5 has a tea-totalling…

PROBLEMS are few and far between for the Sportage, but Kia admits there’s one concerning issue with its mid-size SUV: it’s not popular enough with men. Ergo, it’s applied a subtle facelift to its two-year-old Sportage in a bid to impart some masculine charm. Air dams enlarge, bumper contours become sharper and wheel designs get more extroverted, but there are no sheetmetal alterations. To the layman, the differences will be pretty hard to spot. Do they result in a more gender-neutral look? Well, we’re not so sure that the pre-update Sportage was overtly feminine to begin with. Good thing there are more meaningful differences under the skin. In the cabin there’s a new infotainment package with one of the slickest, fast-reacting touchscreens in the segment. Measuring 7.0-inches across in the…

THE TOYOTA Gazoo Racing Super Sport concept first seen at January’s Tokyo Auto Salon is set to spawn a road car, as well as an entry for a new hypercar-based class at Le Mans in 2020. The wild-looking GR Super Sport, which is based on the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning LMP1 proto TS050 Hybrid, shares the racer’s carbonfibre construction, mid-mounted 2.4-litre twin-turbo petrol V6 hybrid powertrain and all-wheel drive. Toyota announced its intention to develop the concept into a road car at Le Mans using “mostly the same main parts” but detuned very slightly from the WEC version’s 735kW to 720kW to fall within the provisional regulations for the class, for which the Aston Martin Valkyrie and McLaren Senna are also eligible. Toyota Gazoo Racing says its goal…

While he ranted against garages for creating clutter (he also refused to include attics or basements in his houses for the same reason), Lloyd Wright’s (right) love of the carport was also driven by its ability to make cars a visual feature of a home. Justin W. Gunther, the director of Fallingwater, says it made sense to the great architect that “you want to be able to see your car, not hide it away”. “He would always have the most up-to-date cars feature in photos of his buildings. When he started out, he was looking at this as a new form of transport – the design of them, the speed, the power – and he was looking at these new ideas in architecture and seeing parallels,” he says. “He was…

“Very quick in the slalom, even when brand new on scrubbing runs,” read Renato’s notes, which were backed up by the data. The GT Radial was convincingly quicker than the rest of the field, but it also impressed with its “all-round great driving performance and very consistent feel”, and was a tyre that allowed the driver to easily feel the limits of grip. The silver-medallist Hankook also garnered praise for being “super consistent” and “very direct and communicative”, while the Falken felt “immediately grippy on the slalom, with almost no sliding whatsoever (without serious provocation)”.…

VEHICLE TYPE Some tyres start with a letter indicating the intended vehicle type. Passenger car tyres start with ‘P’; space-savers start with ‘T’ for temporary. SECTION WIDTH The nominal section width of the tyre in millimetres. This is the width between the outer sidewalls at their widest point, rather than the width of the tread. ASPECT RATIO The aspect ratio is a two-digit number describing the sidewall height as a percentage of the section width. Our 245/45R18 tyre has a sidewall that is 45 percent of 245mm. That is 0.45 x 235mm = 110.25mm. SPEED RATING Tyre speed rating represents the maximum speed the tyre is rated to for sustained driving. It is illegal to fit tyres with a lower speed rating than that specified by the car manufacturer. Passenger…

It’s the one discipline that separates the mighty from the mediocre by a big margin … and we’re talking about brand new, correctly inflated, high-spec tyres here! Not the worn, flaccid, often terrifying treads (or lack thereof) so often seen in the carparks of Australia. Much as it played out last year, the worst-performing tyre in the wet took more than four metres longer to stop than our braking champion, the Falken Azenis FK510. The Momo actually felt good and performed dependably during the braking tests. “Braking performance in both wet and dry was consistent,” reported Ren. It turned out the stopping distance was consistent too – consistently long. Yet it was the wet braking discipline that betrayed the final finishing order of our bottom five. The top four wet…

Praised for its “all-round great driving performance”, the GT Radial was notably quiet from the get-go. “Not squeally or schreechy in turns, a very consistent feel, and quiet,” remarked Renato of the GT Radial’s hushed manners. Indeed, it was the only tyre that prompted any seat-of-the-pants comment about its perceived refinement, backing up the SPL meter’s winning findings. The next eight tyres – Falken, Continental, Maxxis, BFGoodrich, Nexen, Achilles, Vitora and Momo – all recorded an identical 58.0 dB, which perhaps says more about the lack of a really rough, country-road-rivalling surface at our test facility than any real-world equivalence.…

How’d the Suzi fare at Winton? Well, with a fastest lap of 1:46.35, it was the fastest B-segment hot hatch on the day. Speed peaked at 156km/h on the front straight, while Winton’s challenging turn-five sweeper saw the Suzuki sustain an average of 120km/h and 1.0G in cornering force. The latter appeared to be the practical limit of its chassis, but considering the Sport’s Continentals are only a mid-grade performance tyre, we’re salivating at how it’d handle if fitted with some stickier rubber.…

Queenslanders, keep a look out for stickered-up Stingers in your rear-view. After a period of evaluation, the Road Policing Command is looking to put 50 Stingers on its fleet by Christmas. “It was not a big step at all once we had begun the investigation process,” said Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan. “It’s about providing the best equipment for those at the coal face.” And Queensland may just be the first; Kia claims other Aussie law enforcement agencies are set to follow suit.…

“PETER HANENBERGER’S EXTRA VALUE IS THAT HE IS A VERY FAST, VERY COMPETENT DRIVER – ONE OF THE TWO OR THREE BEST I’VE RIDDEN WITH.” In the early 1970s Australian car buyers looking for responsive dynamics bought European. Holdens, engineered under American George Roberts, formerly of Cadillac, rode softly and understeered excessively. To fix the problem new managing director Chuck Chapman and chief engineer Joe Whitesell enticed 34-year-old Opel chassis guru Hanenberger to Holden with a brief to force change through the previously inert system and to fix Holden’s handling problems. The result was far more than simply firming up the springs and dampers. Led by the inspirational Hanenberger, Holden’s previously frustrated chassis engineers moved the position of the front suspension pick-up points and geometry for a far more fundamental…

1 Bahn crawler Goggomobils were no joke in Germany: from 1955-’69, some 214,313 sedans, 66,511 coupes and 3667 vans and pickups were built. 2 Didn’t Buckle Bill Buckle (OAM since 2014) was formidable in his Buckle coupe, winning circuit races and claiming hillclimb records throughout NSW and Victoria. 3 Rubber band In 1962, Glas’ development of larger, four-cylinder cars produced the first commercially viable, toothed rubber belt-driven ohc. 4 It is the Dart Not the Dart … Goggo sedan was the star of the 1990s Yellow Pages commercial, before insurer Shannons copied the idea, using the Dart. 5 Side loader Buckle’s Goggomobil Carry All Van had an FC Holden wagon roof (in fibreglass) and windscreen, and a side-loading roller door. Just 15 were made.…

IN MARCH this year, a customer took delivery of a blue, $5.5m Pagani Huayra Roadster, the first official Pagani to be sold in Australia. The one person more excited than the customer was Bobby Zagame – because, as the Australian importer of Pagani, he gets to order another one, and another one… Zagame, 52, has never lost his childhood passion for cars. It still takes him longer to leave the office than it should; with his Richmond emporium being the Victorian dealer for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, McLaren, Rolls-Royce, Maserati and Lotus, there are too many distractions. “I do turn back and look,” he says. “So nothing’s changed! Even though I sit in an environment of supercars, every one of them I just love looking at.” Quietly spoken Zagame, the…

If you’re a subscriber, you’ll notice your cover is radically different this month. Drawn by Wheels art director Felipe Ubilla, the striking image of Toyota’s forthcoming A90 Supra is a homage to the anime/manga-style sketches sometimes found in Japanese car magazines. With Toyota’s upcoming onslaught of exciting models set as the cover theme, and no shots of the production Supra available to work with (we’re expecting to finally see the Supra in full just before its international launch in September), Felipe’s solution is a departure for Wheels, but we hope you agree that it’s a good one.…

HIGHLIGHTS: The first half of the year is done and dusted, and there are clear winners among the mainsteam brands. Honda’s sales are up 34% year-to-date, with most of the gain attributed to the CR-V (up 202%) – the Civic is also up 17%. Mitsubishi is up 11 percent with help from Eclipse Cross and ASX, while Isuzu, with the MU-X seven-seater (up 17%) as its only passenger car, is also up 11%. Kia is up 9% on the strength of Picanto (up 79 percent) and Carnival sales (up 14%). Outside the Top 20, Great Wall is up 47% (336 sales plays 228) year-to-date, Alfa Romeo is up 25% and Ferrari is up 19% or 20 cars. LOWLIGHTS Among the volume sellers Holden has slipped the furthest, at 23%, compared…

Skoda has topped the latest Roy Morgan customer satisfaction survey. The research, which covers the 12 months to April 2018, and is collated from “in-depth personal interviews” with more than 40,000 car owners, shows that overall satisfaction with car manufacturers in Australia was at 92.6 percent. Skoda rated the highest with new buyers, with a customer satisfaction rating of 97.5 percent, up a significant 5 percent over its score last year. In second was Isuzu Ute, with 96.4 percent satisfaction, ahead of Suzuki (95.3 percent), Mazda (95.2 percent), and Subaru (95.1 percent).…

I’ve found that when it comes to cars and most other topics besides, the very rich aren’t very different at all. Except that, as Ernest Hemingway later pointed out, “they have more money” – and they’re usually smarter than us in the way they spend it. One of the people I was chatting with on this cruise was Theo Onisforou, lawyer, property developer and former chief investment manager for Kerry Packer. He was telling me about how he’d not long ago decided to buy a Ferrari … but ended up buying four instead. “I decided I finally deserved a Ferrari,” Onisforou told me. He set himself a budget of $700,000 “I’ve had some financial success in my working life, and I decided I finally deserved a Ferrari,” Onisforou told me…

It’s hard to believe that Ford has omitted autonomous emergency braking (AEB) from the Raptor given that it’s available on other cheaper Ranger versions and is a feature commonly found on $15K light cars. When asked why, VP of Asia Pacific Product Development Trevor Worthington said that there had been issues with sensor positioning and inappropriate interventions when using existing Ranger AEB tech. “We didn’t want to bring a half-arsed solution to market,” he said. “We had to take into account the usage profile of the Raptor and the feasibility of fitting it [AEB] to Job 1 [early tranche] vehicles.” He also stated that a next-gen AEB pack suitable for off-road use will appear on Aussie Raptors at some point in 2019.…

ONCE upon a time there was a Japanese car company that earned a loyal fan base by building appealing, accessible cars with the kind of spirit people didn’t normally associate with vehicles of their price or format. That brand was called Toyota. Maybe you remember it? For a long time, ‘Fun To Drive’ was the tagline of its Japanese advertising. Cars such as Corolla sat at the affordable end of its model line-up yet still had verve engineered into them. We didn’t know how good we had it until it was gone. Economic conservatism brought about years of moderated blandness. Showrooms leveraged a reputation built in the better times to pedal ageing, monotone products with a decreasing amount of merit. But now, there’s something’s in the water again at Toyota…

Frank Lloyd Wright has been described as “one of the 20th century’s biggest automotive obsessives”, and owned more than 80 cars in his time, choosing only those he felt represented “thoughtful design, elegance and performance”. His collection included various Jaguars and Mercedes-Benzes and a 1953 Bentley R-Type convertible, but he was a proud Yank in the main, buying a 1937 AC 16/80 Competition Sports; five 1949 Crosleys, two Cord L-29s; and a modified 1940 Lincoln Continental. Nearly all of his cars were painted in the “Cherokee Red” he favoured for much of the furniture he also designed, a hue he called “the colour of creation”, and one that was originally a Lincoln paint colour.…

You would’ve thought that simply jamming on the picks as hard as you can and letting the anti-lock braking system (ABS) sort out the rest was a given in a modern car. And it is, but not without one big variable – tyres. Punished over the same section of coarse-chip bitumen at the back of Sydney Dragway, our Dry Braking test was judged by averaging three individual stops from 80km/h, with the Commodore’s brakes allocated equal time and distance to cool down between each run, for every tyre. A control set was also deployed at regular intervals to gauge any change in surface condition or tarmac temperature. More than 50 dry-surface emergency stops gave us both the stopping distance in metres – the data we used to score each tyre…

Even more so than the wet braking discipline, Wet Cornering proved a definitive differentiator between the greats and not-so-greats of the group. Measured by entering a consistently soaked double-apex left-hander at 60km/h, the Commodore revving hard in third gear, Renato would squeeze on power and build G-force during the first part of the corner before truly testing the wet threshold at the slippery second apex. While the Momo achieved a higher limit than the Hifly and Vitora bottom-enders, it compounded a below-par wet braking performance by giving up when push came to shove. “At 0.92G it was fine and controllable; at 0.93G it massively understeered,” commented our testing ace. The GT Radial clearly telegraphed its limit of grip (with a 0.95G average), however “the transition from max grip to slip…

The Falken proved “incredibly consistent”, managing to clock a stellar wet braking performance only marginally longer than its dry braking distance. How much? Try just 33mm! And it kept improving with each wet stop, clocking 25.8m first time out and a field-beating 25.1m on its final wet run, eclipsing the highly capable but not quite as consistent Hankook’s best run by 0.3m. Just like its dry braking, however, the Continental topped the field with just half a metre between its best (25.7m) and worst (26.2m) wet-braking stops. The GT Radial and Achilles matched the Continental’s consistency, but added braking distance with each run, whereas the Conti improved.…

Finding myself north of the border when the odo ticked past 15,000km meant DQC55W served its first minor service with just over 16,000km on the clock. Not that it complained, with the only sign it was due for a tune up found in the development of a slight delay when shifting from drive to reverse, or vice versa. At times it felt like a stumble as the ’box loitered in neutral. Volvo’s technicians diagnosed a software problem as the likely cause and with the service now complete, it hasn’t occurred since.…

How’s ya bin? A bomb in a rubbish bin explodes outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street Sydney, killing three and injuring eleven. Allegations Australian security forces may have been responsible spark controversy. Shoot to chill The arcade game Space Invaders is released. The game, in which waves of aliens are shot with a laser, went on to become a pop culture icon and is credited with helping expand the video game industry. Sat-nav switched on The first global positioning system satellite, Navstar1, is launched on Feb 22, into an orbit 20,000km above the earth. The 1990 Eunos Cosmo is the first car with built-in GPS nav – today there are 33 Navstar sats.…

Sergio Marchionne has stepped down as the head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ferrari, due to health complications following shoulder surgery. In his place, Jeep and Ram boss Mike Manley (left) will pick up the mantle as head of FCA, while Agnelli family progeny John Elkann will take over at the prancing horse. The car giant has now revealed Manley was already lined up to replace Marchionne, who was due to retire at the end of the year. The abrupt restructure ends Marchionne’s 14-year tenure.…

But what if you’ve been doing your childhood-fantasy job from the get-go? Trust me, it makes leaving that much harder. If you’ve been doing your fantasy job from the get-go, it makes leaving that much harder My career as a motoring hack came to fruition in 2000 doing anything I possibly could, for whatever freelance rate they were willing to pay me, at Wheels, alongside Robbo, Micmac, Carey, Stahly, Pagey, and anyone else fortunate enough to be part of the magazine’s family. But after 17 years as part of the furniture in ACP/Bauer’s motoring stable, I write this merely hours before I hand back my security pass, destined to never sleep under my desk or smoke in the Stockland House toilets again. I mentioned my intention to accept a role…

A naked Raptor chassis buck clearly demonstrated commonality with the Everest SUV front end, the Raptor sharing that vehicle’s rails from front to B-pillar. The lengthened T6 ladder frame comprises three conjoined sections, with the rear-end custom built to accommodate the wider track and Raptorspecific modified Watts link rear suspension. Raptor comes out of the same Thai plant as Everest, and, despite popularity, will continue to adhere to Ford’s 10-year product lifecycle for commercials. And yes, the Raptor does have the same tail lights as a 2011 MY Ranger.…

The Stelvio’s side profile, without glass aft of the rear doors, has the look of an oversized hatch rather than an SUV/wagon like most of the class. Yet with a 525-litre cargo bay – or 499 litres if you opt for a space-saver rather than an inflator kit – it’s certainly an SUV, and is about on par with the Mercedes GLC (505 litres), Volvo XC60 (490 litres) and Porsche Macan (500 litres) for carrying stuff. Though it is shaded by the Jaguar F-Pace (650 litres) and the BMW X3 and Audi Q5 (550 litres).…

Lloyd Wright was a famous procrastinator, but man, could he deliver when required. After a lengthy back and forth with his client, Edgar Kaufmann, over his radical ideas for Fallingwater, the eventual owner of the home shouted at him over the phone that he’d had enough of theoretical discussions and was driving around to see these mad plans. The problem was, the great architect hadn’t actually done them yet. Legend has it that he simply sat down with some blank sheets of paper and drew the whole thing, from three different aspects, in the two hours it took Kaufmann to get to him. It’s a story Lloyd Wright tells in his autobiography, but it’s been confirmed by his apprentices, who sat, in awe, watching him work, and sharpening his pencils…

SERIOUSLY, after all this time, you’d think there’d be no more barn finds left to find. With the classic car market frothing like champagne in a blender, surely there isn’t an unopened shed left in the world. Everyone’s dream is to lift a rusty garage door and discover your elderly aunt has been hiding a long-lost Facel Vega, once owned by Elvis. In 2018, aren’t we at least a decade too late for all that? Well, the stories keep coming: in 2016 a Lamborghini Miura was dragged out of a tiny back-street garage in the US, covered in dust, after nearly 20 years in hibernation. In 2017, Steve McQueen’s Bullitt Mustang, no less, turned up in a Mexican scrapyard after being lost for nearly 50 years. And now this car.…

The swerve-and-recover test, or slalom – just like the skiing event – is an efficient way to gather meaningful data on a tyre’s transient grip level in less than 10 seconds. Across more than 50 runs (including control-tyre stints), Renato only spun the ESC-disabled Commodore once – a 180-degree slide wearing the Momo tyres before they’d been scrubbed in properly. Yet there was plenty of oversteer action as each brand-new set of tyres had their surfaces scuffed to enable the tabulation of consistent, meaningful results. A tyre’s slalom performance reflects its real-world ability to swerve to avoid an obstacle, however the feedback it gives us about confidence-inspiring feel, well-telegraphed handling responses – or otherwise – as well as steering consistency is invaluable. The GT Radial’s victory here was undisputed –…

Not only did the Hankook record a solid 1.1G for all its braking runs, it was the only tyre to sneak under 25 metres for stopping distance – 30cm shorter than the consistently powerful Continental. Interestingly, much like their performance in the slalom, the Hankook, Continental and Falken crowded the top-end of this year’s field, each earning plenty of praise from our driver. “In terms of wet and dry braking performance, it’s the best tyre we’ve tested so far today” said Renato, with the Hankooks wrapped around the Holden’s 18s. But it was the Continental that proved the most consistent, clocking a 25.1m in its first run and a pair of 25.2s thereafter.…

Only three tyres managed 1G or greater in the wet-cornering exercise and, once again, the Falken proved its worth in challenging conditions. With the highest peak G (1.020, on its first and last runs) and an overall average of 1.007G, the Falken underscored why it’s such a superlative all-rounder – “incredible grip in wet cornering; almost no sliding at all doing 73km/h” commented Renato, even though it only needed to complete the exercise at 60km/h. Renato could keep adding power and the star wet-cornering tyres – Falken, Continental, Maxxis, and Hankook – could cop the greater load before transitioning predictably into the inevitable front tyre slip.…

Few surfaces in the world can match the noise generation of an Australian coarse-chip road, so tyre noise does play a vital part in the driving performance of your vehicle. Indeed, the test Commodore RS’s original-equipment Continental ContiSportContact 5 tyres each feature a layer of foam coating inside the tyre to cut down road noise – something that’s instantly evident when comparing those 245/45R18 tyres to the more aggressive 245/35ZR20 Michelin Pilot Sports on the up-spec VXR. One of the ways low-rolling-resistance eco tyres save fuel is by turning comparatively little of their kinetic energy into road roar, and the opposite was definitely true of the grippy Hankook. The best-performing tyre in the dry – the Hankook Ventus S1 Evo 2 – also proved the loudest at 60km/h on the…

From the outset, it was clear the Falken Azenis FK510 was in with a real shot. “Extremely consistent; feels like a real high-performance tyre,” was Renato’s initial comment about this year’s winner, and the data consistently backed up that seat-of-the-pants assessment. With a 98.5 percent total score, the Falken Azenis FK510 is one of the strongest performers we’ve ever had in a Tyre Test. Close thirds in the Slalom and Dry Braking were merely the entree for its wet-surface performance, which was consistently superior to the rest of the field. “Super-consistent the whole way through,” was Renato’s succinct summation of its many talents, and at an average online price of $222 per tyre, it’s smack-bang in the pricing ballpark of the top four tyres (spanning $220 to $235 each). Looking…

I’m still a fan of this Pug’s slick infotainment interface, but system weaknesses, including blank screens, unresponsive buttons and complete resets, have occurred. The on-screen keyboard’s alphabetical layout, rather than QWERTY, is another, painfully unintuitive bugbear. Weirder still are the false alarms; intermittent service requests that switch the main screen into navigation mode with highlighted routes to nearby service centres, then vanish a short time later.…