Sommaire pour March 2017 de Wheels

PORSCHE has announced the start of an ambitious 500kW-plus hybrid assault for its flagship four-door models. The move to utilise electric motors and batteries to boost performance of a mainstream model is the first by a performance car maker, signalling a turning point for the industry as it adapts to tighter emissions regulations and regional requirements for short-range, electric-only driving. Instead of using a modified V8 – as has been the case with Cayennes and Panameras for years – the Panamera Turbo S unveiled at this month’s Geneva motor show utilises a 100kW electric motor to create what will become the most powerful Porsche ever sold in Australia. While the basic shape is identical to any other second-generation Panamera, the Turbo S flagship gets the trademark ‘acid green’ brake calipers…

Key to Holden’s future is new metal. Over the past decade many Holdens have been off the pace and the company is in the process of refreshing or replacing the lot. GM-Holden has confirmed it will introduce 24 “major” new vehicles by 2020, more than half of which have already been announced or introduced. Here are some other important new arrivals slated to revive the company’s fortunes. Astra sedan The booted Astra is a very different vehicle to the Euro-sourced hatch. Built in Korea, the more comfort-oriented Astra sedan won’t share a single panel with the hatch. Sole engine option will be a 1.4-litre turbo-petrol. Commodore Available as a liftback or wagon, the first imported Commodore will be smaller than the VF it replaces. It ditches the V8 option for…

REMEMBER the first Ignis from the turn of this century? This is less like that cheap and cheerless buzzbox, and more like a descendent of the closely-related, high-riding Holden Cruze AWD version also built by Suzuki between 2002 and 2006. Now on an all-new platform, this second-gen, ground-up remake is thematically, as well as proportionally, similar to that GM-badged baby, but boasting a fresh and super-funky look. Riding many millimetres higher (at 180mm) than your regular sub-light car, which the Ignis matches dimensionally, this dinky 3.7m long five-door hatch spearheads the Japanese brand’s assault on the currently empty baby SUV class. The last entrant was Fiat’s failed Panda Trekking. Suzuki, however, has priced its front-drive crossover to succeed. From $15,990, the GL includes sat-nav, a reversing camera, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto,…

CHASING Porsche driving instructor Matthias Hoffsümmer is always educational, but the previous driver of the 911 Carrera 4 GTS I’m in left the two-way in the door pocket turned up to the max. I can understand almost nothing of what Matthias the Quick is saying. The high volume distortion makes him seem excited… or maybe angry. So I simply try to keep the broad tail of the 911 Turbo he’s driving in sight as he leads me and one other Australian around Killarney Raceway. This 3.3km track outside Cape Town in South Africa has the same cheap and dusty feel of some old-school Aussie circuit, including the skimpy run-off areas. The reason Porsche has chosen this place to launch the new GTS line-up is simple. It’s summer time down here…

EVER wondered what an SUV would look like in activewear? Ponder no more because here it is, the Volkswagen Tiguan 162TSI. With the 162kW 2.0-litre turbo engine from the Golf GTI hot hatch slipped under the Tiguan’s bonnet, hooked up to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive, Volkswagen has created a medium SUV that, on paper at least, looks like it should be more athletic than your average grocery-getting soft roader. The on-paper numbers are promising. Though it’s more than 300kg heavier than a Golf GTI, the Tiguan 162TSI manages to equal the 6.5sec 0-100km/h sprint time of its hatchback cousin. How? Thank the off-the-line traction of the 162TSI’s 4Motion all-wheel-drive system and an extra gear ratio. But in rolling acceleration, the quickest Tiguan lacks the willingness and verve…

FORREST’S Elbow. Bathurst. Not a place you’d normally associate with a moment of crystal-clear realisation, and yet, as the GT-R Nismo launches from the downhill lefthander, its traction-control light blinking with epileptic urgency at the top of fourth gear, 200km/h already on the dial, that’s exactly what happens. My mind drowns out the fighter-jet roar of the twin-turbo V6, the slight tugging on the wheel as the semi-slick Dunlops scrabble for traction, and instead zeroes in on the battle-scarred piece of cement to my right. “Huh,” I think. “That’s where Jim Richards aquaplaned into the wall in his R32 GT-R in 1992…” Reality returns with a rush and seconds later I’m resisting the urge to lift as the car goes light over the crest on Conrod at 280km/h, yet the…

ALL the ways I’d imagined today going, this particular scenario never crossed my mind. I thought I’d been through the worst of it already, what with the unbearable heat in the claustrophobic cabin, the crap visibility, the two tyres that self-combusted at ridiculous speeds, and then the stony, unforgiving mouth of a police officer appearing at my window flap, but this, well this is something else entirely. I’m stuck, having just buried a $600,000 WRC car up to its axles in soft sand. And bloody Chris Atkinson isn’t helping. Australia’s most successful rally driver of the modern era is strapped into the passenger seat and instead of providing some much-needed words of comfort, all he says is “Yeah…we’re in trouble.” Driving a fully fledged, fire-spitting WRC car is rare. Being…

HERE’S the problem. As a sane person who believes that giving stupid, fallible humans access to guns dramatically increases the chances of people being shot with bullets, it is impossible to take Senator David Leyonhjelm seriously. Not only is he a supporter of America’s notorious NRA (National Rifle Association), but he made a YouTube video for them trashing Australia’s gun laws and claiming they hadn’t made a bit of difference. Despite the fact that we haven’t had an American-style mass shooting, anywhere in this country, since our post-Port Arthur crackdown in 1996. The senator feels so strongly about this issue, on which he is more wrongheaded than Pauline Hanson wearing a Derryn Hinch mask, that it’s the main reason he got into politics in the first place. Sometimes referred to…

2016 MAY have been a terrible year for democracy with the UK Brexit-ing herself out of the European Union and Trump blundering into the White House. But one carmaker bucked the trend with a bold symbol of internationalism. Brandishing Japanese design, leveraging German engineering (using Mercedes-Benz’s front-drive architecture) and built in England for reasons probably only Brazilian Carlos Ghosn knows, the Infiniti Q30 represents hope for unity and cooperation. But does Infiniti’s Audi A3 rival have what it needs to go against the premium small-car establishment? Or is this just a hot mess of identity confusion? The thing is, the high-riding 1.6t GT opener from $38,900 is about $4500 less than the Benz GLA crossover it most closely aligns to, or just $500 more than the low-slung A180, so the…

ARGUABLY one of the most important new models released last year was the Toyota Prius IV. Not for of any hybrid powertrain efficiency breakthroughs (in green-car-agnostic Australia – are you kidding?), but rather the snappily named Toyota New Generation Architecture (TNGA) platform lurking underneath that ushers in technology that will underpin most transverse-engined vehicles the company is set to introduce. Australia’s biggest selling brand’s future is literally riding on TNGA. So why is one of 2012’s biggest debutantes, a homely Corolla finished in fetching Wildfire Red, draped across these pages instead? Basically, we have to wait for our brand-new Prius i-Tech to arrive from Japan. So for the next two months, Toyota has kindly offered us the recently released (in Australia) Hybrid. Somewhat ironically (considering how utterly unchanged it is…

UTES ARE great at carrying things but not particularly good at keeping said items out of the weather. Such was my last minute realisation when planning an interstate trip in our Hilux – a final fling before the SR5 made its way back to Toyota HQ. With a family and luggage on board, it was typical of the average holiday usage for a ute. Big kays, fervent over-packing and kids who wished they’d arrived before they’d clipped their seatbelts. Just finding somewhere for our piles of luggage and Chrissy presents proved something of a challenge. Despite the cavernous tray, utes don’t provide many decent in-cabin options for stashing things. The Hilux’s twin gloveboxes and centre console are about it. Fortunately a friend suggested we buy some plastic tubs and load…

Toyota’s Corolla now offers autonomous emergency braking. The system is one of the more advanced on an affordable car, using both a camera and lidar to detect objects ahead. It can automatically apply the brakes between 10 and 80km/h (many cheaper systems only work up to about 30km/h). The advanced crash avoidance system is standard only on the most expensive ZR sedan and hatch, though the price of the ZR has increased by up to $930 as a result. Other Corollas, including the Ascent hatch, Ascent Sport, Hybrid and SX, can have the safety pack for an extra $750 (or $1500 for the Ascent sedan, which picks up alloy wheels as part of the deal).…

HENRY Ford is justly famed for having put America and much of the world on wheels, through his pared-down and production-designed Model T of 1908. But Ford deserves just as much credit for making the world on wheels go (and look) faster, through a landmark model launched in 1932, the Ford V-8 Coupe. Introducing Ford’s first V8 engine – known as the ‘flathead’ – the Coupe was sleek, stylish and technically advanced, especially from the driver’s point of view. Above all, it was extremely affordable: the V8 versions (known as Model 18) cost only $50 or so more than their four-cylinder (Model B) sisters in 1932, and as little as $15 more than rival six-cylinder cars from Chevrolet. The flathead V8’s birth was not without its problems, the main one…

CRUDE INTENTIONS Oil man and petrol-head Tony McDermott isn’t worried about electric cars drying up his employer’s market. “I think it could be 50 years before electric cars become universal because of the range issues and the ability to regenerate the battery. So until then, we’ll need hybrids. And in fact, Valvoline already supplies to Tesla: coolant for the batteries.” WE’VE seen some epic automotive TV commercials over the years. Few are being made these days, though, thanks to advertising standards that can see a campaign pulled after a single complaint. So who’d get behind a balls-out, rev- and rubber-fest like Valvoline’s recent ‘Man Like Horsepower’ ads? Valvoline marketing manager Tony McDermott was born into a car family. “My father used to take us to the car racing, motorbike racing.…

ASTON MARTIN and Red Bull’s hypercar, the AM–RB 001, is racing towards production. With a carbonfibre tub and powered by an atmo, mid-mounted V12, it will produce 1bhp for every kilo of still-unconfirmed kerbweight. A key part of this incredible car’s development is the working relationship between Red Bull’s legendary F1 brainiac Adrian Newey and Aston’s chief engineer Matt Becker. Becker spoke exclusively to Wheels about how the project is progressing: “It’s fascinating to work with Adrian,” he explains. “I’ll say ‘we’d have such and such on a road car’ and he’ll say ‘well, we’d have that on a race car’; we’re approaching it from completely different angles, so finding common ground is important.” Newey and Becker had not met before visiting a supplier for the…

MAZDA BRAVO After its divorce from Ford, Mazda was in its worst financial situation for more than 11 years. Rather than slow down the pace and pull from the parts bin, Mazda hit the reset button. It could have followed the crowd chasing fuel economy with CVTs and turbos. Instead, it injected massive investment into R&D, clean-sheeted and rethought everything from the chassis, transmissions and engines to creating a new way to forge steel using samurai swords for inspiration. And the hard work shows. Thank you for rewarding this small company’s effort by giving it your Car of theYear two years in a row. Glenn Stewart, via email EMAIL: WHEELS@WHEELSMAG.COM.AU…

THE VIEW from the driver’s seat is like peering out of a combat tank, the accelerator is too sharp in its initial travel, and the brake pedal needs vigorous modulation to pull the Aventador up after an exploration of the 544kW V12’s upper reaches. And then there’s its size... From its indicator stalk at seven o’clock on the column to a rear-view mirror that presents a gun-slit view of the heat haze rising from the mid-mounted V12, the Aventador S is utterly unlike your average new-age supercar, and certainly not what you’d choose to drive if you just needed to get somewhere. Yet if you find yourself in a position to allow driving to be the event, as we did at the international launch in Valencia, Spain, then it’s a…

GOOD, but not quite good enough to trouble the light-car elite was the story with the previous-generation Rio. Kia’s popular city car has hovered on the cusp of segment leadership for a generation now, thanks to its locally tuned chassis, solid equipment levels and the assurance of its seven-year warranty, but it lacked the dynamic polish and drivetrain sparkle to truly rival the likes of the Mazda 2 and Volkswagen Polo. Enter the fourth-generation Rio. Bigger and better equipped than before, the new-gen Rio brings a welcome dose of maturity to Kia’s compact-car line-up. Riding on a new platform and a wheelbase that has grown by 10mm (overall length is up 15mm), the Rio makes the most of its boosted dimensions with a crisp, well-proportioned exterior design that looks distinctly…

MAZDA has a legacy of ambitious engineering exploits spanning more than eight decades, and the MX-5 RF bears witness to it. Its folding metal lid wasn’t envisaged until two years into fourth-gen MX-5 development, when packaging it without extending the wheelbase or eating into cargo space became a complex conundrum to crack. Chief designer Masashi Nakayama’s elegant targa solution is far less compromised than the flabby third-gen’s retractable hardtop, and delivers a convincingly premium and coupe-like appearance that Mazda hopes will broaden the car’s appeal. Crucially then, the four-piece roof mechanism adds more than just 47kg of moving parts. It brings maturity and a kerb-side allure the regular MX-5 roadster lacks, with an imperceptible impact on its dynamic purity. Only the 118kW/200Nm 2.0-litre four is offered, leaving out the soft-top’s…

WAY BACK in a previous era – predating alternative facts, post truth, and before comb overs ruled the world – pointing to the ‘flagship’ of any automotive model range was simple: it was the fastest, most expensive model on offer. These days, the water surrounding ‘flagships’ is a little murkier. Are we talking about the fastest? Or the most expensive? If it’s the latter, then you’re looking at the current pinnacle of the Mercedes-AMG C-Class range: the C63 S Cabrio. For the buyer who asks to be pointed to the ‘best’ C-Class in the showroom, then $179,900 says this is it. It’s nearly 18 grand more expensive than the Coupe, and its roof retracts in 20sec, at speeds below 50km/h. And speaking of comb-overs, the C63 S Cabrio will do…

GTS-R W1 IS THE DUCK’S GUTS, FULFILLING EVERY MUSCLE-SEDAN FANTASY EXPECTATION is apparently the root of all heartache, but not if you’re an HSV fan in 2017. In an era defined by nonsense, self-interest and post-truth bullshit, there’s a warm-and-fuzzy feeling knowing that the final MY17 Holden Special Vehicles Commodore V8s will be bottlers. If you expected a bent-eight celebration rather than maudlin commiseration as Australia hangs up its manufacturing boots, then the Clayton crew have something for you. Faced with the looming uphill battle of no more rear-drive V8s to satisfy its muscle-car-loving customers, HSV knew it needed to produce something special to farewell an Aussie motoring icon. Something like the gobsmacking GTS-R W1. Make no mistake, this isn’t a stripes-and-decals money-spinner, and nor is it merely a fettled…

This is what a working class Ford versus Holden stoush looks like in 2017 JACK of all trades. It’s something many of us would love to be, kinda like any bastard who can bench press 100kg-plus, but also sing, dance, make people laugh, build a new front fence and effortlessly command a barbeque. But if we’re talking cars – or, in this case, range-topping dual-cab utes with delusions of passenger-car grandeur – trying to be all things to all people is a hard thing to master. The original ’48 Holden did it. Roomy enough for six, light enough to be both lively and fuel-efficient, yet strong enough to tackle much of what the unpaved Aussie Outback could throw at it, the monocoque-bodied ‘humpy’ Holden was a bit like Hugh Jackman…

It might come as a shock to people who see him as a right-wing extremist, but Leyonhjelm’s first step into politics was joining Young Labor at 18. He even helped with the Gough Whitlam campaign in 1972, but by the 1990s he had come full circle, joining the Liberal Party in Tasmania before deciding they weren’t a good fit either. When John Howard introduced the gun laws in 1996 he saw it as an assault on his lifestyle, as a sporting shooter, and decided to get more serious about politics. “It’s like the old saying, ‘If you’re not a socialist at 20 you’ve got no heart, but if you’re still a socialist at 40 you’ve got no brains’, I think it’s very true. I was a socialist at 20, and…

THE salesman looked aghast. He mumbled and stumbled and tried his best to move on from the awkward silence that had enveloped our until then, very convivial conversation. The poor bloke had just spent a half hour taking me through the many and varied features of our new Audi long-termer – to give it its full title, the Q7 3.0 TDI 200kW Tiptronic quattro – relishing the opportunity to demonstrate his intimate knowledge of the big SUV’s extensive features list. Audi HQ was eager to have Wheels experience the handover of a new car just the way a customer would, so arrangements were made to have the striking Ink Blue wagon, with Rock Grey leather, presented in the customer pre-delivery area at Audi Centre Melbourne. The salesman knew his stuff,…

I’VE BEEN eyeing off Kirby’s long-termer for a while now. Admiring glances in the car park quickly turned to a full-blooded longing to get behind the wheel of his turbo-triple Baleno and now, with him out of the state to visit his long-suffering girlfriend and family for a couple of weeks, I finally get my wish. Time to snatch the keys. Full disclosure: I have a thing for Suzukis. No other manufacturer seems to inject its automotive offerings with as much charm as the little company from Hamamatsu, Japan. Being principally concerned with making motorcycles – perhaps the most emotionally engaging machines of all – probably helps Suzuki give its road cars a similar warmth, even something as prosaic as the grocery-getting Baleno. You know what else helps? A thrummy…

It’s been on sale for less than a year but already the Bentley Bentayga has jumped thousands of dollars in price. Then again, when you’re paying upwards of $400K for a mega-luxo SUV those extra sheckels are unlikely to slow your Grange and caviar uptake. The price rise comes as the Bentayga Diesel lands in Australia for a slightly more palatable $399,000. Sharing the Audi SQ7’s new 4.0-litre V8 – complete with twin conventional turbochargers and an electric ’charger – the Bentayga Diesel can do 1000km on a tank. Performance isn’t too shabby, either; it can hit 100km/h from rest in a claimed 4.8 seconds.…

The entry cost of Land Rover’s more rounded new Discovery has dropped with the return of four-cylinder models. At $64,300 the TD4 S range opener is $6000 less than the model it replaces, putting it firmly in Toyota Prado and Ford Everest territory. Under the bonnet is Jaguar-Land Rover’s new 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel, which in single turbo TD4 guise makes 132kW and 450Nm to make the Disco 0.2 seconds quicker to 100km/h than the V6 it replaces, while using 30 percent less fuel. Those wanting more grunt can choose the 177kW twin-turbo version in the SD4 from $69,900, or the 600Nm V6 from $76,900.…

“THIS IS BMW BEING CONTROVERSIAL, OUTRAGEOUS, DELIBERATELY SHOCKING. AND TOTALLY UNCONCERNED ABOUT YOUR REACTIONS” – PETER ROBINSON, 1998 One M Division executive later added: “We see the buyers as real individualists who love the unusual styling. I don’t think any [buyers] will ask if the neighbours like the car.” Z3 M project manager Burkhard Goschel, who later rose to become head of R&D, told Wheels: “If you didn’t love it at first sight, you hated it. In the end, we decided emancipated navigators would buy the car.” I loved the Coupe for its cab-back proportions, the lovely exaggerated taper of the extended shooting-brake rear end with its bulging haunches, virtually no overhang, and a wider rear track that meant the 245/40 ZR17 rubber filled the wheelarches to overflowing. It remains…

 WHEELS has learnt that a right-hook Chevy Camaro program has been secretly green-lighted as Holden executives firm up model plans through to 2022. “We don’t design a vehicle specifically for the US anymore” Backroom wrangling and Australia’s enduring desire for rear-drive V8 muscle has seen GM tick the box to ensure the iconic American two-door can be sold here – if Aussies want it. The move could see a range of Camaros heading down under to provide a $50K performance alternative in Holden’s rapidly expanding showrooms. But there’s a catch – engineering work for the V8-powered rival to the Ford Mustang won’t happen until the next generation model, due about 2021. While the Camaro delay has caused some internal frustration at Holden – the rival Mustang is attracting some 6000…

IN THE pit lane of Sydney Motorsport Park, the so-called ‘King of the Nurburgring’ is looking less like Italian royalty, and more like an honorary Aussie bogan clown prince. Alfa development driver Armando Bracco has the new Giulia Quadrifoglio – recently crowned as the four-door ’Ring record holder – pinned on its nose, his right foot mashed to the floor. The sweet 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 pa-pa-paparps against the limiter, and the spinning rear Pirellis send a flurry of smoke signals that may translate, to anyone fluent in Apache, to “Alfa is back, baby...” Fortunately there’s an abundant supply of fresh rubber piled high in the garage, and we’ll need it, as our first Aussie drive of Alfa’s new M3/C63-fighter is to be confined to the racetrack. The test cars arrived…

WELCOME to the end of the beginning of New Toyota. Back in late 2011, after a series of damaging recall setbacks and criticism over his vehicles being too dull, the company’s newly crowned president, Akio Toyoda, promised a “fun to drive again” rebirth. With the bold C-HR hitting the streets and re-engineered Camry, Yaris, Corolla, and RAV4 successors coming, the revolution has started. Which leaves the MY17 Kluger as the last of the old-school brigade. Defiantly middle of the road, and all the way from middle America to boot, the full-sized seven-seat SUV is all about delivering exactly what consumers want, and with little surprise and/or delight. Except… we’ve grown increasingly fond of this third-generation iteration since its early 2014 launch. In our recent people-mover/SUV Megatest (October 2016 issue), we…

ON PAPER, Audi’s suave halfway-house S4 sports sedan has it easy: add performance to the most dynamically accomplished A4 ever produced, and leave something in the clip for the full-noise RS4 still to come. In one way it’s a tease – much like its launch, which took place at Mt Panorama without any track time – but lap records aren’t the stealthy S4’s main game. Into the B9’s sorted MLB platform slots an all-new 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 making it five different engine layouts in five generations of S4. Outputs lift to 260kW/500Nm, up 15kW/ 55Nm over the B8’s 3.0-litre supercharged V6. Peak torque arrives earlier and hangs on longer (1370-4500rpm), bringing 100km/h up in 4.7-4.9sec (sedan/wagon). It’s properly brisk, and in isolation has a sporty, cultured exhaust note in keeping…

GTS Coupe (2001) Holden rebirthed its iconic Monaro coupe in 2001, and HSV capitalised on the performance benefits of its sleek two-door body shape. The Monaro-based GTS Coupe was a rocketship; with a standing 400m time of 13.7sec, it was the fastest accelerating home-grown car of its era. It used a tweaked 5.7-litre LS1 V8, dubbed C4B, sourced from Callaway in the US. Its outputs totalled 300kW at 6000rpm and 510Nm at a peaky 4800rpm. WHAT WE SAID: “The hot-looking GTS is a totally unique beast. Punters adore it. Drivers respect it. Hoons worship it.” – Wheels, April ’02 E-Series W427 (2008) At $155,500, the W427 was the most expensive car ever sold by HSV – until the W1. Built in limited numbers to celebrate HSV’s 20th anniversary, W427 was…

LAST TIME, it started with a phone call and culminated in a story called Convoy! I wrote for CAR (the magazine I was editing in London) and Wheels’ sister magazine, Sports Car World. It told how four of us drove a Countach, Silhouette and Urraco flat out from the Lamborghini factory to England. On a Thursday afternoon in October 1976, Roger Phillips, the UK’s Lamborghini importer, phoned to say he was flying to Italy with two pals (Steve Brazier and David Jolliffe) to collect three Lamborghinis for the Earl’s Court Motor Show. If I got to Heathrow in two hours I could join in. At Sant’Agata, we waited a day while the Silhouette was finished, then took off on a Saturday morning. We got into our stride at a steady…

JUST when I thought I’d identified all the danger signs of advancing age – less hair on top, more out the ears, a default cynicism setting – I learn there’s a new concern to navigate: inveterate SUV ownership. Okay, I use the term ‘ownership’ lightly, but the fact remains: for someone not fundamentally a devotee of SUVs, I seem to be incapable of escaping them. For me it started in 2014 with Holden’s unlovable Trax; progressed through two variations of quite agreeable Nissan Qashqais, and paused recently after an eight-month stint in Hyundai’s top-spec diesel Tucson. Now, for this closet rear-drive-wagon lover, it’s back to SUV business as usual. In comes Renault’s top-spec Koleos, called Intens, featuring an atmo 2.5-litre petrol four hooked to a CVT transmission and switchable all-wheel…

WHOEVER said small cars couldn’t (or shouldn’t) do big distances was talking out of their clacker. Remember the original Volkswagen Beetle? That air-cooled marvel could once be found in just about every corner of the country, able to drive for hours at its claimed “maximum and cruising speed” of 115-120km/h and renowned for being able to withstand the torture Australia threw at it. Those goat tracks of the past would be far too rough for a Holden Spark, but a modern-day challenge of Sydney to Melbourne and back in searing summer heat is as good a test as any for a city-biased microcar. Two weeks prior, the Spark tackled a weekend blat to Newcastle and impressed with its highway grunt and overall maturity. Solid in crosswinds, supportive of seat and…

HSV’s ‘30 Years’ models have been somewhat shrouded in all the GTS-R and W1 tyre smoke. But the last blast for the rear-drive Zeta platform brings some worthy updates, including an extra 10kW and 20Nm for ClubSport, Maloo and Senator Signature models as well as 5kW for the GTS, the latter courtesy of a K&N air filter. There’s the usual array of 30 Years stickers and badges as well as matte black highlights and the inclusion of the torque vectoring previously exclusive to the GTS. As for the 30-year reference, it’s a little cheeky given HSV’s first car was delivered in 1988, though the brand’s been around since ’87.…

Suzuki’s born-again Ignis arrives as one of the most affordable SUVs on the market, priced from $15,990 for the manual GL; a CVT automatic adds $1000 to the ask. You get a reversing camera, cruise control, satellite navigation and a leather-covered steering wheel in all versions. Stepping to the GLX adds alloys, tinted windows, foglights, DRLs, a start button and automatic air-conditioning. Apple CarPlay is also standard, though strangely Android Auto is missing. Both variants are powered by a modest 66kW 1.2-litre atmo four-cylinder driving the front wheels.…

Keeping it simple The Ford V-8 Coupes were built on a simple ladder chassis, though this one had superior rigidity to that under the outgoing Model A. Henry himself clung to the cart-sprung, solid front and live rear axle format longer than most, and Ford was also late in adopting hydraulic brakes (1939). The latter makes the 1939-40 cars most prized. Art deco style Painted Detroit steel was everywhere inside, but drivers no longer faced a manual spark-advancer on the steering wheel. Earlier cars (like the 1935 model pictured) were simple but stylish; later, more luxurious models were attractively trimmed with art deco-styled dashboard and door trims. Details like Bakelite instrument surround and metallic-painted highlights showed coachbuilding charm surviving Ford’s ruthlessly efficient factories.…