Sommaire pour June 2017 de Wheels

Striking front end gets a touch of complexity by using heavily detailed headlights. Sculptured framing of low grille and air vents clean and simple. Neat rear end also gets unique lighting Concept A Sedan uses so-called Panamericana grille, as seen on Mercedes Sculpture concept, from latest production AMG models. Won’t appear on the regular A-class models. Grille is tilted forwards to add extra elongation to the bonnet, doesn’t hurt aero Strong shoulder line gives a sense of elongation to the three-box profile, and emphasises the proportions, despite much shorter overhangs at both ends. Simplicity greatly enhances the design Reduction of the front overhang has prompted a radical rethink of front-end crash structures. Handling will benefit from keeping a greater percentage of the engine’s mass within the wheelbase Reduction in crease…

JUNE-JULY AUDI RS3 sedan and TT RS; FORD Everest 5-seat RWD; HOLDEN Astra sedan; HONDA CR-V; JEEP Grand Cherokee Trailhawk; LEXUS LC; MAZDA CX-3 update; MERCEDESAMG E63 S 4Matic; MERCEDES-BENZ E-Class All Terrain, E-Class Coupe and GLA facelift; RENAULT Megane sedan and wagon; SKODA Kodiaq and Octavia facelift; SUBARU XV; SUZUKI Swift; VOLKSWAGEN Golf 7.5 hatch, wagon and Alltrack AUGUST-SEPTEMBER AUDI Q5 and SQ5; KIA Stinger; MERCEDES-AMG GT/GT C roadster and coupe, and GT-R coupe; MINI Countryman JCW; SKODA Octavia RS facelift; VOLKSWAGEN Golf 7.5 GTI and R hatches Honda CR-V Honda’ s fifth-gen mid-size SUV will bring a turbo VTEC four-cylinder across the range and introduce a seven-seat option. The 140kW/240Nm mill will be paired with a CVT automatic transmission and both front- and all-wheel drive. Lexus LC The…

Model Hyundai i30 SR Engine 1591cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max Power 150kW @ 6000rpm Max Torque 265Nm @ 1500-4500rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch Weight 1436kg 0-100km/h 7.0sec (estimated) Economy 7.5L/100km Price $28,950 On sale Now ‘ASPIRATION’ is not a word that typically springs to mind with Hyundai, a brand that built its reputation on drive-away screamers. But with the third generation i30, Hyundai is spruiking the equipment list more than the price tag. The basic Active arrives with 16-inch alloys, an 8.0-inch touchscreen, sat-nav, a reversing camera, DAB radio, rear parking sensors, a tyre-pressure monitor, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It’s comprehensive, and trounces the competition. The bad news? You’ll be paying about $5000 more for an i30, at least compared with the $19,990 deals floating around last year. Still,…

01 NO REACH Moulded urethane steering wheel looks great and feels good in your hands, but just like the old Picanto, the column only adjusts for tilt angle, not reach. 02 TOP TECH New Picanto boasts a segment-first with standard-issue torque vectoring. By using differential braking of individual wheels to reduce understeer, computers improve the Picanto’s handling. 03 ROCK SOLID Premium-looking, quirkily styled dash design is rendered in rock-hard black plastic, but it’s screwed together tight. It may be cheap, but build quality is good. Holding back The addition of a snazzy touchscreen, reversing camera and handling-enhancing brake torque vectoring definitely enrichens the Picanto experience, but there’s still room to grow. Euro markets enjoy bingle-avoiding autonomous emergency braking – on the menu for Australia later this year – along with…

Tickford isn’t the only local outfit with skin in the blown Mustang game. Herrod Performance has been upgrading Fords for more than 30 years and officially distributing Ford Performance Parts since 2012. More than 100 supercharged Mustangs have been built at its workshop in North Melbourne. The Herrod Compliance Package retails for $21,500 and uses a rigorously tested Ford Performance supercharger kit to lift engine power of the Mustang GT to around 500kW. Rob Herrod (right) insists the package (which also includes a sports exhaust, underbody heat-shielding, lowered suspension and Ford Performance badging) is legal everywhere in Australia with certification to prove it. A limited warranty covers all components fitted by Herrod, backed by Ford Performance. Further cosmetic upgrades include Roush bodykits and Shelby GT350 parts. Since our test, Ford…

DAMN rain. I can hear it now, even through my helmet as I sit cocooned in the rollcageencased cabin, pitter-pattering away on the tin roof of the pit garage, taunting me with its relentless thrum. “It’ll be fine,” I lie to myself, resolutely ignoring the lizard part of my brain that taunts: “The car’s on slicks…” Outside, a black-clad Mazda engineer stands in pitlane, his face turned to the spitting sky. Even from this distance I can see the shiny gobs of rain on his forehead, but that doesn’t stop him waving me onto the track, the edges of his mouth curling into a tight, cruel smile. With a deep breath I snap my visor shut, flick the ignition switches and disappear into the haze. Three laps later, my shiny…

 WITH the weight of expectation riding on its elevated shoulders, we approached the Haval H6 wide-eyed and full of beans. As the biggest-selling SUV in China (580,000 in 2016) and the first Chinese-brand car to ever feature in a Wheels comparison test, it marks a historic moment in motoring. ON BAD ROADS, ITS STEERING AND SUSPENSION EACH SHIMMY TO THE BEAT OF A DIFFERENT TINA TURNER HIT This ‘premium’ SUV from the Great Wall empire is no bargain-basement knock-off. Sure, the glasshouse looks a little Range Rover Evoque-esque, but it succeeds in yielding more kit for your coin than its rivals, and the H6 carries a promising mechanical spec. Packing a powerful 145kW/315Nm 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four tied to a Getrag six-speed dual-clutch ’box, plus enough cabin acreage to rival a…

 HYUNDAI has already hit the popularity jackpot with the striking Tucson. But with newly hatched sweeteners like a direct-injection heart transplant for 2017, what’s holding the medium SUV from Korea’s biggest brand back from challenging the class order? TUNED FOR OZ, TUCSON IS DEFINED BY ITS NEUTRAL BALANCE AND CONFIDENT CONTROL That engine first. Ousting the old 114kW/192Nm 2.0-litre ‘MPI’ multi-point injection unit that still serves in the closely related Kia Sportage, the 121kW/203Nm direct-injection ‘GDI’ version’s incremental improvements translate to slightly stronger performance and significantly improved refinement in the upper rev band. The result is a robust slogger, supported by a well-tuned six-speed torque-converter auto. So imagine our surprise when almost nothing separated the latest Tucson from its lesser-engined Sportage equivalent at the strip, with the Kia matching the…

 GOOD riddance. ‘Escape’ is far more apt for a lifestyle-promising SUV than the controversial Kuga nameplate (blame the Germans) it usurps, with the swaparoo finally addressing a key reason for the European Ford’s failure to fire in Australia. KEEPING ESCAPE YOUTHFUL IS ITS LEADING DYNAMIC AGILITY AND ITS LUSTY POWERTRAIN However, the menu is not the meal, and this 2013-vintage SUV still has an uphill battle to fight, even with a name that’s literally no longer on the nose. Exhibit A: what you see. Rather oddball in some of its detailing, a number of the Escape’s ‘improvements’ don’t quite gel. Behold, for example, the newly bluffer grille that only accentuates the thick-limbed body’s slight awkwardness. The same applies inside. While the tweaked dashboard boasts an in-vogue touchscreen with Ford’s massively…

I HAVE no idea how old the average first-time E-Class owner is, but at 30 years of age I reckon I’m well ahead of schedule. Even the bloke at Mercedes-Benz looked at me like I was a couple of decades early to the party as he handed over my handsome new Selenite Grey long-termer. He seemed to think I might not like it. But it’s no ordinary E-Class I hold the key to; it’s a Mercedes-AMG E43, the first W213 breathed upon by the specialists at Affalterbach. Bigger turbos and more boost ramp up the outputs of its 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 to 295kW and 520Nm, and I can’t see what the grumblers in our office mean when they say it’s not AMG enough. I managed to sample the E43 before…

IT’S zero-dark-six-fifty, I’m bleary-eyed, uncaffeinated and on my way to work. Funnily enough this is one of the more enjoyable moments in my day, and I have my trusty moss-green steed to thank for that. Though I’m yet to warm to the Astra’s idiosyncratic interior, I’m definitely gelling with its joyously flexible powertrain. Its four cylinders may only displace 1.6 litres, but thanks to some clever turbo trickery this small-engined hatch has surprisingly muscular legs. Torque is abundant from 1500rpm and up, and though my car is a theoretically terrible-at-commuting manual gearbox version, the flexibility endowed by this twist-happy 1.6 means that’s not such a big deal. Bear in mind, 300Nm of torque is huge for a small hatchback. Skipping second gear is possible if you time it right, reducing…

Along with a comprehensive update – the so-called Golf 7 .5 – Volkswagen has dropped in a bonus treat for GTI fans, namely the return of a three-door version dubbed the Performance Edition 1. While the standard GTI gets a small power boost from 162kW to 169kW, the returning three-door takes that figure up to a beefy 180kW. If that wasn’t enticing enough, the locking diff of the 40 Years limited edition and bigger brakes are also included. Be quick though – just 150 are up for grabs; after that it’s back to five-door stock.…

Holden back in black, yet still seeing red Holden announced a $152.8 million profit for the 2016 calendar year. It should be noted that the most recent cash injection is in part thanks to a $128.1 million payment from GM in the US, and $51.4 million from the Federal Government’s Automotive Transformation Scheme. Holden admits the cash boost wouldn’t have been enough to save local production — two consecutive years of losses totalling $961 million since 2013 backs that up. Welcome to the (N) family Even more N-badged Hyundai’s are on their way. The Korean brand teased journalists with the silhouette of a sleek, secret coupe-like body. But not all of Hyundai’s employees seemed to get the memo. “The car is still secret … it is a coupe-ish version of…

THE ANNOUNCEMENT that BMW will slot a vicious ‘GTS-lite’ CS variant into the M4 super-coupe range has caused excitement among fans of hi-po Beemers, and the German car maker has followed up with more good news – it’s not a one-off. Rather than a tantalising flash in the pan, the 338kW/600Nm CS-badged M4 (due here in September) will herald a whole family of CS cars sprinkled throughout the M Division range. Where the M-variant of a given BMW model has traditionally represented the top of the company’s food chain, the ‘standard’ version will now be the entry point into the exclusive M-car club. Above that, the Competition variants will offer a step up in performance, but sit below the new line of Competition Sport (CS) versions. The new flagship of…

W1 vs THE WORLD Gotta love the wankers who think the cost of a car should come down to a quarter-mile time (Video: HSV GTS-R W1 vs HSV Senator LSA drag race, WheelsMag.com.au.) What about a half-mile or full-mile time? Or lap times around Bathurst or Phillip Island, perhaps? What about a good old hill run on Australia’s high roads, as this was built for Aussie conditions and driving styles? We don’t build four-door pocket rockets or high-tech, rapid-fire dual-clutch gearboxes. We produce cars that have character and are fun to drive and listen to. You might find a big Euro luxury four-door performance car that looks and sounds and goes and stops just as good, but I doubt you would find one for the price of either of these.…

Model Subaru XV 2.0i-S Engine 1995cc flat 4, dohc, 16v Max Power 115kW @ 6000rpm Max Torque 196Nm @ 4000rpm Transmission CVT automatic Weight 1460kg* 0-100km/h 10.0sec* Economy 7.4L/100km* Price $35,000* On sale June (*estimated) THE ‘OUTBACK’ treatment might sound like a euphemism for being horribly brutalised in a Wolf Creek scenario, but it’s actually something Subaru invented. Take an existing AWD passenger car, lift and separate. That’s the Subaru XV formula. As with the previous model, it’s an Impreza hatch in thick-soled hiking boots with more air beneath its floor, additional body cladding and a unique name. But XV Version 2.0 is based on the brand-spanking fifth-generation Impreza, meaning a lighter yet stronger platform, dimensions expanded just where they needed to be, and a sizeable improvement in packaging efficiency.…

Model MG GS Essence X Engine 1995cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max Power 162kW @ 5000rpm Max Torque 350Nm @ 2500-4000rpm Transmission 6-speed dual-clutch Weight 1642kg 0-100km/h 9.9sec (estimated) Economy 9.6L/100km Price $34,990 On sale Now THREE hours of almost uninterrupted seat time on a skidpan and closed gravel course is the itinerary you’d expect for the launch of a highly strung all-paw turbo weapon, not a UK-designed and developed, Chinese-built SUV wearing a classic British sportscar badge. But that’s how the local launch program played out for the MG GS. Despite this being about as far from its likely natural environment as a camel in Sydney Harbour, the launch setting did reveal some home truths about the new GS. The first is that SAIC Motors, MG’s giant Chinese parent…

 PEOPLE don’t tend to buy supercars on purely rational grounds, which has long been McLaren’s biggest problem. While the original MP4-12C and 650S – which was basically a heavy facelift – both led their segment on power-to-weight ratios, they struggled to deliver the sort of emotional appeal that persuades people to drop condo-in-Bali sums on something with four wheels and no jet engine. So while the new 720S has indeed become faster and lighter, the more important question is probably around that less immediately measurable metric: how much tingle it puts in your tail. WHAT ABOUT THE LESS MEASURABLE METRIC: HOW MUCH TINGLE IT PUTS IN YOUR TAIL? The fundamentals remain as before: McLaren’s entire road-car program has been built around using a shared architecture to cover everything from the…

It delivers forced-induction meat overlaid with a subtly sporting induction rasp@wheelsaustralia FROM A high-point of undisputed reverence and sporting excellence in the 1960s and ’70s, Alfa Romeo’s gradual slide down the automotive spiral towards fashionable mediocrity has been a drawn-out and painful one, especially for true believers in the 107-year-old Italian marque’s mystique. But rising from the ashes of failed joint ventures and broken dreams comes a shining message of hope in the form of the Giulia. Rear-wheel drive and new from the ground up, courtesy of billions of development Euros, this medium-sized premium sedan (and its forthcoming Stelvio SUV offshoot) is what Alfa Romeo’s salvation depends on. No pressure, then... This latter-day Giulia is Alfa’s first rear-drive sedan for 25 years, but derives its name from a one-time superstar…

 MITSUBISHI must be doing something right. Outlander sales are growing at twice the pace of the medium SUV segment this year, which begs the question: How much has this old bus improved? A CHROMED ‘GOATEE’ GRILLE AND GLITZY ALLOYS MAKE THE $32K LS LOOK LIKE THE EXXIER EXCEED On sale since 2012, this third-gen iteration has never rated highly with us, undermined by dowdy design, lacklustre dynamics, low-rent interior presentation and eyebrow-cocking fuel efficiency. But that was the tubby 2.4-litre all-wheel-drive version. Could the 400cc-smaller and 100kg-leaner front-drive Outlander deliver a stronger outcome? With a chromed ‘goatee’ grille, glitzy 18-inch alloys and sundry side brightwork, we initially thought the test LS was the exxier Exceed, until the penny dropped and we realised that even the lowliest Outlander has lost its…

 IT’S EASY to lump Korean sister brands Hyundai and Kia together. But differences between the sixth-placed Hyundai Tucson and the Kia Sportage are apparent the moment you crack a door. The Kia instantly feels a higher grade of car. The sweeping dash’s design looks and feels more premium, the multimedia unit’s graphics are sharper and more sophisticated, and there’s a strong sense that the Kia is better equipped. THE LIKEABLE SPORTAGE EXUDES A YOUTHFUL, FUN-TO-DRIVE, ALMOST EUROPEAN ETHOS It is. Two 12-volt outlets straddle a USB slot and auxiliary port up front, a sat-nav map lights up on the screen, while dual-zone climate control dials grace the lower dash. You push a button to start the engine rather than insert and turn a key, the driver’s seat adjusts electrically (for…

TIGUAN CAN REEL IN A MOUNTAIN PASS WITH THE KILLER INSTINCT OF A WARM HATCH IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE how the Tiguan is viewed as the Golf of medium SUVs. Based on the MQB modular architectural component tech-fest underpinning most transverse-engined Volkswagen Group cars, the 110TSI Trendline actually is closest to our 2013 COTY-award winning (and enduring benchmark small-car) hatchback. Certainly in terms of lightness and efficiency, including the entry-level front-drive variant’s ultra-sweet 1.4-litre turbo four-pot and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Given the Golf’s supremacy, we expected the Wolfsburg crossover to bulldoze all before it. So how is second place even possible with such guaranteed genetic goodness, particularly when the list of pros comprehensively outweighs the cons? Significantly larger, longer and wider than its dinky predecessor, the second-gen Tiguan is a packaging knockout,…

SOMETIMES fortune deals a hand that couldn’t seem more premeditated if fate itself was pulling the strings. Case in point – the latest Toyota Prius. Launched early last year, only months after the Volkswagen Group’s diesel emissions cheating scandal has left every oil-burner literally under a cloud darker than the soot that purportedly spews from their stinking exhaust pipes, the fourth-gen petrol-electric hybrid has suddenly found itself standing as one of a handful of legitimate non pure-electric eco alternatives to normal petrol cars. Additionally, the Prius was the first to receive the hotly anticipated Toyota New Generation Architecture (TNGA), which is set to underpin many models in the maker’s vast empire. Espousing lighter, stronger, quieter and more spacious engineering, with a switch to a pair of double wishbones after years…

become a part of the furniture since, handling media accreditation, writing press releases and, of course, doing the day-long stint in the commentary box. “The 12-Hour day starts at 3:30am, because I’ve got to be there to open the Media Centre,” he says. “It’s the longest day of my year, but it’s always one of the most satisfying. I love doing long-distance races because they’re like a novel: in the beginning, you’re building the characters and building the story, through the day all these compelling storylines are playing out, then you’ve got this thrilling finish when it all explodes, and the protagonists either fail or succeed.” Speaking of exploding: “Yeah, comfort breaks are when there’s a conveniently placed safety car and you know there’s going to be a commercial break…

Flagship model to have BMW M4-crushing power output, with torque receiving a decent mid-range electric st Hybrid powertrain opens possibility of all-wheel drive, with the electric motors on the front axle, allowing twin-turbo V6 to take care of the rears The G70 family will be smaller than the Kia Stinger, focusing instead on driving experience and overall ambience, with luxury materials and finishes G70 sedan is expected to start at about $60K, with the V6 turbo and hybrid options to push well above that, meaning prices to rival up-spec 3 Series and C-Class models HYUNDAI’S high-performance, rear-drive response to the Kia Stinger GT will pick up more luxury, more features and the option of a V8-bashing hybrid drivetrain – plus, it won’t even wear a Hyundai badge. The hotly anticipated…

HIGHLIGHTS April may have been a tough month, down 5.1 percent year-on-year as national holidays kept buyers pre-occupied, but not for everyone. Japanese brands Honda and Mitsubishi both bumped up sales more than 30 percent, while Subaru cracked a rise of more than 20 percent. Kia outpaced its sister brand, Hyundai, to also post a 30-plus percent growth spurt. Porsche, meanwhile, exactly matched March’s 371 sales as the Macan SUV exactly matched its 868 year-to-date sales with last year. Neat! LOWLIGHTS Mon dieu! Frenchies Citroen, Peugeot and Renault, and Renault’s bed partner Nissan, all struggled, as did off-road specialists Land Rover and Jeep. Mercedes-Benz eclipsed Audi and BMW combined, while luxury car rival – if we can call it that – Infiniti cut sales by more than 80% for…

Do you find that you are spending plenty of quality time with your partner and kids and you’re on time for work every day? Well, you clearly don’t own one of these. Among its diverse range of driving video game prosthetics, Pagnian Advanced Simulation (read it again – not Pagani) is now offering a complete Holden Racing Team cockpit courtesy of Next Level Racing, for the ultimate in driving simulation immersion. Just add wheel, pedals and unemployment. Next Level Racing Official Holden Racing Team Simulator $1099 Carbonfibre is renowned for its high strength combined with light weight so it’s the obvious choice of material for a chess set, right? For the Ferrari owner with every conceivable extra and lots of disposable income, this hyperbolic set includes a lockable carbon-clad wooden…

Model Porsche 911 GT3 Engine 3966cc flat 6, dohc, 24v Max Power 368kW @ 8250rpm Max Torque 460Nm @ 6000rpm Transmission 6-speed manual Weight 1413kg 0-100km/h 3.9sec (claimed) Fuel economy 12.9L/100km Price $327,100 On sale Q3 FOR SOME people , a Porsche 911 is ‘ just’ a 911 – a nice sportscar , but one that won’ t ever manage the sort of street-stopping “who’s that ?” theatre that a full-on super ar delivers. Yet for others, the GT3’s relative lack of brag has always been core to the cult appeal of what’s long been one of the most rewarding cars to drive hard on road and track. It might sound mad to describe anything costing north of $300,000 as a bargain, but you could double that and still not…

Model Kia Picanto S Engine 1248cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v Max power 62kW @ 6000rpm Max torque 122Nm @ 4000rpm Transmission 4-speed automatic Weight 995kg 0-100km/h 13.7sec (claimed) Economy 5.8L/100km Price $15,690 (drive-away) On sale Now AS FAR AS toe-in-the-water exercises go, Kia Australia’s experiment with launching the pint-sized Picanto last year was a success. With just one model grade, engine and transmission on offer, Picanto buyers weren’t exactly spoiled for choice. That said, Kia’s staff clearly have an aptitude for reading the market, as Picanto sales quickly clinched top spot in the normally price-sensitive sub-light hatchback market. Accordingly, there’s been little inclination to mess with the basic formula. The mostly new 2017 Picanto is still a single-spec, single-engine entity, though this time around there’s a manual-equipped variant to sit alongside…

Model Honda Civic RS hatch Engine 1498cc 4cyl, dohc, 16v, turbo Max power 127kW @ 5500rpm Max torque 220Nm @ 1700-5500rpm Transmission CVT automatic Weight 1440kg 0-100km/h 7.4sec (estimated) Economy 6.1L/100km Price $32,290 On sale Now HAS THERE ever been a more chameleonic car than the Honda Civic hatch? Although adhering to the same basic three-door formula through six generations from 1973, from 2000 the five-door broke away from the increasingly US-focused sedans, first with a Euro centric monobox, then turning left field with a pair of smaller, Jazz-based curveballs in 2006 and 2012 respectively. None cut muster. Now, the tenth-gen unites with last year’s reborn sedan, with more mainstream sizing and spec. Like the sedan, the hatch employs either the passable but past-its-prime 104kW/174Nm 1.8-litre single-cam atmo lump in…

WHO KNEW that comparing apples and oranges could be this much fun? The brief was to gather Tickford’s breathed-on Mustangs and see how they stacked up against more familiar home-grown fare from Holden and HSV. For this fleeting snapshot in time, Aussie buyers can back-to-back blue-collar right-hand drive V8s from opposite sides of the Pacific. It was an opportunity too good to pass up, fruit analogy notwithstanding, and with a combined 1574kW of the good stuff split between them, drawing some sort of conclusion from this melee was never going to be a genteel discussion. In the blue corner we have a pair of pugnacious ponies that Tickford reckons can land first round knockouts on the lineal champs in red. It divides nicely into a dust-up between two naturally aspirated…

OU CAN tell a lot about a man from his handshake. Mike Horn clamps you like a garbage compactor and then begins a process which feels as if he’s trying to dismember your limb with the intention of beating you with the soggy end. In his defence, I can understand why. The world’s greatest living explorer runs his expeditions with military precision and we’d missed our flight to meet him in New Zealand. I didn’t have the fortitude to tell the Swiss-based adventurer that his plans had been derailed by the temptation of a McFlurry and that was why he was waiting in the dark in a parking lot at Queenstown airport. He grins and informs us that he has some real fun in store. As we get into the…

COULD 2017 be the breakthrough year for medium SUVs? The car-buying public has adored them for more than a decade – inversely proportional to the cooling of affection for large cars – yet as reviewers, we’ve been patiently waiting for a truly great example of the breed to emerge. Given that Honda’s new-generation CR-V is due in July, Holden’s desperately needed Equinox arrives in October, Jeep’s long-overdue Compass replacement lobs in December and the all-new Peugeot 3008, recently crowned 2017 European Car of the Year, are also waiting in the wings, that moment of greatness may still be on a loading dock somewhere. But Australia’s favourite SUV – the Mazda CX-5 – has just been renewed, prompting this nine-car collection of affordable mid-sized metal that also includes the new-gen Volkswagen…

 TOYOTA may have produced some unexpected gems of late – namely the funky C-HR, and even the new Prius if you appreciate nimble handling – but its SUV mainstay, the RAV4, remains steadfastly linked to the former regime. Bound by a platform dating back over a decade, it represents the old guard of medium SUVs. ITS ENGINE HAS THE PERFORMANCE CRED OF CHAMOMILE TEA, BUT IT TRIES SUPER-HARD TO PLEASE Yet there’s still plenty to like here. Relying on a seemingly insipid 107kW 2.0-litre four that drives the front wheels through a CVT transmission, the 1510kg RAV4 GXL is about as performance-primed as a chamomile tea. But, lazy step-off aside, you tend to forgive the RAV4’s anaemic on-paper acceleration because its engine tries super-hard to please. Toyota’s 2.0-litre sounds sweeter…

 ALMOST three years ago to the month, Subaru’s unassuming and underrated Forester 2.5i-L emerged from the corner stalls to claim victory in our 2014 medium SUV Megatest. Dressed down in work-a-day threads, the Forester wowed us with its consummate all-round ability and its rather charming personality. RIVALS BUMP, THUMP, JOSTLE AND JIGGLE WHILE THE SUBARU MAINTAINS AN IMPERVIOUS CALM Little has changed in 2017, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Subaru has since upgraded the multimedia system and added the odd flicker of visual sparkle, yet this deeply pragmatic vehicle continues to fly in the face of all that glitters. The Forester is simply about mucking in and getting on with it. It continues to set the medium SUV benchmark for ride comfort and all-round vision. Indeed,…

CX-5 HAS WARMTH AND PERSONALITY ON ITS SIDE, AND THAT STUFF BUILDS RELATIONSHIPS IF ‘post-Trump’ is now a recognised term in educated society, then ‘post-CX-9’ must be a thing in Mazda’s inner sanctum. Not the heavy, thick-pillared old lump but the comparatively svelte, COTY-winning new one. It has set a high-water mark for Mazda SUVs – and large SUVs in general – that makes the task of every subsequent newcomer that much harder. Here, the microscope is focused pointedly and critically at the new-gen CX-5. And making its mission doubly difficult is the model we’ve chosen – the most expensive front-drive CX-5 you can buy ($34,390 Maxx Sport) featuring a 114kW 2.0-litre engine that could theoretically cure insomnia. Yet the variant that had us concerned may be the runt of…

TWO days. That’s all it took out on the street for the reigning Wheels Car of the Year to succumb to thousands of dollars of damage. For the first five weeks at Chateau Hagon the still-new CX-9 long-termer had been tucked safely away in my carport. But the arrival of an MX-5 RF test car saw it relegated to life on the streets, which is when things went wrong. The culprit? Ice. Big chunks of it falling from the sky. I wasn’t even home when the biggest hailstorm in years hit Sydney’s north, destroying thousands of cars and stripping leaves from trees. To be fair, the CX-9 wasn’t destroyed. Golf ball-sized stones left more than a dozen dings in the roof and bonnet, but no windows…

1 BENTLEY MULSANNE 6.8L Bentley’s massive twin-turbo V8 is the biggest on the Australian passenger-car market and, in range-topping Speed form, pumps out 395kW/1100Nm. ‘Standard’ Mulsannes have to make do with a paltry 377kW and 1020Nm. 2 ROYCE PHANTOM 6.7L Rolls-Royce sticks with natural aspiration for its biggest V12, delivering outputs of 338kW and 720Nm. Downsizing to 6.6 litres and forced induction for the rest of the range boosts power and torque to as much as 465kW and 870Nm. 3 LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR 6.5L Lamborghini uses screaming revs to produce 544kW and 690Nm from its big V12 when installed in the Aventador S. Opting for the ‘entry’ Aventador drops power to 515kW but torque is unchanged. 4 CHRYSLER 300 SRT 6.4L It may be more than $600,000 more affordable than the…