Sommaire pour September 2019 de Wheels

FRESH FROM THE launch of the new 982 Cayman GT4 (see our review on p46), the man in charge of Porsche’s coveted GT division has hinted that an even hotter GT4 RS could be on its way. Speaking to Wheels at the GT4’s international launch, Andreas Preuninger revealed that the increasing popularity of Porsche’s GT cars means he sees room for a GT4 RS to join the Cayman range. “There’s always room, if you create the room,” Preuninger said. “...Stay tuned on this channel.” Wheels understands any potential GT4 RS is well over 12 months away, though Preuninger pointed to how its additional performance could be achieved. “There’s meat in this engine construction,” he said, referring to the GT4’s all-new, naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six. “We concentrated on getting the regular…

Additive manufacturing is an evolution of what was known as 3D printing, and is at the cutting edge of vehicle component production. While more traditional computer numerical controlled (CNC) ‘subtractive’ manufacturing produces precision components by machining material away from a solid block, additive manufacturing builds an object where there previously was none. The core process is simple. An intense electron beam or laser instantly melts a small quantity of powder, which then solidifies. More powder is precisely introduced and melted, which then bonds to the previous layer. As the process continues, the computer-controlled laser moves to different positions, gradually building the component. A wide range of additive materials can be used, but titanium is at the front line of the technology. Bugatti has already created an eight-piston monoblock brake caliper,…

MARK WEBBER has made a mistake. He must have done. Sawing away at the wheel as our Cayman GT4 flip-flops through the tricky blind chicane at Knockhill circuit in Scotland, Webber’s internal calculation of our trajectory and the remaining road has clearly typed in 2+2 and come up with five. Wedged in the passenger seat like a useless sack of potatoes, I brace for the seemingly inevitable sojourn onto the grass. It never arrives. With the finesse of a concert pianist, Webber brushes the brakes to trim our line, the GT4’s left-side tyres running to the edge of the exit kerb with millimetre perfection. You can do that in this car, I’m soon to discover. Accuracy is a Cayman GT4 character trait. “How’s the balance, mate?” Webber smiles. “Spot-on, isn’t…

WALKING UP to the $349,900 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S 4-Door, it’s hard not to be captivated by the drama. The big, almost intimidating AMG owns its demeanour. Firing on all eight, twin-turbocharged cylinders, the 4.0-litre M178 awakens with the kind of fury that makes onlookers take notice. Shrinking violet? Not a chance. Seated in firm but well-bolstered AMG seats with a suede steering wheel in hand and large 12.3-inch screens in sight, it’s hard not to wonder what the USP is for this Porsche Panamera-fighting beast. Consider it an E63 S with a swoopy silhouette and you’d be wide of the mark. However, it’s also not a GT Coupe with extra doors. It carves its own niche, one that straddles luxury and performance in an attention-grabbing suit. Congested city streets require…

The contenders You’d have to think that just about all automotive niches have been filled these days, but Ford proves it’s not the case with the genre-jostling Focus Active. What it is, even according to the company, seems hard to define. However, it’s definitely not an SUV, hatchback or crossover. Yes, we’re still confused, too. For $29,990 you receive a mid-spec Focus with 34mm of added ride height and some ‘look at me, I can go offroad’ body cladding. Two traction modes within the ESC add to the Active’s limited bush-bashing smarts. The Subaru XV defines the hatchback-cum-compact SUV game. The $30,640 2.0i-L affords a useable 220mm of ground clearance, compared to the Ford’s 163mm, and gains Subaru’s Symmetrical all-wheel-drive system with hill-descent control. Hence its body cladding and roof-racks…

Chrysler 300 SRT APACHE ATTACK Most of us know that ‘Hemi’ relates to the shape of the Chrysler V8’s combustion chamber, but why is this a good thing? According to SRT, the hemispherical shape helps decrease heat loss in the combustion phase, so fuel burns more efficiently. It also creates more room for the valves, allowing greater flexibility for both valve size and optimised position. Otherwise the oversquare engine is fairly conventional in terms of construction, using a deep-skirt cast-iron block with cross-bolted main bearing caps. Lexus LC500 SOUND OF THE SAMURAI You may have spotted that the engine fitted here to the LC500 is the same 2UR-GSE unit in the RC F detailed in our Great V8s feature (Wheels, July). But it takes a more serious anorak to know…

IT’S A COLD, misty morning on Melbourne’s Chapel Street. Traditionally a location heralded as a hot-spot of fashionable excess, the famed strip’s gentrification has fostered an environment where expensive boutiques now mingle with commonplace stores filled with pragmatism. In a weird irony, the three luxury SUVs we’ve assembled reflect the street in which they’re parked. All are family-friendly, diesel-powered rivals that provide vast convenience and versatility. However, they also attract a circa $100K price tag, meaning the Mercedes GLE, Volvo XC90 and BMW X5 remain desirable, premium purchases. The well-heeled certainly are spoilt for choice. Given the increasing prevalence of the luxury SUV segment, a marque like Mercedes-Benz can’t afford to flounder – yet its GLE has been barely treading water. For the first half of 2019 BMW managed to…

SUZUKI JIMNY Price as tested: $24,490 This month: 593km @ 7.5L/100km JUST LIKE SONGS, there are cars that are slow burners; the ones that don’t instantly forge a strong connection, but take time to steadily worm their way into your affections. Then there are the catchy automotive hits that have you tapping along and singing the chorus before the door locks have even clicked open. For me, the Jimny falls into the latter category. It instantly sets out to win you over with its retro-box styling acknowledging its preceding three generations, and the whole ‘junior bushie in the big city’ vibe it gives off. It’s virtually impossible not to fall for its charms – at least initially. The challenge for cars like this is to back up their immediate appeal…

RENAULT MEGANE RS280 CUP Price as tested: $50,180 This month: 1566km @ 8.8L/100km THE WHEELS car park is a busy place. Cars are parked two deep and tend to require constant jockeying throughout the day. A colleague of mine had borrowed the Megane, curious to see whether the ride was quite as firm as had been reported, and had left the key for me in our locked key box. That proved to be a bit of a problem because the box was within the monitoring range for the keyless unlock function of the Renault. Realising that the car had spontaneously unlocked itself and switched the parking lights on, my enterprising colleague walked out of range, locked the car using the fob and then rushed it into the box. It seemed…

TOP THREE HOLDEN VK COMMODORE I just love them. A mate (US-based Aussie businessman Kenny Habul) has a VK Calais Director over here and it’s unreal. I had a couple of five-speed manual VKs back in the day, and I actually have a mate looking out for one for me at the moment. Not ‘cost no obstacle’ but I’d pay good money! PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS I’ve got the current model at home in Charlotte; slate grey, with black wheels and carbon brake rotors. It’s pretty much a race car for the road. I wanted to spec it with the Weissach pack, but US law says you’re not allowed to have it with the titanium roll-cage here in the States, which is a bummer. 1996 CART CAR Oh man, they…

BLACKJACK IS AN intriguing card game of skill and chance. A rather apt name, then, for the Holden ute testing mule that helped spawn the most radical rethink in Corvette history. Built using a VE Holden SS-V ute – well, parts of one – Blackjack was created in 2013 to help GM wrap its head around how to engineer a mid-engined performance car. The result is arguably the coolest Holden ute ever created. Stretched, flexed and bewinged, its V8 engine is housed in an extended tray and those flared arches concealed wider tracks. The cab-section is from a C7 Corvette (the Holden nose and rear end were simply grafted on) and inside, Blackjack’s cabin is test-mule crude. Beyond acting as an early test bed for the powertrain, Blackjack’s key role…

LETTER OF THE MONTH “HOW ON EARTH ARE WE GOING TO JUSTIFY BUYING A BEV ANYTIME SOON?” HARD TO SWALLOW YOUR GREENS AS A ROUGH guesstimate, a car will be worth what, 30 percent of its new value in five years? Tough cost to swallow even with new car prices being pretty stable. Now consider buying a battery electric vehicle today. We’re being told they will be cheaper than an internal combustion engine-powered car in five years, so your $60K purchase today will be $30K new by then, and the depreciation/value will be compared to the new price, not what you paid. So that’s heading for $1K a month in depreciation without considering how far battery electric vehicle technology will have improved, making your old BEV even more difficult to…

LOTUS F1 SIMULATOR There’s nothing good about realising you bought a car that’s been chopped in half. Unless it’s this Lotus F1 racer simulator. Based on the E23 from 2015, this ultimate F1 enthusiast’s toy makes no practical sense but is arguably one of the coolest additions to any pool room. Complete with PlayStation 3, Samsung monitor and force-feedback steering, it even has real F1 OZ Racing wheels and Pirelli tyres. Just add spare time. $32,870, mementoexclusives.com…

WEIRD NAME, isn’t it? Not that the badge on the back matters all that much (according to Kia Australia’s focus group, at least), but when you’re tardy launching an all-new model into a hotly contested segment you want to make sure you tick every box, and Kia is more than fashionably late to the small-SUV sector. But this model, based on the Hyundai Kona’s platform, looks good in the metal; not over-the-top urbanite chic, but with the more mature cues Kia has honed in its latter design era. Particularly, it’s the signature DRLs that cut a thin lip between the tiger-nose grille and bonnet, and some textured details instead of the usual flat, plain trim bits, that should appeal to the youthful target market. We won’t know how much it’ll…

YOU HAVE to feel for the Audi A4 a little. Here’s a decent, well-specced, good-looking sedan that’s garnered plenty of positive praise across the media spectrum, including our own COTY team. Alas, it languishes on the sales sheets behind its chief protagonists, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the new kid on the block, the G20 version of BMW’s 3 Series. Current figures make for sobering reading; so far this year, the C-Class has outsold it five to one, while the 3 Series has double the 700-odd sales the Audi has managed. It’s hard to put a finger on why, but the Audi has – despite being first to market, for example, with a digital dashboard – simply not registered with the voters. This mid-life refresh for the fifth-generation B9 sees around…

1. BMW X5 XDRIVE 30d The X5 30d’s cabin is all about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. There’s a lot of 7 Series limo for your SUV money. It’s an upmarket place to be. As far as party tricks go, the 30d gains gesture control. It works with varying degrees of success. One gripe is that there’s no support for Android Auto and you have to pay a $179 yearly subscription to use Apple CarPlay. Storage space is ample front to rear and overall ergonomics are sound. The feel-good factor is high. 2. MERCEDES GLE 300d Now we’re talking, Mercedes... literally. MBUX has been programmed with a further 40 commands. The GLE’s cabin is a style triumph; it’s a feast for the eyes and a welcome transformation on…

THE PROJECT had no name beyond ‘Development Order 262’. Secrecy was everything. Audi’s hand-built ‘A1’ prototype, a product of Ferdinand Piëch’s Ingolstadt skunk works, was to be kept hush-hush from other Audi management – and, more importantly, Volkswagen, Audi’s dominant owner. Only engineers Jörg Bensinger and Roland Gumpert, who sold the idea of a four-wheel drive, high-performance car to Piëch, along with ex-Mercedes racing car engineer Hans Nedvidek and project leader Walter Treser, plus a few mechanics in the experimental department, were aware of Piëch’s ambitious plan. They had to be, since they were responsible for building the car. The grandson of VW Beetle engineer Ferdinand Porsche, Piëch, who took over Audi’s R&D in 1975, told designer Martin Smith that he wanted “Audi to become more than a small Bavarian…

FORD RANGER RAPTOR Price as tested: $76,790 This month: 1799km @ 9.5L/100km YOU CAN spot a wangler from a great distance. They’re crafty, these folk, these ‘borrowers’, these ‘favour askers’, so you need to know what you’re looking for, but no-one is more finely attuned to their tricks than a ute owner. “Mate, are you up to much this weekend?” is an all-too-familiar, and seemingly innocent, opening gambit. “Oh good,” comes the whip-crack follow-up. “Can I borrow the Raptor? You’ll be okay to drive my Citroen C2, yeah?” So far my Raptor has helped three people move house, been twice called upon by our sister title 4X4 Australia to ferry about some off-road wheels and tyres, and has been a regular at Bunnings where all sorts of hardware has been…

VOLVO XC40 T5 Price as tested: $62,710 This month: 641km @ 9.1L/100km WELL, WHAT A relief I feel after three months running around with the reigning Wheels Car of the Year. Now I know I’m working with a bunch of blokes who at least I can agree with. Though my new-starter status had me miss some of Wheels’ full tenure with the XC40, I can confirm to you, valued reader, that all the counsel given already on these pages during our extensive time with Volvo’s smallest SUV has proved spot-on. As deputy editor Andy Enright rightly proclaimed in his initial assessment, the good outweighs the bad by about 99 to one. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t willing to challenge the XC40 and promptly took to it with my young…

The LT2 continues Corvette’s small-block legacy. It makes more power (369kW) and more torque (637Nm) than the LT1 it usurps. The alloy, atmo 6.2-litre V8 has a new camshaft and more efficient intake and exhaust manifolds. The bore and stroke, forged crankshaft, rods and 11.5:1 compression ratio carry over. All LT2s gain an engine-mounted dry sump, which cuts the centre of gravity further and allows the engine to sit 25mm lower. The triple scavenger pump system is said to provide reliable lubrication even when lateral acceleration exceeds 1G.…

WE COULD talk at length about the numbers. The 1471kW power output, 8.8 seconds to 200km/h, a battery pack that can recharge in just 10 minutes on a 350kW charger, 1700Nm of torque, a kerb weight of 1680kg and so on, but the Lotus Evija is not a car defined by its statistics, mind-boggling as they are. No, to understand the Evija, you merely need to think of one number. Three million. That’s how many dollars you’ll need to pay to own one of the 130 cars that Lotus plans to build. Suddenly Lotus is charging more than 10 times what its previous flagship model cost. As an exercise in testing brand equity it’s virtually unprecedented, and it brings into consideration what high-end owners expect from an ownership experience. It’s…

DUE AUGUST TESLA MODEL 3 The long wait is over for deposit-holders as deliveries of Tesla’s entry-level sedan finally begin. Three models are offered in Australia, starting with the ‘Standard Range Plus’ opening proceedings at $66,000. The Long Range variant boosts battery size to 75kWh, and costs an extra $19,000. The flagship Performance model, claiming 0-100km/h in 3.4 seconds, starts at $91,200. DUE NOV PORSCHE 992 CARRERA Entry-level Carrera Coupe and Cabriolet are set to drop in November, with prices up $3050 compared to the 991 versions. Outputs of 283kW/450Nm represents an 11kW step up from the previous gen, with only the eight-speed dual-clutch available. DUE Q1 2020 VOLKSWAGEN T-CROSS VW’s small SUV is due to arrive early next year, filling a hole in the German giant’s local line-up.…

YOU KNOW this stuff already, but it’s worth briefly reiterating. A petrol engine uses a spark plug to ignite the fuel/air mix in its cylinders whereas a diesel engine squashes that mix to the point that it spontaneously combusts. So far so conventional. What Mazda has done with its SkyActiv-X engine is a sort of technical voodoo that results in diesel style compression ignition of petrol. So, Mazda claims, you get the best of both worlds: the high-rpm zing and clean exhaust emissions of a petrol engine, combined with the low-end response and fuel economy of a diesel. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? That’s what we thought too. Then we drove Mazda’s SkyActiv-X prototype back in 2017 and, a few minor teething issues aside, the concept…

CUE THE outrage… BMW’s 1 Series is now FWD for the first time in its 15-year history. It’ll tweak the tails of BMWistas, but it’s all about the economics of building a small, relatively affordable entry-level car. The 1 is now based on BMW’s UKL2 front-drive platform, which underpins cars like the X1 and X2 as well as the Mini Countryman. We’ll see two 1 Series variants here in December. The 118i uses a 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine that makes 103kW (up three on the current 118i) and 220Nm, and it’ll use a seven-speed DSG in place of the eight-speed auto of the current car. The top-spec M135i xDrive will, as the name suggests, bring AWD to the 1 Series for the first time, via a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine…

BEFORE WE BEGIN, a disclaimer directed to all lovers of gastropod molluscs – no ‘snails’ were harmed in the making of this feature. It’s important we establish that the Wheels test team loves a good turbo. For starters, none of us has ever felt the twist of a Newton metre we didn’t enjoy, and the turbo has been responsible for countless significant transformations across every automotive segment. This ingenious exhaust-gas-driven induction air pump has helped bestow greatness on so many cars, to the point now where Mercedes-Benz and BMW, just as two examples, are so enamoured with the turbocharger that both German giants refuse to build an engine without one. But our love can only extend so far. Because equally well established is the purity and intimate driver connection only…

As an indulgent SUV that fulfils its brief, the Swede is the one you’ll want to buy We’ve all been on a late-night YouTube binge and stumbled across ‘slammed’ and air-bagged American barges hopping about like they’re having a fit. Well, now you can do it with your GLE – except, in this case, the $13K option could get you out of a real bind. Using 48v electrics and air suspension, E-Active Body Control can essentially bounce you out of a ditch with its ability to individually control both spring and damping forces of each wheel. Additionally, bodyroll is quelled as the system can actively level out pitch and roll by ‘leaning in’ to corners. It’ll also scan the road ahead with stereo cameras and prepare the suspension for bumps…

SUBARU FORESTER 2.5i-S Price as tested: $41,940 This month: 571km @ 10.4L/100km AS A Gen-Xer, I’m officially not part of the FOMO generation, but that doesn’t prevent my internal hamster wheel from spinning away with all sorts of potential ‘alternate-outcome’ scenarios, and me wasting plenty of mental energy on evaluating their (theoretical) merits. Case in point was our recent five-way medium-SUV test that graced the cover of our June 2019 issue. We handed the win to the newer RAV4, but the Forester’s overall showing was still strong enough for it to be awarded the same score as the RAV (8.5/10), and it got me thinking – would I actually be happier as a long-term custodian of the RAV4? Or perhaps more relevantly to you, our valued reader, would I not…

IT WAS IN APRIL 1967 that Ford dealers around the country, basking in the runaway sales success of the new-generation XR Falcon launched nine months earlier, learned of something even better than the XR’s optional V8. While that engine configuration was already an Aussie-made first, the Blue Oval was announcing a performance-tuned V8, to be badged the Falcon GT and aimed squarely at recovering the company’s honour at Mt Panorama, Bathurst. Ford’s four-cylinder Cortina had taken a Bathurst hat-trick from 1963-’65, but had been ineligible for ’66. Thus, the introduction of the Geelong-built, 4.7-litre (289ci) V8 engine – plus performance-mad, ex-Ford Canada marketing man, Bill Bourke – brought the stars into line for the birth of the Australian muscle car. The platform was the XR Falcon Deluxe manual which, fitted…