Wheelsの June 2018 の目次

SAYING Toyota is on a roll is quite an understatement. Traditionally, understatement is a very Toyota quality – but that’s changing fast, and soon you won’t be able to avoid seeing the signs of Toyota’s newfound flair and confidence. In its engineering, styling and ambition, Toyota is getting loud and proud. The company is going through fundamental and far-reaching changes in what it makes and how it’s made. Fuel efficiency continues to be a priority, but it’s now joined by vibrant motorsport and performance car divisions. Its previously deadly dull family hatch has just had a complete overhaul that ramps up its desirability, while its SUVs and crossovers are set to stand out from a packed field. The brand’s latest platform – Toyota New Global Architecture, or TNGA – underpins…

What is it? Remember the Bose Ride suspension innovation that broke cover in 2004? Clearmotion bought that technology and is picking up where the consumer electronics company left off. Thanks to a fully active (‘proactive’) damper, the system gains a new level of control over wheel movement to deliver what is claimed to be an eerily smooth ride. The company has about US$100m invested in advancing the idea with its sights set on commercialising the technology for production cars. Unlike Bose, which was targeting the luxury car market, Clearmotion sees greater potential in the emerging autonomous car arena. The system has already been miniaturised and lightened, rresolving one of the hurdles experienced by the technology’s previous custodian. How does it work? With conventional suspension systems, the movement of the wheel…

Diesel vehicles require at least one ‘hot’ run every week at freeway speeds, under load for at least 20 minutes The major car brands continue to insist that early failures of their diesel particulate filters are a form of owner abuse. Many are then refusing warranty claims on DPFs. They justifiably claim diesel vehicles require at least one ‘hot’ run every week at freeway speeds, under load for at least 20 minutes, to instigate what they call a passive regeneration within the blast furnace of the DPF. Too many owners, they say, don’t read their owner’s manuals and stop/ start, short, cold runs in an urban environment don’t get the filters up to operating temperature. Supporting that claim are case studies Wheels has seen of city-based European marques…

60,000km Number on the odo at which particulate filters have been known to fail if the diesel car is only driven on short urban trips. $9600 That’s the approximate cost of a diesel particulate filter for an Alfa Romeo, plus labour to fit it. $3000 The bill commonly encountered when the exhaust gas recirculation process gunks up delicate parts in the intake system. $5500 Approximate cost of a diesel pump and a set of injectors, should failure occur due to the reduced sulphur content in diesel fuel. A wee issue Many diesels have an extra tank for a product called AdBlue, a blend of high-grade urea and de-ionized water. “Another engineering marvel,” says Frank Spiteri. “The government wants emissions down. The engineers say this is impossible with the engine characteristics…

JUNE-JULY ASTON MARTIN Vantage and DB11 Volante; AUDI A8; BENTLEY Bentayga V8; CHEVROLET Camaro; FORD Mustang facelift; HYUNDAI Santa Fe; JEEP Grand Cherokee update; KIA Cerato sedan; LAND ROVER Range Rover P400e plug-in hybrid; MERCEDES-BENZ CLS-Class; PORSCHE Cayenne; VOLKSWAGEN Mk6 Polo Beats and GTI, and Tiguan Allspace AUGUST-SEPTEMBER AUDI A7 Sportback; BENTLEY Continental GT coupe; BMW i8 facelift and i8 Roadster; GENESIS G70 and G80 sedans; HYUNDAI Ioniq; MAZDA CX-8 Diesel; MERCEDES-AMG GLC63 wagon and coupe; TOYOTA Corolla hatch Ford Mustang Bullitt Hoping to synchronise its arrival with the October 17 anniversary of the film it gets its name from, today’s Mustang Bullitt is all about reviving the spirit of the 1968 original. Australia will only see the Bullitt in Dark Highland Green (not the black also offered in the…

IT BEGINS with a press of a button. Old-school metal door handles with the sort of push-button release most manufacturers relegated to history many decades ago. And if you do it with your eyes closed, you can literally feel 1979 at your fingertips. Despite appearances, this new-generation G-Class is box-fresh from top to toe, yet its gloriously retro door handles are a direct DNA link to its 39-year-old predecessor. They’re exactly the same. So, too, is the metallic clack of its doors as they close, and the startling cocked-rifle crack as its central locking auto-arms just above walking pace. But those auditory nods to the past conceal a doppelganger SUV whose abilities have grown stratospherically. That the new-gen G-Class looks so much like the fossil it replaces says volumes about…

THEY say America is the land of second acts. It might be the only place on earth where a heavily accented Austrian bodybuilder can make a Hollywood fortune then reinvent himself as a politician to govern the state that made him famous. Arnie’s metamorphosis could provide inspiration for the folks at HSV. Transformation is precisely what the local outfit is going through post-Commodore, but a wary Australian public means its second coming as a dual-cab ute vendor presents a few hazards. The full moniker of its entrant is Holden Colorado SportsCat by HSV. The awkward suffix suggests there’s a little discomfort at Clayton about going all-in with HSV branding even though SportsCat is currently the only product in its dealerships. Keeping an arm’s-length may be down to the fact it…

Shrewd Porsche buyers should not overlook late-model six-cylinder Cayman and Boxster models, according to our sources – especially the GT4 Cayman (currently around $205K) and limited-run models like the Boxster Spyder. The virtues of the thirstier, less torquey atmo sixes over the turbo flat-fours are well documented, and while second-hand values may not have fully bottomed, the word is that time may not be far off, and from there, these cars should be, at the very least, depreciation-proof. And remain joyous to drive.…

WHEN Porsche informed us that our 911 GT3 RS drive at the Nurburgring was on the GP circuit rather than the Nordschleife, I felt a pang of disappointment. It felt a bit like visiting the Monaco Grand Prix only to get no further than the merch tent. Having climbed out of the car after a handful of hot laps, soaked through with sweat, hands slightly a-tremor and then struggling for ways to fit what I’d just experienced into any sensible frame of reference, I’m relieved that Porsche decided on the GP track’s more benign acreage of bitumen rather than the pine-pinioned rollercoaster of the Green Hell. My input meter is pegged as it is. The latest 991.2 version of the GT3 RS will do that for you. In case you’re…

The 488 boasts great seats and the most space. Roof up, the soundtrack is big on turbo whistle, but drop the window behind your head and the annoying higher frequencies are drowned out by beefy exhaust timbres. We’re still not sold on the overly busy steering wheel nor the trio of displays in the main binnacle, but materials quality has taken a step on from the 458 and none of the interior parts rattled or creaked, unlike both the German cars tested here. The optional front lift system gives the 488 real utility in town, although it’s hardly the acme of discretion, chuffing loudly at 50km/h when the nose automatically drops.…

IT HAD been a swell two months behind the wheel of the Swift GLX Turbo, but to be brutally honest I was pretty keen on handing it back by the time week eight came and went. The GLX is a terrific thing, but returning it to Suzuki meant I’d be able to hop straight into an even more appealing Suzi – the feisty Swift Sport. And so as I motored down the street toward Suzuki Australia’s headquarters, in Melbourne’s industrial south-west, I found myself involuntarily grinning. The third-gen Swift Sport was a giggle-inducing joy at its local launch at Victoria’s Broadford race track, and I’ve been itching to spend more time in it since. However, as I steered into Suzuki’s driveway my smile began to fade. There was my Swift:…

I HAVE a theory that unless you’ve spent an entire day in a car, you don’t truly know it. And I mean an entire day. The kind that starts with a 5am alarm and finishes in the dark, your eyes ruined from searching the roadside for ’roos, your lap covered in chip crumbs and the centre console and door pockets littered with spent coffee cups. I endure such trips more often than I’d like by virtue of living in Melbourne but having family in Mudgee. In fact, it happens so frequently now that the Inwood clan’s migration north of the border unfolds like a beautifully choreographed dance, with every task honed for speed and precision. Fuel stop duties are neatly divided (refuelling and window washing for me, coffee orders and…

BMW in the 1960s was a company getting back onto its feet. From a brush with bankruptcy in 1959 and rescue by the Quandt family (which still controls around 46 percent), the product fightback began with the two-cylinder ‘700’ in 1959, upshifted with the four-cylinder ‘1500’ in 1962 and – well, you can see the pattern. The six-cylinder ‘E3’ 2500 and 2800 sedans came in 1968, featuring a new, in-line M06 engine (later renamed M30) loosely derived from the M10 ohc four. That same year BMW was still smarting from the market failure of the 1966 2000 CS coupe, so it also launched a six-cylinder version of it, the E9 – effectively the same pillarless body from A-pillar back. In early 1971 it gained a 3.0-litre capacity – and six…

BRETT Patterson, 46, grew up like most of us, with a fascination for cars, trucks and mechanical things. For the past 22 years he’s been working at a critical junction of the automotive world, on the front line of heavy-vehicle compliance enforcement for NSW Roads and Maritime Services. With well over 400,000 heavy vehicles operating on NSW roads at any one time, it’s a huge matter of safety for the community. Since 2011, Patterson has been Senior Manager of Compliance Operations, supervising a team of more than 250 compliance inspectors around the state – variously mobile operations, or at eight heavy vehicle inspection stations dotted along the state’s major road transport routes. And they’ve a lot of work to do. NSW has the highest number of registered heavy-goods vehicles (192,000),…

She was the one who made the call to end the company’s decades-long sponsorship of German football BRITTA SEEGER has 30,000 staff, and three children. She sits on the board of one of the world’s largest companies and has travelled extensively as part of her role, but her most memorable moment occurred in an airport, in Istanbul, after a tank crushed her car. She was forced to lie on the ground by armed soldiers who were busy conducting a military coup, but not too busy to point a machine gun at her head. At that exact moment, her son rang, to tell her he was watching the Turkish uprising on the news and he was worried about her. “Everything’s fine, darling, I’m just very busy at the moment, can I…

THE APPROVAL of unaffordable and overpriced car loans is endemic to the practises surrounding loans that originate from car dealerships, according to the Royal Commission into the Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. The concept of ‘flex commissions’ is at the root of the most unscrupulous practice highlighted during the inquiry. Under a flex commission arrangement, dealers can set car-loan interest rates above the lender’s base rate. The higher the interest rate accepted by the consumer, the larger the commission earned by the car dealer. The Royal Commission shed light on the practice, which was formally banned last September by corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Yet consumers remain exposed, with Westpac signalling its intention to continue with this commission arrangement until the ban…

ONE IN five new vehicles sold in Australia is now diesel powered. For many owners, buying one is starting the clock on a financial time bomb. While the glossy advertising touts gutsy performance, miserly fuel consumption and legendary diesel durability, the ownership experience can prove very different, especially for city-based drivers. Too often it is punctuated by massive maintenance bills, with as few as 40,000km logged from new. And manufacturers are baulking at paying warranty costs, blaming driver habits rather than sub-standard technology. Out of the warranty period, owners are on their own, and face jaw-dropping costs. “Repair bills above $10,000 are not uncommon for common-rail diesels,” says one of Australia’s most respected authorities, Andrew Leimroth of Berrima Diesel Service. His fellow Bosch-trained diesel service specialist Bryce Spiteri in Sydney…

Three rapid-fire developments from the cradle of the German car industry pose big questions for the future of diesel power. We know about Volkswagen’s fudging of emissions tests, an event that so far has cost it more than $US26 billion and is still being fought in courtrooms around the world. The retrospective ‘fix’ is blunting fuel economy and performance, according to recently published, independent Australian tests. Volkswagen contends this point. In February a German court ruled the unthinkable was possible – a ban on driving all diesel cars in Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz. Earlier, it was rumoured another Stuttgart powerhouse brand, Porsche, would soon cease production of all diesel-powered models, a move the brand has since officially denied. The common element in all three events is the thermodynamically efficient diesel…

And while normal, right-thinking people are utterly immune to its attractions, I think I’m about to join it myself. I’m forever being asked what car a motoring journalist drives. And they’re always expecting to be told a Lamborghini, or a Moller Flying Car (I really am thinking I should cancel my order), or some similar thing that is to a journo’s wages, what a superyacht is to a ferry driver’s. I have recently gathered evidence of a pervasive cult that is luring in members of my profession But car journos don’t do it for the money; we do it because it’s the best job in the world for car kooks. And so, like other car people, we’ll often put the ownership of a cool car ahead of other things. Like…

WHILE it doesn’t top any cool lists, anecdotal evidence suggests your motoring scribe isn’t alone in harbouring a quiet admiration for the Kia Carnival. Its eight-seat interior is welcoming and its handsome exterior wouldn’t look out of place in a presidential motorcade. This mid-life update sees improvements to the Carnival’s locally tuned suspension, which included Oz-specific dampers, firmer springs and thicker anti-roll bars. Handling is notably better on rural roads with little compromise to its composed ride. Despite its two-tonne heft, body roll is contained to a car-like level on bendy roads and occupants in all three rows have enough lateral support to stay in place during an enthusiastic burst. The hydraulic power steering, which Aussie Carnivals get because the RHD conversion couldn’t accommodate the electric set-up, has also been…

A garage has three jobs, and storage is just one of them. Yet garages often turn into dumping grounds during the cold winter months, making it a struggle to get the car in there, let alone retain some space for those important home projects. But a little organisation and planning can prepare your garage to handle the inevitable invasion of sporting goods, toys, bikes, boxes and more that seem to hibernate there over winter. First, sturdy cupboards put items out of sight and out of the way. A lockable cupboard is also a great place to safely and securely store garden pesticides, paints and other potentially hazardous items. Not everything needs to be behind lock and key, so call in some adjustable shelves to keep frequently-used items like toolboxes and…

Automatic transmissions may be Kryptonite for many keen drivers, but self-shifting ’boxes are critical for mainstream commercial success. Despite the clear buyer preference, Ford has no immediate plans for an auto Fiesta ST. Leo Roeks, head of Ford Performance in Europe, acknowledged the growing importance of offering an auto option and said that one could potentially join the family in the future, but was adamant that for the time being all Fiesta STs will come with three pedals – no fewer.…

1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 One of today’s most sought-after 911s was born out of an FIA ruling that effectively banned Porsche’s flat-12-powered 917 from racing in Group 5. Focus shifted to a 911-based Group 4 racer, and the road-going RS 2.7 of 1973 was built to homologate it. It became the first 911 to wear the Carrera moniker (first used on 356) and the first 911 to receive the Rennsport suffix (originally placed on the 550 RS Spyder). Porsche built the RS 2.7 in both Touring and Sport (aka Lightweight) specification, plus a few wide-body 2.8-litre racers. The road car’s 2687cc flat-six only made 156kW, and the 1580 produced mean it’s not the rarest (though only 117 were RHD), but as Michael Stahl wrote more recently, “It’s a…

Paying a Porsche specialist like Autohaus Hamilton for a pre-purchase inspection could be the best $500 to $1000 you’ll ever spend. “Our techs spend a minimum of three hours going right through the car, and detail any work that needs to be done immediately, and then outline all the rectification work that’s imminent, so a potential buyer knows exactly what costs they face over the next 12 or 18 months,” says Anthony Raymond.…

Underscoring Porsche’s competition success is a vast forest of trophies suspended on wires IT’S EASY to get overwhelmed at the Porsche Museum. The public have left the building and we’re led from the foyer through a labyrinthine series of elevators and corridors, all finished in unadorned white, to a set of double doors. Our guide swipes her fob on the wall and there’s a momentary pause. The doors swing open and there right before us is a plain black Beetle. Behind it is a 1939 Type 64 body, and peeking through a far set of stairs are racing 911 RSRs and 936s. A Paris Dakar 911 and a race 944 to the left, the second 356 ever built to the right. For a moment, I’m a bit overloaded and just…

INTEGRATED REAR SPOILER CHANNELS SWIRLING AIR AWAY FROM THE CAR, LEAVING FOUR-STEP ADJUSTABLE REAR WING TO UTILISE CLEAN AIR FOR UP TO 40 PERCENT MORE DOWNFORCE THAN THE PREVIOUS MODEL STANDARD ROOF PANEL IS MADE FROM MAGNESIUM; IF THAT SOUNDS KINDA HEAVY, YOU’LL WANT THE CARBONFIBRE OPTION, WHICH IS PART OF THE $34,390 WEISSACH PACK BRAKE COOLING IS HANDLED BY THESE BONNET VENTS, WHICH DIRECT FAST-MOVING AIR DOWN AND OVER THE HUGE FRONT DISCS AND SIX-POT CALIPERS FRONT END DESIGN IS NOW ALL ABOUT MANAGING AIRFLOW UNDER THE CAR AND SENDING IT REARWARD ALONG THE FLAT FLOOR, RATHER THAN USING IT FOR BRAKE COOLING Get in line, hot-shoe Although Porsche Australia is at pains to stress that this is a low-production volume model and not a limited edition, you’ll need…

Drive Select switch on the wheel allows for rapid shifting between drive modes, while the tabbed HVAC controls and wall-to-wall Virtual Cockpit are slick design touches. The Audi’s also the only one of the trio that offers the choice of gear selection with the lever as well as the paddles. Unfortunately it squanders this advantage by getting the shift orientation the wrong way round. After the theatrics of opening the roof, popping the engine cover is inadvertently hilarious, a metallic ping opening a tiny flap propped up by midget gas struts (see pic above specs, p111).…

Let’s put the 488 Spider’s performance in some sort of context. From 0-200km/h, through the quarter mile and from 100-200km/h it’s quicker than a McLaren F1. It obliterates all of the 458 Speciale’s acceleration numbers and only the Lamborghini Aventador SV’s all-wheel drive traction off the line saves Sant’Agata’s blushes in a straight line blast. Don’t buy a McLaren 570S Spider and think your $90K saving will let you keep up. Unless you plough that budget into go-faster bits, you’ll be left trailing in the 488 Spider’s wake. If you want a significantly quicker open-top, you’re into the realm of mega-money hypercars. It’s that rapid.…

BEFORE you ask, the Stinger is still being driven around in Eco mode in a bid to silence the optional sports exhaust. I thought I’d give it a chance and try another mode but it’s only really bearable when drowned out by the stereo. One upside to schlepping about in the Kia’s most relaxed mode is that the last tank of fuel was consumed at the unexpectedly frugal rate of 9.3L/100km. The downside of bypassing the exhaust’s bi-modal mode is that the Stinger’s now more silent than the Red October and something is not quite right at the stern. There’s a persistent noise that I haven’t quite got to the bottom of, but it sounds as if the tailgate latch isn’t quite engaging properly, setting up a constant rattle on…

VOLKSWAGEN’S first-ever racing EV is designed for Pikes Peak, which just happens to be a place that could have been purpose-designed for EV racing. Volkswagen Motorsport, which designed and constructed the 500kW racer, dubbed I.D R, in just eight months, won’t say how much the project is costing. But they do admit the budget needed approval at the highest level ... the VW board of management. VW saw an opportunity to add some go-fast gloss to the image of EVs ahead of the 2019 launch of the first of its battery-powered I.D. line-up, while also promoting its established high-performance R sub-brand. So it’s important the I.D. R Pikes Peak does well. Romain Dumas, the French-born endurance racing specialist who will pilot the car on 24 June, brims with confidence. “If…

Rolls-Royce’s first foray off the beaten path of luxury saloons with its Cullinan SUV represents, not surprisingly, the popular family wagon genre dressed to the nines. If you needed proof of this, beyond the $685K price tag, please avail yourself of these press kit gems. “Jason, we’re going to go drone racing today. Can you load the Drone Module into the Cullinan?” This being just one of the bespoke ‘recreation modules’ designed to plug into Cullinan’s 600-litre cargo bay. Oh, it’s a fancy one alright.…

Many cars are suffering an automotive form of clogged arteries with carbon soot and oil deposits clagging intake manifolds, coating sensitive exhaust gas recirculation valves and jamming turbo actuator flaps. Less than 60,000km is required in some cases to coke up modern high-pressure common-rail diesels in a maintenance nightmare reminiscent of the valve grind and decoke requirements of 1950s engines. Result: routinely a $3000 bill to dismantle the intake system, remove the thick gunk and reassemble. Labour alone is 10+ hours. Left untreated, the fall off in emissions performance and fuel economy is an open question. Wheels can find little evidence in manufacturer servicing schedules for any requirement to decarbonise intake systems. Indeed any formal advice to owners about the problem is scant. We know because we asked them to…

The sulphur content of Australian diesel fuel has fallen from 500 parts per million in 2002 to 10ppm today, another tailpipe-focused outcome. Diesel now has five times less sulphur content than Australian petrol, although new regs are imminent to reduce those levels to parity. So what? Sulphur combines with other elements to produce a lubricating effect in engines. “ The moment the sulphur came out we went through two years of replacing injectors and getting pumps overhauled,” says Frank Spiteri. Indeed, injector and pump failures showed a spike as sulphur levels fell but the consensus now is that the problem has been largely solved with new component countermeasures. For the record, a diesel pump costs around $2500 and replacing a set of injectors can tip $3000 with labour and coding…

HIGHLIGHTS: There were few winners in a new-car market that finished 0.2% behind 2017’s result – this is the third April running to peg a sales decline. Holden recovered from March’s disastrous 10th place, buoyed slightly by the Barina (269 sales, up 39%) and its SUVs, including the Equinox (see below). Other upward movers included the Mitsubishi Lancer (374, up 49%), Toyota Fortuner (318, up 27%), Porsche 911 (57, up 27%) and Jeep Grand Cherokee (404, up 23%). Among mainstream brands, only Chinese upstart MG built on the previous month’s sales, rising 27% to 180 for the month. LOWLIGHTS Nissan sales collapsed in April, falling 51% compared with March to post its worst sales performance since October 2005; its usual heavy lifters, the Qashqai (625 sales, down 58%) and X-Trail…

THE Porsche 911 Carrera T seems to have some reviewers confused. So, by way of remedial summary, here’s what it’s not. It’s not a cut-price 911 GT3. Nor is it a stripped-out hardcore factory lightweight. It’s not a cynical marketing exercise designed to gull 911 buyers into nabbing a premium-price options pack and it isn’t a faithful recreation of the original 911 T from 1968. With no more power or torque than a regular Carrera and a weight saving of only five kilograms, the Carrera T doesn’t appear much of a bargain upon first inspection. Porsche charges an extra $17,500 for the privilege but it’s well worth the premium. Imagine Porsche’s best chassis dynamics guys sitting around a table and being asked to develop the ultimate Porsche Carrera for around…

T’S A CHEEKY move by Ford to stage the launch of its third-generation Fiesta ST in France, given La Republique is home ground for scorching B-segmenters like the Clio RS and Peugeot 208 GTi. Yet here we are, on one of the twistier portions of the Route Napoleon, sitting inside the Blue Oval’s newest and most affordable performance car. The Fiesta is well and truly behind enemy lines right now, but it’s clutching a garotte in one hand. Ford’s European arm knows a thing or two about making compact hatches go fast. This 2018 model might be the third generation of car to wear the Fiesta ST moniker, but the lineage stretches all the way back to the 1981 Fiesta XR2. Those decades of experience are manifest in the way…

IT FEELS almost sacrilegious to cherrypick just three cars from seven decades of Porsche heritage, none of which are 911s, but this trio naturally elevates itself atop the median. Elitist? We prefer extreme; the cars that stretched the boundaries of what we thought was possible. Not all of them were commercially successful. The 959 retailed for around US$300,000 yet it cost Porsche more than twice that to build each car. Like BMW’s ill-starred M1, it was built by Baur and was also designed to compete in a race series that had been legislated out of existence by the time it was ready to turn a wheel in anger. As much as anything, the 959’s story is the story of Helmuth Bott, Porsche’s brilliant head of R&D who aside from developing…

GT GT racing marks the intersection of Porsche’s road car and racing businesses. Its current GTE, GT3, and GT4 racers all start life alongside the road-going vehicles, before undergoing circuit preparation in the continuation of a tradition that started with the original 911 RSR of 1973 and carried through the likes of the mighty 911 GT1 homologation special. The heightened competition in global GT racing today has prompted a 911 first, with the current GTE-spec 911 RSR playing against type – but not the rules – with a decidedly mid-mounted flat-six. ONE-MAKE Porsche’s credentials span from grassroots rracing to the pinnacle of international motorsport, but its cornerstones are the one-make Carrera Cup and GT3 Cup Challenge, which have spread to almost 20 championships across the globe. The first Carrera Cup…

Model cycle eight brings Lexus-style craftsmanship and refinement to Camry WE REALLY shouldn’t take it personally. Sliding sales of medium to large cars may have pulled the manufacturing rug out from under the Aussie-made Mitsubishi 380, Ford Falcon, Toyota Camry and Holden Commodore over the last decade, but it’s a global phenomenon affecting every developed market in the world. Facing a juggernaut of SUV aspiration, car sales are faltering – especially mainstream medium types – in a dramatic fashion. Ford sold 56,172 Mondeos across Europe last year, supported by more than 200,000 sales of the identical Fusion in the US, yet even that combined total isn’t a patch on its 322,716 European sales from 20 years earlier. Or enough to prevent the Blue Oval from gradually phasing out much of…

THE ROAD ahead has turned to sand. As had the last one and the one before that. We watch the bitumen taper to nothing as a yellow strip bisects the brown landscape to a hazy horizon. A speck on the skyline coalesces into the inevitable white Toyota trayback, its driver slowing to check if we’re okay. This trio of European supercars couldn’t have arrived at a more alien environment. As the sun hits its zenith, it’s too hot for cicadas or birds. Your soles bond to the patched and battered blacktop if you stand still for more than a moment. After some brief discussion, it’s agreed. We’ve found just about the perfect place to test these open-topped blue-bloods. If there’s next to no dynamic penalty involved in choosing the open…

The feeling that you’re sitting on the rear axle of a long GT car isn’t borne out by the figures, the AMG GT Roadster featuring the widest track and shortest wheelbase of the three cars featured. Its benign front-engined weight bias, well-judged roll response and appropriate tyre selection means that it always telegraphs its intentions clearly. The selection of buttons and dials on the wide centre stack gives instant access to customising the way the GT Roadster drives. Those two switch blanks at the base? They’re normally used for damper settings and exhaust.…

AS A YOUNG car nerd growing up in the ’90s, Sydney was a pretty good place to call home. Back then the harbour city still had its own motor show and my old man made a point of taking me every year. I was almost 11 years old when we visited in 1997, and my tiny mind was blown by the Peugeot 306 GTI 6 – a sporty hatchback with an outrageously exotic (for the time) six-speed manual gearbox – and I’ve been an undercover Francophile ever since. Yet more than two decades later I still haven’t owned a French car. Gallic hot hatches continue to represent my go-fast interests, but with a nine-month-old baby in the house, a firmly sprung five-door with bucket seats wasn’t the most obvious choice…

Speed of light The E9 coupe body was developed from the 1965 2000 CS, with a nose interpreted from the new E3 six-cylinder sedans. CSL had alloy panels and chrome arch extensions to cover Alpina 14x7 alloys. Suspension was 20mm lower; front was by struts with coils, rear by semi-trailing arms with coils, brakes 272mm discs. Car pictured is proper left-hook, lightweight Batmobile. Bat outta hell BMW’s M06 (later M30) 12-valve straight-six was destined for a long life in road and competition. Its cast-iron block with alloy head was canted at 30 degrees; early CSLs were 2985cc with twin Zenith carbs, soon superseded by injected 3003cc (149kW/271Nm) to homologate over-3.0-litres. Final ‘Batmobile’ build had 3153cc, 152kW and 286Nm, did 0-100km/h in 7.0sec via four-speed Getrag. Karmann get it CSLs were…