Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i Wheels

SINCE ACQUIRING WHEELS at precisely 3:01pm on Friday, June 7, 2024, my eyes have been a little more open than usual. Car news, launches and new car reviews – including those who review them – are not what they seem. We live in a world where it can be easy to sway someone. Get a person use to travelling in luxury, or tell them everything they do is great regardless of whether it’s the truth or not – always trying to keep them ‘on side’ – leads to one result: that person becoming entitled and eventually forgetting what their job actually is. It also compromises their ability to say what they really think. Welcome to the world of motoring journalism in 2025. You may have noticed it’s been like this for…

DARK TIMES Fully concur with Paul Gover’s observation (Wheels, March 2025) about the rise in dangerous drivers zooming about on dark or near-dark suburban streets with no headlights on, thanks to running lights and other factors. I mean, we’ve all done it through absent-mindedness but it now it appears to be an epidemic. They are particularly dangerous approaching from the rear, especially dark-coloured vehicles. I have even taken to pulling over or into an adjacent lane, so I can fall in behind and begin flashing my lights at them. Sadly, seems to have no effect, they drive on oblivious, probably thinking I’m having a fit. Question: why hasn’t technology dealt with this issue in all new cars? Mark Dodd, Abbotsford, Vic SPOTTED! What is the place for petrol heads in…

IN MY DEEP, DARK, SHAMEFUL PAST, I used to write for Penthouse magazine (mostly about cars, I should stress) and at that time, I found it hard to picture exactly who my reader was. Other than the fact that they were buying that esteemed publication purely for the articles, I just wasn’t sure of our shared interests. But with you, dear Wheels reader, I can share the fact that an F1 driver changes gears roughly 3,666 times during a single race at Monaco and know that you will be delighted by it. Equally, I know you will groan in disgust when you hear that less than 10 per cent of people who buy automatic cars with flappy paddles use them, ever. And that a frighteningly large percentage don’t even know what…

‘DOING MORE WITH less’ has a lot to be said for it. We’re forever being exhorted to reject excess and to live a right-sized life. That original phrase was credited to American futurist Richard Buckminster Fuller and it’s something that’s front of mind when driving the latest Ford Mustang EcoBoost. Mull over the spec sheet and this is an incredibly appealing proposition. For $66,990 you get a well equipped rear-drive coupe that generates more power and torque than Porsche’s four-cylinder coupe, the $133,365 718 Cayman. Almost immediately the spectre of the eight-cylinder Mustang GT materialises. Wasn’t 60-odd grand the price we were paying for a V8 Mustang not so many years ago? Yes, it was. But now you’ll need to spend $78,990 for a manual GT coupe and $81,990 if…

WHAT HAPPENS when two mad AFL supporters get to name a car company? Premcar. The automotive design, engineering and production company in Melbourne rose from the ashes of Ford Performance Vehicles and has since earned an international reputation for the quality of its work. But the name? That’s a very different story, as company CEO Bernie Quinn explains. “Most people will think it stands for ‘Premium Cars’,” he tells Wheels. “But, you know what, when we did the management buy-out of FPV joint venture partner Prodrive Australia, we had to have a ‘place-holder’ name for all the paperwork. I’m a mad Hawthorn supporter in the AFL and my old boss was mad about Carlton, so he called it ‘Premiers Carlton’. So, Premcar. “It was him taking the piss out of…

THIS IS DISORIENTATING. Eleven years ago, almost to the day, Porsche Australia launched the 991 generation of its mighty 911 Turbo atVictoria’s Phillip Island circuit. Never a car designed for the race track, the 383kW twin-turbo-harged bullet nevertheless redefined our whole concept of a 911’s capability. Launch control starts on the main straight yielded times hovering around three seconds flat. The reviews were suitably breathless. Now I’m back at Phillip Island, this time round in the new 911 Carrera GTS. Porsche calls this facelift the 992.2, in other words the mid-life update of the 992 generation. Somewhat amazingly, this car is faster and more powerful than that Turbo. We’ve come a long way. These 911 facelifts are usually pretty subtle affairs. We didn’t even bother reporting when Porsche updated the…

Price: $59,090 This month: 860km @ 8.1L/100km Overall: 2042km @ 8.5L/100km Shooting for Wheels always keeps you busy and this year has been no exception. Sometimes it feels as if I’ve been virtually living in the Triton, but it has proven a solid companion for long days on photo shoots and the many kilometres of transit stages between. One such stage was up in the state forest near Heathcote Junction, north of Melbourne. Heading up the Hume Highway, coffee in hand, the driver monitor alerted me: “Drowsiness detected, take a break.” I’d been on the road all of 20 minutes and I needed a break? It seems that one-handed steering and sipping a morning flat white is enough to befuddle the system. I like to break up the monotony of…

FRESH FACTS Renault Australia has teased us with the outrageous 5 Turbo 3E, claiming “I’m not going to tell you when, but it’s coming out.” The 403kW rear-drive homage to the 1980 5 Turbo is limited to, yep, 1980 units, set to arrive in 2027. Aussie customers can register interest on the Renault website. Audi is set to cut 7500 jobs in Germany by 2030 as part of a major cost-cutting initiative aimed at saving more than a billion Euros (A$1.71bn) annually. The company claims the agreement is “robust and flexible for the transition to electric mobility”. Planning a trip over to the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year? Well, you’re in for a treat as the theme for the 2025 event is the work of Gordon Murray. Oscar Piastri…

TWICE IN THE PAST MONTH I’ve had emails from people who bought the wrong car. I know this because they each confessed their mistake. One was complaining that the driver’s seat was massively uncomfortable for her when she ventured beyond her daily commute, and the other admitted there was not enough space inside for his kids and all their stuff. One was going to live with the mistake while the other intended to take a giant financial hit and switch cars. Neither was happy with their sub-optimal outcome. Yet, as I advised them, it would have been easy to avoid their mistake by using one of the most basic and old-school methods in motoring – a test drive. Online shopping might be great for a quick dinner delivery, and only a…

I’M NOT SURE I’M READY for the idea of a $54,365 Nissan Qashqai. Yes, this is the flagship N-Design version of the updated 2025 car, and it features the clever e-POWER hybrid engine, but that’s some serious wedge to fork over for what remains a compact crossover. The headline news is that the car has been thoroughly refreshed inside and out, with a new trim structure across the range, better tech inside the vehicle and those perennial complaints about servicing costs have also been addressed. Plus there’s that new industry-leading 10-year warranty that is sure to attract many buyers who realise what effect that will have on their new Nissan’s residual values a bit further down the track. First impressions? There’s a lot going on with the styling. Normally that’s…

Standing for “[H]ighriding [R]evolutionary [V]ehicle”, the Honda HR-V was one of the first small SUVs on the Australian market when it made its debut in 1999. Now in its third generation, the HR-V has just been given a light mid-life update focusing on styling tweaks, some new equipment and – to address criticism about the pre-updated model – a new, cheaper mid-range hybrid trim level. Pricing kicks off from $32,900 – that’s drive away across Australia under Honda’s ‘one price promise’ program – for the only petrol model Vi X, with the new hybrid e:HEV X just sneaking under the $40k barrier at $39,900 drive away. The top-trim hybrid e:HEV L completes the lineup at $42,900 drive away and compared to the pre-updated car, pricing has fallen by up to…

WELCOME TO THE NEW Ford Falcon versus Holden Commodore. Both those cars, which filled so many pages of this magazine, are now obviously gone, left to haunt places like the eerily quiet high-speed bowl of the old Holden Lang Lang Proving Ground… or, dare we say, your local taxi rank. However you want to remember the old Aussie sedans, there’s no escaping the fact they were the nation’s top-selling vehicles. For decades. But there is nothing permanent except change, and a quarter of the way into this century, the old Falcon and Commodore sales race has morphed into this: a fierce battle between dual-cab utes. As hotly contested now as it was then between the old rear-drive four-doors, three of the top four selling vehicles in Australia in 2024 were…

Price as tested: $68,685 (drive away) This month: 645km @ 8.8L/100km Overall: 645km @ 8.8L/100km With the return of the Ford F-150 that I had been running for Garage, I figured might be the opportunity to get my hands on something a little more right-sized for my needs and also a vehicle that’s going to be a lot more real-world relevant to many Wheels readers. Having been impressed by Mazda’s BT-50 on a recent local evaluation drive of the ute, it’s now going to be with me for a few months so I can get to know its features and foibles a little more intimately. The colour? That’s always a conversation starter. The Sailing Blue Metallic paint finish certainly pops and makes it easy to spot where I parked the…

ESPINOSA APPOINTED NEW NISSAN CEO Last month in The Wrap, we reported that Honda had instructed Nissan to ditch incumbent CEO Makoto Uchida if it wanted to get merger talks back on track. And guess what? Say hello to Nissan’s new CEO, former chief planning officer, Ivan Espinosa. The old Mexican national steps into the big chair, 46-year-marking the troubled company’s fourth CEO in eight years. It seems that there’s no hard feelings from Uchida, who praised his successor. “Espinosa is still in his 40s and full of energy,” the 58-year-old said. But Espinosa faces an uphill task. In the wake of the breakdown of talks, Moody’s downgraded Nissan’s credit rating to junk status. “I sincerely believe that Nissan has so much more potential than what we’re seeing today,” he…

AS THE ENGINEERS at BMW’s M Division talk about the next-generation M3, there’s something in their eyes you won’t see too often: excitement for an electric performance car. The next instalment of BMW’s dynastic sedan will do away with pistons and petrol tank in place of motors (four of them) and batteries. In a superb example of the regulatory bet-hedging that has so far served BMW very well, the electric M3 is also expected to be sold alongside a straight-six combustion version, too. But in something almost triggering a personal crisis, it’s the electric version I’m far more interested in. In a video on YouTube, the new M3’s engineers are shown grinning ear-to-ear as they hammer the forthcoming electric monster as there’s an angry, metallic inline-six-esque engine sound booming through…

PERHAPS IT WOULD BE harsh to describe the Ford Everest Tremor as a knee-jerk reaction. It’s better than that would suggest, but since the UB-generation Everest launched here in late 2022, it has enjoyed something of a free pass. Its key rival, the Toyota Landcruiser Prado has, until fairly recently, been on runout, a geriatric opponent that fell way short of the Ford’s ability. Knowing that the new Prado would be with customers in late 2024, Ford realised that it might need something extra to go into battle with Toyota’s Altitude version of the Prado, an off-road focused special that brought additional capability and attitude. The key attractions will probably be the 29mm lift in ride height over the standard Everest and a toughened-up look The Tremor template had been…

LIFE FLASHES BEFORE your eyes when you’re moving at 240km/h. No, 243,247 … now 251km/h. Moving at 67 metres per second, your side vision is blurred, you focus on the horizon and yet, it’s oddly peaceful. At least, it would be if you weren’t driving the new Aston Martin Vantage and wrangling its thunderous twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 engine. Sourced from AMG, it makes a massive 419kW of power – or 665 horsepower in the old money, a massive 30 per cent increase on the old car – and 800Nm of torque, which kicks in from just 2750rpm. And this is only the ‘baby’ Aston… Engine aside, there have also been significant changes under the skin. The chassis is considerably stiffer with 30mm wider tracks for sharper handling, new electronically adjustable…

Price as tested: $66,260 This month: 376km @ 19.3kWh/100km Overall: 1808km @ 18.9kWh/100km I recently upset the kids – I told them the ‘Bumblebee’ was heading back to Volvo. In the last four months they’ve really enjoyed the nuggety little EX30. To be honest, so have I and it’s hard to find many negatives about it. The EV experience has also been positive, although last week I did something silly. On a whim I decided to grab the kids and visit my family across town, who live roughly 45kms away. In my haste I forgot to check the remaining range. Rookie mistake! With under 100kms of juice left, I forced the rusty cogs in my head to reluctantly turn, working out we had 85kms to travel there and back. Easily…

AH, THAT NEW CAR FEEL. It’s a memory that never leaves you, really, getting behind the wheel of a fresh-out-of-the-factory vehicle. The sheer pleasure of that experience is perhaps part of the reason for the growing popularity of novated leasing. The option of driving a new car – and then another new one a few short years down the track – is made possible by this convenient means of financing, which differs from personal car finance in some significant ways, offering both tax and lifestyle benefits. While theoretically anyone can negotiate a novated lease, the most common arrangement in Australia is a three-way agreement between an employee, their employer and a lease finance company such as Smart, who handle all aspects of organising the new vehicle. In this set-up the…

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN. As recently as 2014, the Jeep Grand Cherokee was the best-selling large SUV in Australia. During that year it chalked up 16,582 deliveries, acing the likes Prado. Last year, Jeep managed to shift just 645 cars locally, its worst result since 2009. On the back of this 96 per cent decline in sales, Jeep has pulled the plug on the Grand Cherokee. Parent company Stellantis Australia has taken “the difficult decision to pause availability of the current model Grand Cherokee” in order to “match local market dynamics and customer preferences”. A statement went on to say: “While the Jeep Grand Cherokee will continue to be sold in many markets around the world, this decision allows us to focus our efforts on placing the right products…